Illegal Migration Bill

Richard Graham Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I have to make some progress. I have taken quite a lot of interventions, I am afraid.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

[Suella Braverman]

I will take one last intervention.

[Richard Graham]

I am very grateful to the Home Secretary. I find it odd that so many Opposition Members are trying their best to trip her up on a policy that is incredibly important to every community in this country. [Interruption.] Although they try to shout me down, let me say that my Gloucester constituency is a happy, cohesive, multiracial and multi-ethnic society with a primary school that has more than 50 different nationalities. I know, because I speak to them, that most ethnic minority communities are very sensitive to getting the balance right. If we get it wrong, they will feel the backlash more than anyone else. It will not be felt by SNP MPs who do not have asylum seekers in their constituencies. [Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I want not just temperate language but temperate behaviour.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Can you advise on how we might correct the record? The perplexing and misleading statement made by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) is profoundly unhelpful in the context of this debate.

[Richard Graham]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. No one in this House wishes to cause any offence. If I have done so, of course I apologise. We have two hotels full of asylum seekers in my constituency, and I would be very interested to know how many hotels full of asylum seekers there are in the constituencies of SNP Members. [Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I have a couple of points before we resume. Interventions are now eating into the time allotted to Back Benchers, so some simply will not get in. Points of order are doing the exact same, so I caution Members, if they are to raise points of order, to make sure they are for the Chair. [Interruption.] The answer to this point of order, as the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) knows, is that Members are responsible for their own contributions. If anything untoward is said, they should correct the record at the earliest opportunity, which I believe Mr Graham has done.

Illegal Migration Bill

Richard Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I am glad that the hon. Lady mentioned Windrush, because I am proud of our achievements to date to right the wrongs that were committed. More than £60 million has been offered or paid out to the claimants and we are resolving many of the outstanding cases. I have engaged closely with members of the steering group and with Bishop Webley, and I am encouraged by the progress that we are making to resolve the issue.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Will the Home Secretary confirm that the Bill will prevent illegal migrants, especially the 80,000 from EU accession countries, from abusing our modern slavery laws to prevent their return home? On supporting the most vulnerable, will she confirm that she will create more legal migration routes, alongside an annual quota, and encourage the Department for Work and Pensions to do more to provide skills to refugees who have the right to work so that they can contribute to our country in the way that they want to?

[Suella Braverman]

One of the benefits of the measures in the Bill will be an enhanced ability to support genuine asylum seekers and genuine victims of modern slavery and human trafficking. Our ability is severely impeded at the moment, because of the overwhelming number of claims in our system, many of which are illegitimate and spurious. They are clogging up our system so that we are unable to properly support those who genuinely need it.

Draft Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) (Amendment) Order 2023

Richard Graham Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2023 General Committees

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) (Amendment) Order 2023.

The draft order is required to enact a minor change to the legislation that sets out the form and manner by which leave to enter the United Kingdom is granted and refused. It will amend the eligibility criteria for people seeking to enter the UK via an automated e-passport gate or e-gate so that eligible accompanied children as young as 10 may do so. The lower age today is 12. The change is needed to enable a limited trial to take place in February, which will examine whether the lower age limit for entry via e-gate should be 10, rather than 12. To carry out that limited exercise in law, the order is necessary. The proposed proof-of-concept exercise will take place during the school half-term at three airports: Stansted, Heathrow terminal 5 and Gatwick’s north terminal. Once completed, the Home Office will make an assessment of whether the lower age limit of 10 should be adopted more widely.

The Government’s ambition is for our future borders to make the maximum use of automation. The majority of passengers will routinely cross the UK border using automation as their only point of contact. Increasing in a controlled manner the number of passengers eligible to use an e-gate is therefore a logical step. Members of the Committee will be aware that some form of automation is already used by large numbers of people passing through the UK’s border. There has been a significant widening of the pool of nationals eligible for e-gate entry in recent years. A previous amendment to the Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) Order 2000 in May 2019 extended e-gate eligibility to visitors from Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the USA.

The continued use of e-gates should be seen in the context of the development of our new global border and immigration system, which makes better use of data, biometrics, analytics and automation to improve security and the fluidity of UK borders. The use of e-gates is an important part of that approach.

For eligible families with young children, there are obvious advantages in being able to use entry via an e-gate, in that they may enter the UK swiftly and effectively without having to queue to be seen by a Border Force officer. That, in turn, benefits others by minimising time in queues and bottlenecks at busy airports, especially at peak times such as the school summer holidays.

We need to answer a number of important questions before a permanent lowering of the lower age limit can be considered. Those include whether children aged 10 or 11 have the ability to use the technology effectively and, indeed, whether the technology is able to process young passengers. For those and other considerations, we will first conduct a short trial, which will be monitored closely by officials. The results will be analysed rigorously.

We at the Home Office take seriously our statutory duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. We will use the live trial to consider whether there are any unintended consequences for the welfare of younger passengers, such as any anxiety if separated temporarily from parents at the e-gates. To be clear, no permanent decision on whether to extend e-gate eligibility to younger passengers will be made until we have considered such issues.

The amendment will enable us in law to allow eligible passengers younger than 12 to use an e-gate, but it does not confer a right on those passengers to do so. It does not mean that passengers aged 10 and 11 must be able to use an e-gate at any UK port with that facility. Eligibility will be limited to accompanied 10 and 11-year-olds of eligible nationality at the three participating ports only for a 14-day period. At other ports, the lower age limit will remain, as currently set, at 12.

In summary, the draft order enacts the most modest of changes to its parent legislation, but allows for a significant next step to be taken in developing a secure and smooth border that demonstrates to the rest of the world that the UK is open for business, as well as making the lives of families that little bit easier.

I commend the draft order to the Committee.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is just in time. I will give way.

[Richard Graham]

I am very grateful. On a pedantic point, paragraph 7.7 of the explanatory memorandum answers the question,

“Why is it being changed?”,

with the answer that

“The 2000 order is being amended to lower the minimum age of e-gate eligibility from 12 to 10.”

With respect, that is not why the change is being made; the answer to that is given is paragraph 7.4. Will my right hon. Friend agree to amend paragraph 7.7 to say, “The 2000 order is being amended to improve security, passenger flow and customer experience, especially during half-terms and holidays”? Then we would all be absolutely clear about what is happening and why.

[Robert Jenrick]

The notes make the point that the reason we are changing the law in this way is to allow younger passengers to pass through the e-gates. However, I would be happy to make those changes to the explanatory memorandum so that everyone is abundantly clear about all the good things that will flow from this faster and more efficient processing at our borders, including a better experience for families of many nationalities entering the UK.

Police Conduct and David Carrick

Richard Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

The action that needs to be taken has been set out incredibly widely and comprehensively in several reports. That action includes increasing the minimum standards for pre-employment checks; establishing better processes for assessing, analysing and managing the risks relating to vetting decisions, corruption investigations and information security; improving the quality and consistency of decision making when it comes to vetting; and extending the scope of the law relating to the police complaint and misconduct procedures. There is a very clear plan of action that is necessary among chief constables, the College of Policing and the NPCC, and the Home Office is monitoring and taking action where necessary.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Today’s exchanges show the depth of violence against women and girls, even by some of those in whom the public should have the greatest trust, and public confidence in policing will therefore be rattled. The Home Secretary said that David Carrick had been recruited before tightened vetting rules were introduced. Will my right hon. and learned Friend work with local police chiefs to find out how many people in their forces they view as potentially dangerous to the wider public, so that they and we can reassure our constituents as soon as possible that there are no David Carricks lurking in Gloucestershire or elsewhere?

[Suella Braverman]

That is exactly why, for the Met, the Met Commissioner has instituted a review of historic cases in respect of which there may be a flag for a domestic incident, and the Met is rigorously checking its data against national databases. I encourage all chief constables to take similar action to ensure that similar cases can be rooted out and action taken.

Doctor Training

Richard Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

I strongly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) on laying out the arguments and highlighting the need for more training places for doctors to level up our great country. More training places would be an engine for social mobility, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (David Johnston) pointed out, and level up our rural counties, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) pointed out so well.

I declare an interest in the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch. I have never stopped campaigning on it, and I have been re-elected twice to continue campaigning for the hospital and the healthcare that my constituents deserve. Key to that is training more doctors locally in our wonderful new Three Counties Medical School, which was opened and supported by the Government. That is the obvious route, and I very much welcome the Government funding that has enabled the medical school to open in order to train more doctors locally.

When doctors are trained locally, they want to stay and work locally. In Worcestershire, over the years we have seen a problem where local young people who are training to be doctors do not stay in the county because they have opportunities to work in Birmingham and in larger centres elsewhere. That is great for Birmingham, but not so great for Redditch. Better services for my constituents in Redditch is absolutely what I want—and what they deserve, more to the point—but we need more people to deliver them. We always come back to services being constrained because we lack the workforce to deliver them.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I am grateful for the chance to support what my hon. Friend is saying about the Three Counties Medical School. It serves the three counties of Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire, building on the partnerships established through the Royal Three Counties Show and the Three Choirs Festival—the country’s oldest festival. Does she agree that it would be great if the Minister could say whether the Government will support the Three Counties Medical School? In the absence of that, does she agree that all 14 Members of Parliament for the three counties should get together with the Minister to pursue that case?

[Rachel Maclean]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I strongly agree with him and I hope the Minister will respond. While I am speaking about our three counties, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) who has led the discussions with the health and care trust and other health and care authorities—including Health Education England—to continue to press the case.

The University of Worcester has funded 20 places at the Three Counties Medical School. Unfortunately, we have not been successful in attracting any Government funding from the Minister’s Department. It seems like a missed opportunity. Will the Minister speak to his colleagues in the Department and at NHS England to see what he can do to get the medical school fully funded? I want to give young people in Redditch and Worcestershire opportunities to follow their dreams to practise locally, for the benefit of my constituents.

I thank everybody in Redditch who works for the NHS, across the whole healthcare system. GPs, doctors in different services, mental health providers and nurses are all part of the effort. Social care is also a vital ingredient. We have a great story to tell in Redditch. The Alexandra is a fantastic hospital. It is receiving record levels of Government investment thanks to this Government and previous ones, and the efforts of current and previous Health Secretaries. That investment will see expansion into innovative services and lifesaving treatments, such as robotic surgery for people with prostate conditions, as well as diagnostics and other innovations. The hospital has a bright future ahead of it.

I want to continue campaigning to enable the hospital to deliver services for everybody who lives in Redditch, which is a growing town. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) also made that point. When new residents come in, they expect local healthcare to be there. I am looking forward to the Minister’s update on the NHS workforce plan, which I am sure is the route to solving this conundrum.

Spiking Incidents: Prevention

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the prevention of spiking incidents.

It is very good to have this debate under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. It is also good to see colleagues present, including recent former Home Office Ministers from several parties, despite competition from Select Committees and other vital business of the House.

The truth is that it should not have been necessary to have this debate. I do not intend to run through all the evidence showing why spiking is such an increased modern risk, particularly to young females and particularly in the night-time economy, because that is all on the record, including in Home Affairs Committee papers and in my ten-minute rule Bill on spiking offences, which I promoted almost exactly a year ago.

I will briefly mention, however, recent findings, the most striking of which are the data presented by the National Police Chiefs’ Council. For the year from 1 September 2021 to 31 August 2022, it has recorded 2,581 reported cases of spiking by needle; 2,131 reported cases of spiking by drink; and 212 reported cases of spiking by other means, particularly food. That is a total of almost 5,000 reported cases for the last year on record, and if that is not an indication of how serious this issue is, I struggle to understand what is serious.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his work on this very important issue. Following the announcement that he had secured this debate, I received a message this afternoon from the police and crime commissioner for Dyfed-Powys, Mr Dafydd Llywelyn, informing me that the number of spiking incidents has been increasing over the last few months.

[Richard Graham]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He and his Plaid Cymru colleagues epitomise why so many of us from all parties in the House are concerned about this issue, despite the problem of data collection, which I will come on to.

Let me now give a tiny bit of context. After I promoted my ten-minute rule Bill almost a year ago, a Home Office Minister promised me that the Department would research this issue and come back to me. By the way, very similar promises were made to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), who is with us in Westminster Hall today. That feedback has now come, but last autumn Ministers were intimating that they were working on a positive solution to confirm that spiking or any attempt at spiking is illegal, and that this simple amendment to existing law would provide a very clear message in words that the nation could easily grasp.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for all his work on this issue. Chelmsford has a very busy night-time economy and I was really concerned to hear before the end of last year about experiences that many young women have been reporting online about spiking in one Chelmsford nightclub. I visited the club and I was really pleased that it had put in CCTV and a lot of other things to keep women safe. It is important, however, that spiking is clearly recognised as a criminal offence, so I want to put on the record my support for this campaign. Also, I encourage anyone who has been a victim of spiking to come forward quickly, so that evidence can be gathered and the perpetrators held to account.

[Richard Graham]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, because she has said what I think many Members of this House are saying. Indeed, I know that the daughter of one colleague has been spiked and that a Minister has been spiked, so this is something that, unfortunately, is not remote from us at all. It has happened to people in this House, it has happened to their families and it has happened to our constituents. That is why I was so encouraged when Ministers were saying last autumn that there was a positive solution within their grasp. I believe their intention was to come back very early this year with a specific proposal, but, alas, that has not come to pass.

Instead, the Minister for Safeguarding, my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Miss Dines), who is not in her place because she is attending a Select Committee hearing, has written to me and the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North, whose Committee has done such valuable research on spiking, which I will come on to. The Minister’s letter was six dense pages of argument that amounted to two letters: no. In almost 13 years as an MP, I have not read such an extraordinary letter. The Minister in attendance is the Minister for Security, but, to be frank, his portfolio has the least relevance to spiking. He should be focused on major threats to the nation, such as terrorism. I am sure he is grateful for this hospital pass. For his sake, it is relevant to comment on the letter. The Select Committee has today put in the public domain, so other Members may not yet be aware of it.

Let me first say what is helpful in the letter to those of us concerned about the prevalence of spiking, the lack of knowledge about relevant law and the lack of data about instances of spiking.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

After the pandemic, the first students to return to university in my constituency saw a huge increase in spiking—both of young males and females, and both by needle and in drinks. West Yorkshire Police responded by buying testing kits because they had no evidence base at all. Surely part of the solution is that all police forces should have testing kits and test in all incidents, so that we can collect data. We are not getting very far with prosecutions under the current law, because there is no evidence base.

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Member makes good points. I was going to mention this as the first point that was constructive in the Minister’s letter. To be fair to the Home Office—this is the first constructive point in the Safeguarding Minister’s letter—it has

“supported Universities UK and the Department for Education to provide guidance to universities on spiking published ahead of the Autumn term and the ‘freshers’ period.”

That is precisely because of the point the hon. Member made about the sharp increase in spiking before term started in 2021. That is a positive.

It is also positive that the Minister has proposed, subject to consultation, amendments to section 182 of the Licensing Act 2003, which

“could include explicit reference to spiking, providing a government definition of the crime, highlighting the existing offences which can be used to prosecute incidents of spiking including examples of spiking”.

She suggests that the Government could also direct licensing authorities to send a strong and explicit message that

“no matter how you spike someone…it is against the law.”

I agree. That is exactly the message that we need in law through a simple amendment to the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, so why do the Minister for Safeguarding and the Home Office not get it?

The letter then puts out various straw man arguments, which I will deal with in turn. I place the first point the heading, “Existing offences coverage”. The letter goes into considerable detail and concludes that

“all methods of spiking are already covered within the current legislation.”

It highlights section 24, which includes a crime described as

“Maliciously administering poison, &c. with intent to injure, aggrieve, or annoy any other person.”

That could cover, the Minister argues, a potential gap regarding spiking done “for fun”. Personally, however, I believe that proving an intent to annoy could be easily met by the defence, “I didn’t mean to annoy or upset”. Should we not recognise that spiking is, at the least, annoying, full stop, without prevaricating about it? Most importantly, cannot all of these sections of the 1861 Act be grouped under a single, compelling umbrella statement very similar to that proposed for the guidance to the night-time economy?

I place the second point under the heading, “Absence of the word spiking in law”. The Safeguarding Minister recognises, while arguing that existing law already covers spiking, that there is currently no agreed definition of spiking. But she has also suggested that Government provide a definition for section 182 of the Licensing Act, so that point is already dealt with—the Government have already promised to provide that. She goes on to say that introducing a new offence would “overlap with existing offences”, but I am arguing that adding a grouping to include existing offences under the simple term “spiking” would do the job. We do not need a new offence; we need to amend existing law, not create a new law.

The Minister acknowledges that the law does not actually reference spiking, but she argues that, while it can be tempting to “reflect modern terminology”, effectively we should not do so. But we have done exactly that with legislation on upskirting, a term I am confident did not exist in 1861 any more than spiking by needle in nightclubs did. We do reflect modern terminology in law. We can do so and we should do so.

Thirdly, on the name of the offence, the Minister goes on to say that the general public

“believe that spiking is illegal, even if they cannot name the specific offence it comes under.”

If the first part of that were true, I doubt any of us would be here, nor would my and many other Members’ constituents—one victim is here today—be pressing us to action, such as Dawn Dines, founder of Stamp Out Spiking, and our police and crime commissioners and the police lead on this issue would not be saying that they believe action is necessary.

The second part of the Minister’s letter on naming the specific offence shows precisely why an amendment is necessary. The offence is known to the public as spiking, and that is what the law should reflect. Although the detail of a 162-year-old Act may be fine, the law can also play a vital role in behavioural change. An amendment reflecting modern language would do just that, making the law unambiguous, especially for a younger generation, who are largely the victims and sometimes the perpetrators of spiking offences.

Fourthly, on data collection, data is critical to understanding both why we need laws and what is happening in society. The Minister writes that a specific spiking offence would

“add to the existing offences…hence potentially confusing the data analysis picture further.”

But that is not what the Select Committee was told. I will quote from former deputy chief constable and lead for drugs at the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Jason Harwin, who highlighted to the Select Committee that it is near impossible to get reliable data on drink spiking, saying:

“A challenge is that if it goes on to a second offence—rape or other offences—the original offence that could be linked to spiking, while recorded, is no longer identified in terms of how we flag it within our records.”

In answer to a question from the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) about a specific criminal code for spiking helping, he said that

“we cannot get the data together as quickly, because it might be spread over a number of offences.”

He went on to say:

“The reality is we cannot readily connect offences or offenders straight away”,

and that having a separate offence—effectively, as I would call it, an umbrella offence—

“would help us identify the picture quickly now.”

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

One of the arguments I have heard about them not needing a separate offence is that section 61 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 makes it an offence for somebody to administer a substance to, or cause it to be taken by, another person without their consent and with the intention of stupefying or overpowering them to enable that person to engage in sexual activity with them. Could my hon. Friend comment on how his proposed offence is different? I would be grateful for further clarification.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. The other aspect of the offences that we are dealing with is committing the offence for sexual gratification. That has undoubtedly been a driver in many cases. I do not have the data to hand, but other colleagues may be able to recall how many instances of rape there have been that started with a spiking offence. In fact, a Government adviser on some of these issues was herself both spiked and raped. This is close to home, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight that.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

That leads on to the very important point. It is not just women; in an increasing number of instances, it is young men who are being spiked in order to gain access to their bank account. They are sometimes robbed of many thousands of pounds. Trying to link this offence to sexual offences only would provide even less clarity. The spiking could take place for the purposes of entertainment, robbery or some other reason, so we cannot link it to sexual offences only.

[Richard Graham]

My right hon. Friend has made two correct points. First, it happens to men as well as women. When I promoted my ten-minute rule Bill, I highlighted the unfortunate case of a Christian Indonesian in Manchester, Mr Sinaga, whose videos later revealed to police 58 cases of men being sexually assaulted. Many of those men did not know they had been sexually assaulted until the police showed them the video evidence. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right on that point. Her second point, on spiking taking place for all sorts of reasons, including that of entertainment—“It’s cool, it’s fun, it’s a dare”—is absolutely valid. That is why we need to ensure that any attempt to spike, or any spiking act, is completely illegal, whatever the motive. She is right to highlight that point.

I will finish on the question of data collection, with a quote from the response of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners. It was given in response to the Home Affairs Committee report by the joint leads for the APPC’s addictions and substance misuse portfolio —one is from Durham and the other from Dorset—who said that

“we agree that the creation of a separate criminal offence for spiking would send a clear message to perpetrators that this behaviour is not acceptable and could encourage victims in coming forwards to report incidents.”

That is critical. I know from my constituent Maisy that a lot of young people who have been spiked do not, for various reasons, want to come forward to report the incident. They are frightened of the repercussions and do not believe it will necessarily get anywhere. I believe that the almost 5,000 reports that I mentioned earlier is almost certainly an underestimation of the volume of incidents.

[Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)]

The hon. Member is making an excellent speech and I thank him for the huge amount of work that he has already done on this issue. Does he agree that women in particular are tired of being told that it is our responsibility to protect ourselves from male violence, and that we have to be careful where we go, how much we drink, use anti-spiking straws or even flag down a bus if worried about being victimised? Does he agree that it is time to focus on the perpetrators and on educating men, tackling the root cause, which is misogyny, and actually prosecuting crimes?

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point, although, as we have heard, there are young males who are also victims of spiking. As a father, when my daughter was young and first going out to nightclubs, I advised her to be very cautious. I gave her a list of things she could do to reduce the possibility of inadvertently getting mixed up in spiking and all sorts of other things. The hon. Lady is right to highlight that we should be focusing on the perpetrators and where the problem is, which is why it is so important to have spiking as an overall offence. She is right to say that this is not in any way about telling young women that they cannot go out and have a night of fun.

That leads me on to the next point I want to highlight from the Minister’s letter, which is about violence against women and girls. The Minister writes that the Government are focused on practical rather than legal action, and goes on to list various funding streams for VAWG initiatives. I believe that all of those are important, but they miss the specific point. I, my constituent Maisy, her mother Rosie, so many other constituents of colleagues here—including the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), who sent me a case from her constituency—the Stamp Out Spiking group, which is represented here today, and many other colleagues who are not able to be here but would have wanted to, all want to see legal action as well as practical action in the form of a simple amendment such as I outlined earlier.

Such an amendment would also be very practical, I believe. It would enable media, social media, local government authorities, police, licensed victualling associations and nightclub managers to say, absolutely correctly and for the first time, that spiking is a named legal offence—that those who even attempt to do it might be cautioned or prosecuted, and might therefore be convicted of a criminal offence, which would seriously damage their chances of keeping or winning a job. I believe that will be very powerful, particularly for students. That message, clear and unambiguous, is what I believe the law should say, not just as guidance to the night-time economy managers but to everyone. It can be done through a simple amendment, which Government and parliamentary lawyers will be able to quickly come up with. I believe work was already being done on that by previous Ministers. It will add to the commitment made by the Prime Minister and this Government to reducing violence against women and girls, as well as affected males—a point that was made earlier by my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes).

So, Minister, will this Government see the light, recognise the value of a simple amendment—not a new law; I get the point on that—and recognise that it is both desirable and necessary to get the message out there? This Government and Parliament could be the ones that make spiking completely illegal for the first time. I believe that other Ministers understood that, and I call on Ministers at the Home Office today to finish the job, and avoid the need for further debate and my wasting their precious ministerial time again. That is the challenge today, and I hope very much that the Minister and the Department will rise to it.

[Esther McVey (in the Chair)]

There are a great number of Members wanting to speak in this debate, so I will have to impose a maximum limit on speeches of three and a half minutes, to allow everybody to get in. I will remind people of the times. I will call the Front Benchers just before 3.40 pm, to allow Richard Graham to wind up at about 3.58 pm. I also want to mention that there could be a vote; if so, I will suspend the sitting for that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Graham]

I believe that today the Government have heard a very clear message from colleagues from five different parties that something more should be done in law about spiking. I accept that we do not need a new and separate law, and I think most other Members do too, but I also believe that the Minister has registered the strength of feeling about our arguments for amending the existing law to include the offence of spiking in all its different forms.

I thank all colleagues who came and spoke in the debate, some of whom are not here now, understandably. I am particularly grateful for the contributions from the former Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel); the former safeguarding Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean); the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson); my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie), who rightly highlighted the good work done by our police and crime commissioner in Gloucestershire; the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Allan Dorans); and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). They all raised different issues, and the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) made a particularly important speech.

The point of everything that was said in today’s debate is that we have all spoken with one voice in order to represent the thousands and thousands of people across the country who have been spiked. Although some of them are men, they are mostly young women, such as my constituent Maisy Farmer and Lorna Street, who is in the Public Gallery. Many victims have not reported their cases and their hurt, and we have therefore given them a voice today.

We also heard from the Minister that the door is open a fraction, which I appreciate. I believe—I hope that colleagues will join me—that we must now do what we can to push that door further open and reach the success of an amendment.

[Esther McVey (in the Chair)]

Order.

Cross-Channel Migrants: Manston Facility

Richard Graham Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I suspect that she would do a great deal more than the SNP if they were in government.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I welcome the appointment of the Minister to this important and difficult role and everything that he said about making sure that the facilities at Manston are appropriate and legal. Surely, at the heart of this problem, is the sharp increase in illegal immigrants from Albania. Will he say more about whether we have adequate resources in Tirana to look at the validity of asylum claims, which— given that there is not a civil war or general unrest in Albania—may not be very strong anyway, to ensure that we can return as many of them as fast as possible? Is the agreement that is already in place for Albanians to serve prison sentences in Albania working as effectively as he would hope?

[Robert Jenrick]

That is a very important question and one to which I will be giving a lot of thought in the coming days. As I said earlier, around a quarter of those individuals who have crossed the short strait this year alone have come from Albania. On some boats, 80% of the individuals are coming from Albania. As my hon. Friend said, Albania is quite clearly a safe country, and those individuals have crossed through multiple other safe countries before arriving in the United Kingdom. Some reports suggest that as much as 1% or even 2% of the adult male population of Albania either have attempted to leave the country in this manner, or are contemplating doing so.

This is a serious issue on which we need to get a grip, and there are a number of fronts on which we are doing that. We are considering whether there is a bespoke route for Albanians to have their cases heard quickly and to be removed from the country if they are not found to be successful—returned to Albania. We are also looking diplomatically at how we can work with the Government in Albania and in coalition with like-minded countries such as France to reach an agreement with Albania. I would be happy to update my hon. Friend as soon as we make further progress.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Graham Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Stephen McPartland]

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has been very clear about ensuring that, with the police uplift programme, there are 20,000 more police officers, and that is making a huge difference. Local police and crime commissioners are responsible for working with local authorities to ensure that they tackle antisocial behaviour locally, so I think that the hon. Gentleman should direct his comments to his local police and crime commissioner.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

The boundaries between antisocial behaviour, gangs, drugs, and knife crime are increasingly blurred. An unwelcome recent trend in my constituency of Gloucester is that of an increase in young people’s involvement. None of us wants to see children criminalised, but we need to act, not least in order to protect other young people. Can the Minister arrange a meeting where best practice on how to tackle this growing problem can be shared with many of us in this Chamber who have similar problems?

[Stephen McPartland]

I know the work that my hon. Friend has done to try to reduce antisocial behaviour within his own community, and I know that he has been working hard. He supports violence reduction units. There is a huge amount of money and investment going into sharing best practice among forces to ensure that we also protect these individuals. We know the huge problems that county lines are creating up and down the country, and there has been a massive investment in breaking county lines on which this Government have been leading the way.

Foreign National Offender Removal Flights

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

As I alluded to in answering an earlier question, there is a proper process in place that checks for vulnerability and ensures that those cases are dealt with appropriately. I, of course, think it is right and proper that people have access to legal advice and, of course, the legal profession and due process are absolutely crucial to ensuring that these matters are handled sensitively, appropriately and correctly in accordance with the law. We cannot continue to have a completely unbalanced situation where we see abuses of the system and we see that behaviour rewarded. I have to say to you, Mr Speaker, that my eyes water when I see some of the case studies that are put in front of me and some of the instances we are dealing with in the system. It is not acceptable. It is not okay. There is a need for action and that is why we are taking the steps we are.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

If the Labour party wishes to make the case as to why convicted foreign national rapists and paedophiles should remain in this country they are very welcome to test drive it in my constituency and elsewhere. Meanwhile, does my hon. Friend agree that, although it is absolutely right and fair since we left the European Union that any foreign national with a sentence of over 12 months will be automatically deported, that does, of course, put the emphasis on the Home Office to make sure that its legal ducks are in a row and that the right people are deported?

[Tom Pursglove]

That caseworking side of things is so important in processing these cases, ensuring they are handled as expeditiously as possible and there is not needless delay. That is something I am looking at intensively and that is why we have the new plan for immigration and the reforms we are introducing. As I have said, I constantly have at the forefront of my mind the victims of criminality when reaching decisions and considering cases, and reading the representations that are made. When we talk in this House about serious violence, for example, and there are calls for root and branch action to tackle it, it is impossible to divorce what we are talking about today from the work we are doing more widely in Government to tackle that very harm and that scourge on our society.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Richard Graham Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I agree with my hon. Friend’s assessment that citizenship of this country comes with rights and responsibilities, and with recognition and acceptance of important constitutional principles including the rule of law. Those are all fundamental and central to the way in which our society has developed and is crafted and on which it stands. They are important principles that we all accept are crucial.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

For the record, just so that we are all absolutely clear, we on the Government Benches, as elsewhere, strongly support the full integration of every community and British passport holder. The Government amendment will make it absolutely clear above all to Muslims of all places of origin and above all those born and bred in the UK that there is no threat to them whatsoever.

[Tom Pursglove]

My hon. Friend puts it better than I could. He has stated with crystal clarity the nature of the change, which I believe is enhanced and improved by accepting the sensible and pragmatic amendments tabled by Lord Anderson. It is also worth saying for the benefit of the House that taking out of the equation the issue of citizenship being obtained by fraud, the provision relates to 19 cases a year on average, and the changes we are making through the Bill do not alter the qualification, so no additional individuals will be brought into scope. The changes relate purely to the matter of notification.

On a procedural note, I should say that although Lord Anderson’s amendments were agreed in the other place, they were deleted when peers agreed to remove the substantive deprivation of citizenship clause from the Bill. The Government are therefore retabling the substantive clause, as amended by peers to include Lord Anderson’s amendments. I hope that meets with the favour of the House. It acts on and reflects the desire expressed for greater safeguards and greater clarity on these measures.

Amendment 5 inserts a clause specifying that nothing in the part of the Bill to which it applies authorises any policies or decisions that are incompatible with the 1951 refugee convention or the 1967 protocol relating to the status of refugees. It is the clear position of this Government that everything we are doing is compatible with all our obligations under international law. We do not think it is necessary to set that out on the face of the Bill. The Government therefore do not agree to the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. This is an area that he is very passionate about and has a considerable knowledge of. He will recognise that we have a global approach to family reunion, which is an important distinction when compared with Dublin III. It would be useful for us as Ministers to meet him, as a former Children’s Minister, to discuss his ideas. As I say, I know he takes a passionate and keen interest in these matters. Family reunion is something we continue to be committed to. As I said in my opening remarks on the situation in Ukraine, it is an area where, for example in response to that crisis, we are constantly reviewing what we can do to assist with that issue and challenge. The Dnipro Kids situation illustrates the work we are doing in that space. Of course, there has to be agreement with the Ukrainian Government and the Polish Government to progress on that, but it shows the pragmatic approach we are willing to take on these matters to be responsive to crises as they arise and to ensure that we do our bit to try to support those children wherever we can.

I do not wish to detain the House for longer than necessary, but I think it would be helpful for me to set out the safe and legal routes that we have to the UK. The UK resettlement scheme, which was launched in February 2021, prioritises the resettlement of refugees, including children, in regions of conflict and instability. The number of refugees we resettle each year depends on a variety of factors, including local authorities’ capacity to support refugees and the number of community groups willing to take part. There were 1,131 refugees resettled in the UK through that scheme in the year ending December 2021.

[Richard Graham]

Will the Minister give way?

[Tom Pursglove]

I have given way to my hon. Friend already and I am keen to make some progress, because I am conscious that a lot of Members want to speak.

The community sponsorship scheme enables local community groups to welcome refugees to the UK and provide housing and support. In the year ending December 2021, there were 144 refugees resettled through that scheme.

The mandate resettlement scheme was launched in 1995. That global scheme resettles refugees with a close family member in the UK who is willing to accommodate them. Since published statistics began in 2008, there have been 435 refugees resettled through that route, as of September 2021.

Refugee family reunion allows a spouse or partner and children under 18 of those granted protection in the UK to join them here, if they formed part of the family unit before the sponsor fled the country. There is discretion to grant leave outside of the immigration rules for extended family members in exceptional circumstances. We have granted over 40,000 refugee family reunion visas since 2015, of which more than half were granted to children. In 2021, there were 6,134 family reunion visas issued, which was an increase of 28% on the previous year. Again, more than half were issued to children.

In August 2021, we announced the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, one of the most generous schemes in our country’s history. That scheme will give up to 20,000 people at risk a new life in the UK, including women and girls, members of ethnic or religious minorities and people who are LGBT+.

In addition, under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy, current or former locally employed staff who are assessed to be under serious threat to life are offered priority relocation to the UK. Through that route, we have relocated more than 7,000 locally employed staff and their family members since April 2021, in addition to 1,400 former staff and families who were relocated under the previous ex gratia scheme for Afghan interpreters.

The Ukraine family scheme, which was launched on 4 March, allows British nationals and people settled in the UK to bring family members to the UK. That covers immediate family members as well as parents, grandparents, children over 18 and siblings, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, cousins and in-laws. Individuals will be granted leave for three years and will be able to work and access public services and benefits. As of 20 March, 61,100 applications had been started, 31,500 had been submitted and 10,200 visas had been issued.

The Homes for Ukraine scheme, which was launched on 14 March, will allow individuals, charities, community groups and businesses in the UK to bring Ukrainians to safety, including those with no family ties to the UK. There will be no limit on arrivals and, again, those who come here will have access to public services and benefits.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Green]

I find myself in rare, perhaps unique agreement with the hon. Gentleman on that point. I am sure that he and I will not want to see that happen too often.

Returning to the Government’s wider plan, the new plan for immigration states:

“The UK’s commitment to resettling refugees will continue to be a multi-year commitment with numbers subject to ongoing review guided by circumstances and capacity at any given time.”

If nothing else, Lords amendment 11 invites the Government to take a small step forward—I agree with the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) that it is a small step, but it is a significant step and I hope we will vote on it later—to strengthen their objectives with a concrete and predictable floor of 10,000 places. That would provide local authorities and civil society more widely with the certainty, time and space to plan and to deliver the capacity so that resettlement can be successful. I should pause and pay tribute to my own local authority in Ashford, which was very active in coming forward early for the Syrian resettlement scheme and has done the same with the Afghans. I also pay tribute to the civil society NGOs in my constituency that are doing the same with Ukraine. I suspect that that is reflected all around the country. There are lots of people out there who want to be generous.

[Richard Graham]

It seems to me that the Homes for Ukraine scheme offers a model that could be used for all sorts of other nationalities as well. There is no reason why we should have one lot of refugees who are being housed and able to work from day one while others are in hotels decided on by the Home Office and often planted on councils that are trying to do their best but do not have much accommodation. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is a real opportunity for us to rethink how we accept refugees in our country now?

[Damian Green]

I do; my hon. Friend makes an extremely profound point. We are facing a crisis of a type we have not faced before, and we should use this opportunity to look at ourselves and our systems and ask whether we can do things differently. We should use the entirely justifiable outpouring that we have seen over Ukraine to set up a permanent system so that if we get something like this again—God forbid, but sadly it will probably happen—we will have the systems in place to make it is easier for people, particularly those who are fleeing persecution and death. The Syrian refugee scheme saw 275 local authorities—two thirds of the local authorities in this country—volunteering to resettle refugees. I think that proves the point that an ambitious and intelligently designed programme can meet the appetite of people in their own areas to help those who are fleeing persecution.