Home Affairs and Justice

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Thursday 28th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

We fully accept, as the figures show, that we did not meet the net migration target, but it is absolutely right that we retain that ambition. The question for Labour is: does it think that immigration into this country is too high, and if it does, what would it do about it? Interestingly, during the election campaign, immigration was a subject on which Labour was surprisingly silent, but I was not at all surprised given its record in Government.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is right to point out how completely inadequate the previous Labour Government were in controlling immigration, but she missed out one important issue: their immigration policies led to children being imprisoned. Those policies were reversed under the coalition Government, but we still have a far too pervasive estate of immigration detention. What measures is my right hon. Friend considering to move us further away from the terrible immigration policies of the previous Labour Government?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend has raised an important point. One of the early moves that the coalition Government made was to prevent the detention of children for immigration purposes. He also raises an important point about the detention estate. The Home Office is looking at what estate is required and at the whole question of periods of detention. I and, I suspect, my hon. Friend would prefer to see people detained for a very short period—in fact, many people are detained for only a matter of days, and the majority of detentions are for less than two months. It is important that we have a system for identifying and quickly deporting people who should not be here. That is why we took some measures in the Immigration Act 2014, and I will come on to the further measures that we intend to take to enable that to happen.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

The point I just made was that in a global economy, and also given Britain’s history, we have long seen benefits from people coming here from all over the world, making this country their home and contributing to our economy, and setting up some of our biggest businesses, including Marks & Spencer. But we also need a system that is fair and that is controlled and managed. That is why we have highlighted areas where we think stronger controls are needed in order to make the system fair; for example, better enforcement is needed. We want to see lower migration as well, but the system has to recognise the different kinds of migration, which I think is the point the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) is making.

The problem with the gap between the Government’s rhetoric and the reality is that in the end it undermines confidence in the whole system and faith in any immigration promise the Government might make. It also allows some people to exploit the issue in order to divide us. The Government are taking the British public for fools.

[Richard Fuller]

I commend the right hon. Lady for her passionate and effective speech. She talks about fair immigration policies. Does the Labour party support a reduction in the income limit for a spousal visa?

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) on his maiden speech. He painted a vivid picture of his constituency and spoke with great eloquence and fluency in making his points. He also spoke with great soul and with a great sense of compassion for his constituents. That will hold him in good stead in this House, and all Members will benefit from his contributions in the years ahead.

The hon. Gentleman brought with him what I hope we all bring, which is a sense of energy from our engagement with the electorate over the past few weeks, as we participated in and celebrated our fantastic democracy. I am sure that he, along with me, will have heard one message from his constituents, which is that their main interest is to ensure and assure a better future for their children and grandchildren. We may differ on the prescriptions to achieve that objective, but that will be the thing we both remember from the recent election.

This idea of a better future arises not only in the sense of a better economic future for our constituents, but in the sense that we have a Government that will stand up for and defend the freedoms of our country, and reflect the best aspects and values of our great nation. Let me try to cover three aspects of that future in my contribution on Her Majesty’s most Gracious Speech.

On the issue of values as it pertains to the Home Office, work particularly needs to be done on the future of immigration detention. The Yarl’s Wood detention centre is next to my constituency, and it is part of a detention estate in this country that has grown under Governments of all colours and all stripes. It has grown from being one that focused on a range of people to being not a minor part of our immigration policy, but more of a default position. As the all-party group report published just before the election showed, we need to reconsider a number of aspects of immigration detention. First, we need to bring in a time limit for detention, so that people are not detained indefinitely. Secondly, we need to ensure that vulnerable people are not detained at all. I was encouraged when our Home Secretary said earlier that she and her Department are looking at a positive way in which immigration detention in this country can be reformed. At the moment, immigration detention is ineffective and costly, and a too frequently it leads to instances of injustice that are a stain on our country’s values. So I look to her and her ministerial team to engage positively with people from all parts of the House to reform immigration detention.

Also on values, I have some concerns about the Prevent strategy. Some of my constituents who are in positions where they will be or have been asked to engage in Prevent have told me alarming stories about the lack of precision in the guidance provided to them on how they can perform their role in ensuring that extremism does not take root in their particular areas of responsibility, be it in education, social work or other activities. During my term of office here, I will be looking critically at the Prevent strategy to make sure that it is being implemented with the best of intentions and in the way intended by the ministerial team.

This is a perilous area, because if we get the Prevent strategy wrong, we risk giving succour to those who say that it is an attack on a particular religion and that we are setting one part of society against another. I do not want that to happen; everyone in this country, no matter what their background, should have the right to freedom of expression. They should have the right to express their own religion and to say what they believe in their own way. They should not feel that they are targeted by some form of shadow organisation of activities that will point them out and sanction them if they behave in a way or say things that are thought, for not a very precise reason, to be extremist. So I will be a defender of those rights against the extremes of any Government policy put in place under the title of “Prevent”.

Our freedoms also depend on a strong military force that is engaged actively in preventing the decline of freedom around the world. I have concerns that the UK Government are not doing enough in a number of arenas around the world. We are not doing enough in our work with China to push back on China. It is an assertive power in the South China sea, where it is creating new land embattlements on the Spratly islands and other islands, and having a domain that is far in excess of any internationally recognised limits.

I am also concerned about freedoms in Bangladesh, and I hope the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development will look at the decline of the democratic space there and ensure that we are putting all the pressure we can on to ensure that democracy can flourish. I am concerned at hearing about people being targeted and murdered on the streets of Dhaka because of what they write. I am also worried about the fact that the Rohingya Muslims who have left Burma are not even welcome in Bangladesh, and I am worried about the last election in Bangladesh and about how the country will move forward in the next few years.

I am also concerned about the Government’s response in Nigeria in tackling the threat from Boko Haram. In all those things we see that there is a role to play for not only our military force, but our engagement through our international development efforts. I fear that if the UK Government do not assert themselves internationally in both ways, and have the resources to do so, the freedoms we have in this country, which we have taken for granted for generations, will be under threat.

The Government also need to take account of the most fundamental threat to our country’s future and our future generations; we need to continue the work of getting our economy back on track and of reducing our deficit, and then to begin the important task of repaying the debt. One crucial thing the Labour party did not understand in the last election was the importance of not only getting rid of the deficit, but reducing debt. The debt burden that we pass on to future generations is a stain on this generation’s excess. I want to support a Government—and I know I will be supporting one—that are determined in their efforts to ensure that we do not do that to future generations. An important part of that policy will relate to how we understand the work of wages in the UK. We need to find a way to encourage our private sector employers to pay the living wage. We need to find ways in which we can reduce the massive amount of corporate welfare paid out in tax credits, not by reducing people’s wages, but by reducing the dependence of companies on the wages they pay people being subsidised by the taxpayer.

We also need to move forward assertively with the Government’s extension of the right to buy. That policy offers something that also eluded the Labour party in the last election; it takes account of the fact that most people want the opportunity to own their own home, regardless of whether they live in a council house or one provided by a social housing association. I look forward to seeing the Government’s proposals on the right to buy.

Beyond that, there are one or two specific policies I hope we will cover in this Parliament. The arrangements for our emergency services—our fire, ambulance and police services—could do with reform. We could reform their boundaries so that they are contiguous; we could consider a merger of the red 1 and red 2 ambulance services with our fire service; and we could consider how to make greater use of national procurement so that we reduce costs in our emergency services. I hope the Government will engage with the unions and others to ensure that that happens successfully.

As a Parliament, we need to have a proper debate about the right to die. That may not be an issue to deal with in Government time, but we need to discuss it as a Parliament. I have constituents, as do all hon. Members, who confront this issue with very different perspectives, and we need to make sure we give them voice while we are here.

Finally, let me mention an issue that has affected some of my constituents significantly: safety for our taxi drivers. This is covered in the Law Commission’s proposals and is due to be covered in legislation, and I hope that taxi safety is one issue to which the Government will also give time.