Rural Policing and Hare Coursing

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, who once again comes up with a sensible analysis and a sense of how we need better to join up the different attempts to tackle this very difficult problem.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

Is not one of the issues the lack of neighbourhood policing in some rural areas? In the northern part of my constituency, in Bassetlaw, we have a long-standing police officer, Bill Bailey. He knows the lanes; he knows many of the criminals; and he knows how to respond to and sort out such crimes. He is also fluent in the law in this area. All too often, when officers such as Bill retire, as he will do in October, they are replaced by police officers drawn from a much wider area. His replacement is likely to be drawn from urban areas such as Worksop and Retford, where crimes are very different. Response times will diminish, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) has said, it is difficult for people to be certain that police officers who understand the rurality of the area will be able to get out and sort out the problems.

[John Glen]

My hon. Friend makes a reasonable point. Like many Conservative Members, I gained some familiarity with my hon. Friend’s constituency in the weeks running up to his election. I would not want to comment on the specific example that he gave, but it is absolutely key that we have the right resources in the right places.

I return to the specific issue of hare coursing. I believe that it is both a policing and a judicial issue, and I want to raise three policy concerns that I hope the Minister will reflect on to ensure that constituencies such as Salisbury and south Wiltshire can effectively deal with hare coursers and the many disruptions and problems that I have just described. First, I ask the Minister to consider creating a more widespread infrastructure for seizing and rehousing the dogs used in such criminal activities. Will he look—perhaps not personally—into how the police organise themselves in that regard? Hare coursing dogs are high-value assets worth tens of thousands of pounds. I think that the threat of dogs being taken or rehomed, and therefore losing their value, will deter hare coursers. To be able to seize dogs, the police must have the appropriate kennels and facilities to look after them. In Wiltshire, despite a large number of hare coursing incidents, we do not have that vital infrastructure in place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I echo the thanks and congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) on raising this important issue. Although some people might view the debate and the problem as merely an issue of animal welfare and wildlife crime, which of course it is, as others have suggested, it goes much wider than that. We are talking about vandalism of property; loss of income for farmer and landowner; theft, atrocity and intimidation of farmers, their families and in some instances gamekeepers and others employed on estates; and a lot of road traffic issues, including the driving of unlicensed and uninsured vehicles, driving while disqualified and so forth. This all adds up to the picture of criminality that my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) alluded to in his intervention.

My constituency is easily split between east and west. The western part of North Dorset is the Blackmore Vale, which has heavy clay, and nobody would try to course on that. The hares do not like it, and it is too heavy to make a form; sometimes even a 4x4 will get stuck in the clay of Blackmore Vale. Cranborne Chase on the eastern side of my constituency, however, is beautiful, undulating chalk downland, very similar to the area at the border with Wiltshire. It is, of course, an ideal and fertile ground for illegal hare coursing, and it happens on all too regular a basis.

My hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) talked about the chief constable of Essex blaming the robustness of his colleague in Lincolnshire for transporting a problem across a county border. In Dorset, we have also seen an element of that, given the significant success that the chief constable and officers of Wiltshire have had in clamping down in that county. The problem has merely translocated over the border to us.

I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury said with regard to value of the sighthound used for this purpose. I was told by one of my local police officers that, having confiscated a telephone from a hare courser, he looked—I could not tell the House why—at the gentleman’s photo album on his phone. He had 184 photographs: 20 of his family and 164 of his dog. That, I think, demonstrates the importance and value that these people place on their livestock. The problem is exactly as my hon. Friend suggested. Local authorities have pulled away from taking stray dogs off the street and have contracted it out, often on narrowly defined contracts. The police do not have kennels to house these dogs. I would prefer a far more robust approach, not just in the provision of kennels but in the removal and permanent confiscation of dogs and their rehousing.

[Robert Jenrick]

Last year in Scotland was, I think, the first time that a hare courser or a group of hare coursers were prosecuted successfully and imprisoned using DNA evidence taken from a confiscated dog. We have heard in the debate about the scale and importance of these crimes, so perhaps the police elsewhere in the country should look to take that forward.

[Simon Hoare]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. The deployment of technologies that may have been advanced for other purposes can easily be used for exactly the sort of incident my hon. Friend suggests.

I want to draw the attention of the House, if I may, to the excellent work undertaken by the Dorset constabulary in this area under the leadership of Martyn Underhill, our police and crime commissioner, and the chief constable. After discussions with me as a Member of Parliament, we now have a dedicated rural team—and not in name only. The team has the right vehicles—4x4s and Polarises—telephones, equipment and so on. It is doing a fantastic job. It was my pleasure, if that is the word, to join them on a night operation ranging from 8 o’clock in the evening to two o’clock in the morning, where a collaboration of three police forces—officers from Dorset, Wiltshire and Hampshire—came together with local farmers and gamekeepers. I was obviously the “heavy” man brought in for intimidation. We drove around the countryside using intelligence and telephones to identify where people might be and disrupting activity as it was about to unfold: the interception and interruption of illegal activity taking place in our countryside.

A number of hon. Friends mentioned intimidation. My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury provided statistics on the number of people brought to court and the rather lenient slap-on-the-wrist fines. If someone is prepared to wager £10,000 on one greyhound getting a hare, a fine of £276 is but a drop in the ocean. I wonder, as I often do in these circumstances, whether our local magistrates feel intimidated, given the reputation of a lot of people involved in hare coursing knowing no bounds to the retribution they wish to see. I hope our magistrates are made of strong and robust stuff, but that might not necessarily always be the case.

I again congratulate Dorset constabulary on its work. I echo entirely the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury that the funding requirement is, as so often in our rural areas, very bespoke. If one talked to councillors in Manchester, Bristol or Birmingham about rural crime on farms as a result of hare coursing, they would probably scratch their heads and look very bemused, but it causes a great loss of income, great degradation of the countryside, a vast amount of cruelty and a huge amount of illegality. These niche issues that need to be policed with robustness, intelligence and co-ordination do need to find, in our rural policing and its funding formula, an identification of how best to marry funds with the very clear demands elucidated by my hon. Friend in what has been an excellent debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Lady raises counter-radicalism, which is a very important element of our counter-terrorism and counter-extremism strategy. I can reassure her that a lot of additional work is going on in prisons to ensure that counter-radicalism takes place. My right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary has taken additional steps to work with people who are being radicalised or are the sources of radicalisation. I hope that that will yield positive results.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

Will the Home Secretary join me in praising the work of the east midlands operational support service, which places armed officers in the smaller cities and towns of the east midlands, and will she ensure that smaller cities have the resources they need? A terrorist attack is just as likely to happen in a city like Nottingham or Derby as in London.

[Amber Rudd]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will join him in commending the work of the east midlands service. We are mindful of the fact that, although London can be the central target, other cities could also be a target. We are mindful that our counter-terrorism efforts go way beyond London to other cities, but they are always intelligence-led.

Orgreave

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

If there are allegations and new evidence, the IPCC chair repeated to me yesterday what it has said publicly: it will look at any new evidence and take it into account in any decisions it makes moving forward. In particular, there are still ongoing investigations and potential criminal proceedings linked to Hillsborough. This is also why it is important that we not only continue to deliver the reforms outlined over the last 30 years, and in particular the last five or six years, but we continue the reform of the police service, especially working with South Yorkshire police on its relationships with its local community.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

I was very young during the miners strike but I do know Nottinghamshire’s former coalfield communities today; I represent some of them. Those communities are still suffering in many respects from the miners strike. They are suffering from ill health, low levels of employment, addiction and many other problems. As so little is to be gained from having this inquiry, would it not be better if we all now concentrate on the present and the future?

[Brandon Lewis]

There is an important point here as this highlights why the Prime Minister is right to state that we as a Government need to work to ensure we deliver a country that works for everybody, so everyone in those communities— communities I worked in myself a decade or more ago—has the chance to succeed in life. We must always learn the lessons of the past. That is why the reforms over the last three decades and the reforms going forward are so important in making sure we continue to have a first-class police force in this country.

Criminal Finances Bill

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend is right that, in the past, it has been a challenge. Crafty hoods have been very good at taking their money out of cash and putting it into a range of moveable valuables, such as fast cars, paintings, jewels, or even betting slips, which I know the Scottish Government are quite keen for us to consider. We need to broaden it out and ensure that when they are crafty, we are crafty as well.

This Government have already done more than any other to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing. More assets have been recovered from criminals than ever before, with a record £255 million recovered in 2015-16, and hundreds of millions of pounds more frozen and put beyond the reach of criminals. We set up the Panama papers taskforce to ensure an effective, joined-up approach to those revelations. The London anti-corruption summit in May built capacity with overseas partners.

It is important to note that we are already doing this. In November 2015, the UK returned £28 million to Macau, which were the proceeds of corruption laundered in the UK. That is a concrete example of our giving back money to those countries that have been robbed by crooks who have used Britain to launder the money or to make the money in its jurisdiction. I want to see more of that and to see it go further.

There was a need for legislation and a need to build on the process of the anti-corruption summit and to find out where we were still vulnerable. In October 2015, the Government published the “National risk assessment for money laundering and terrorist financing”, identifying a number of areas where these regimes could be strengthened. Our response to that assessment was the action plan for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist finance, which was published in April 2016. It represents one of the most significant changes to our anti-money laundering and terrorist finance regime in more than a decade.

The Bill will give effect to key elements of that action plan. It will significantly enhance the capability of UK law enforcement to tackle money laundering and to recover the proceeds of crime. It will strengthen the relationship between public and private sectors and combat the financing of terrorism.

Part 1 contains a number of measures that will amend the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, including the creation of unexplained wealth orders. There are criminals who declare themselves almost penniless, yet control millions of pounds. Law enforcement agencies may suspect that assets are the proceeds of international corruption, but they are unable to freeze or recover them, often because they cannot rely on full co-operation with other jurisdictions to obtain evidence. A court will be able to make an unexplained wealth order to require an individual or organisation suspected of association with serious criminality to explain the origin of assets, where they appear to be disproportionate to their known income. If that person does not respond, this may enable the property to be recovered under existing civil recovery powers.

Part 1 chapter 1 will extend the use of disclosure orders, which allow a law enforcement officer to require someone who has relevant information to answer questions as part of an investigation. Those orders are already in use for civil recovery and confiscation investigations. They will now be available for money laundering cases.

Chapter 2 will enhance the process by which private sector companies report suspected money laundering—the suspicious activity reports, or SARs, regime. Where a company in the regulated sector, such as a bank, accountancy or legal firm, suspects that it may commit a money laundering offence, it is obliged to submit a SAR to the National Crime Agency, seeking consent to proceed. At present, there are occasions where these SARs are incomplete and where further information is needed to inform the NCA’s decision. The Bill will give law enforcement agencies more time to investigate those suspicious transactions that require consent and the NCA extra powers to request further information from companies to help to pursue those investigations and conduct wider analysis.

The Bill will provide a gateway for the sharing of information between regulated companies—subject to appropriate oversight—to help to build a broader intelligence picture of suspected money laundering. This has been piloted through a programme known as the joint money laundering intelligence taskforce. In the 12 months from February 2015, the taskforce led directly to 11 arrests, the restraint of more than £500,000 and the identification of 1,700 bank accounts linked to suspected criminal activity. We want to build on the success of that work, by providing the clearest possible legal certainty that companies can share information for the purposes of preventing and detecting serious crime.

Part 1 chapter 3 will improve the ability of law enforcement agencies to recover the proceeds of crime. Existing legislation contains civil powers to confiscate cash, but criminals hold proceeds in other forms, as I said earlier, and we must adapt. The types of asset covered by the power are listed in the Bill, so that Parliament can properly scrutinise its potential use. We continue to consult operational partners on their requirements, and I expect that we will introduce a Government amendment to extend the list to include gambling slips and tokens, which are often used by organised criminals to launder their ill-gotten cash. I hope that such an amendment will attract cross-party support.

The rest of part 1 will extend existing POCA powers to a number of other organisations, including the Serious Fraud Office, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the Financial Conduct Authority. It will make a range of minor and technical amendments to POCA.

The first duty of any Government is to keep their citizens safe. The terrorist threat is real and is growing. If we are to combat that threat, we must cut off the funding streams that enable terrorist-related activity. The 2015 national risk assessment identified two key weaknesses in this area: the raising and moving of terrorist funds through vulnerabilities in the financial sector, including money service businesses and cash couriering; and the abuse of the charitable sector for terrorist purposes. To combat these issues, part 2 will make complementary changes to powers for terrorist finance cases, by mirroring many of the provisions in the Bill, such as those on SARs, disclosure orders and seizure and confiscation powers, so that they are also available for investigations into offences under the Terrorism Act 2000.

Part 3 will deliver on the Conservative manifesto commitment to make

“it a crime if companies fail to put in place measures to stop economic crime, such as tax evasion”.

At present, if an individual evades tax and that is criminally facilitated by those working for a company, the individual taxpayer will have committed a crime and those individuals facilitating it could also be prosecuted, but it is very difficult and often impossible to hold the corporate entity to account. That needs to change. That is why we are creating two new offences of corporate failure to prevent the criminal facilitation of tax evasion—one in relation to UK taxes; another in relation to taxes owed to other countries.

Tax evasion is wrong. It is a crime. It cannot be right that a business operating in the UK can escape criminal liability simply because a tax loss is suffered by another country rather than the UK. The new offence in relation to foreign taxes will be of particular benefit in tackling corporate facilitation of corruption in developing countries. HMRC has conducted two public consultations on these offences, including engagement with the private sector—banks, accountants and legal practices—and everyone is clear of the need to take responsibility for ensuring the highest possible standards of compliance in this area.

As I have said, tax evasion and corruption in the developing world are key contributors to global poverty. Those crimes are frequently facilitated by companies in other jurisdictions. We cannot abdicate our responsibility and leave solving this problem to other countries. The UK’s financial sector should lead on the disruption of tax evasion, money laundering and corruption. This measure will help to do just that.

The Government are committed to reducing the regulatory burden on business, which can make it harder for companies to focus on real risks. The measures in the Bill were developed in close partnership with law enforcement agencies and the regulated sector, including major financial institutions, as well as other key representatives.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

Although I support the Bill, does the Minister agree that there is no point in legislating if the agencies tasked with enforcing the legislation simply do not have the resources to do so? For example, since the creation of the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, as far as I am aware from talking to lawyers who work on white-collar crime practices, there has been no enforcement whatever. All of us who want to support the Bill would like to hear reassurance that there will be the resources to match the good intent.

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. In the past few months, I have visited regional organised crime units up and down the country, including in his region, and the NCA, and they all say that their barrier to getting further with some of these problems is not the resource issue; they all say that their barrier has been the ability to find the cash, see the cash and seize it. Those three things are incredibly important. We can put all the resources in the world into our law enforcement agencies, but if they do not have the powers to take back some of the stolen assets, it will not make a difference.

The thing that struck me coming into this job only a few months ago, although I thought I knew a bit about terrorism from my previous life, and what has absolutely shocked me is the weight and strength of organised crime across the United Kingdom. To see its depth, how it affects my community in the north-west and how close it comes to us all really takes my breath away. I am absolutely determined not only that the guys and girls at the top, the Mr Bigs, get sent to jail for as long as possible, but that those people who consider themselves a little removed from it—the facilitators, the white-collar smoothies who launder the money into property and so on—also face their time in court, because they are the people who contribute to the message that there is a permissive society and that it is okay to be associated with crime. They are the people who help the nasties to put a gloss on themselves.

That is what I am determined to do with the Bill. All Members should rest assured that I will use the Bill to try to build momentum in non-legislative areas—in the non-regulated sector. I want to ask the regulators of estate agents and accountants what they are doing to play their part. If we can change the powers here, if their members get into trouble, what are they going to do to hold their members to account? Legislation is only one part of this. I hope that everyone supports the Bill and that the message goes out that there is more to do and that we will make sure that those people who facilitate and think that they live on the edge of the crime know that we are coming after them.

Rights of EU Nationals

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the powerful speech of my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double). I, too, agree with the first part of the motion, because I certainly recognise and appreciate the contributions that workers from the EU have made in this country. Some key businesses and public sector services—many hon. Members on both sides of the House have identified them in their own constituencies—are vitally served by EU workers. In my own constituency of Bexhill and Battle, where the proportion of older people is particularly high, none is more key than our care home sector, and we would be in a very difficult position without those EU workers. Of 35 care homes inspected, only nine were rated good, and the rest required improvement or were inadequate, so where would such homes be without key workers from the EU?

I maintain that during the past six years the Government have provided the economic base for many workers to come to Britain and make a great success of themselves. More jobs have been created in the UK during that period than in the rest of the EU put together. Those individuals have come here with great aspiration and a desire to work, as well as endeavour and enterprise. It is in their DNA, and it is certainly in the DNA of my party and my hon. Friends on the Government Benches. In that sense, we certainly do not need any lectures on our support for EU citizens.

I have concerns about the second part of the motion in reference to the future, and I therefore certainly cannot support it. As colleagues on the Government Benches have pointed out, there is a typo in the motion: it says “should” the UK exit the EU, rather than “when” it does so. I did not vote to leave the EU, but in my view, now that the decision has been made, we need to embrace the opportunity and get on with it.

I made this point earlier, but I find it frustrating that there are so many debates in this House about the pitfalls, that we are holding up Ministers and preventing them from getting on with the job and getting it done. There is a certain irony in my position. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) is chuckling. He, like me, was in Strasbourg last week, where we were working with our European partners, only for us to come back to the House for a debate about Europe. We could have been in Europe, making friends and building relationships, which would be a better use of our time.

During the last week of the referendum campaign, I visited 25 schools, and I visited another 10 during my own party conference. Teachers and, indeed, pupils consistently asked me questions about the right to remain, to which I made the point that in time, once this is settled, should we leave the EU, I would imagine that the right to remain will absolutely be honoured. I certainly hope that it will be.

I should point out that people who have been here for five years already have the right to remain. Indeed, by the time we exit the EU, those who have come here relatively recently will have reached that five-year point. I therefore find much of this debate slightly false.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. When constituents who are concerned and need reassuring come to my surgeries—3,000 eastern Europeans live in my constituency —I make the point he has just made. Five out of every six EU nationals living in this country either already have the right to remain or will have it by the time we leave the EU. The 2.9 million EU nationals living in the UK today have nothing to worry about.

[Huw Merriman]

My hon. Friend makes a fine point. Like me, he is a lawyer. I am not sure how many of the 1.2 million UK citizens resident in the EU have the same right. To support those 1.2 million people, it is even more imperative to ensure that they have the same right to remain as the five out of six EU citizens working here to whom he refers.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) pointed out that no Government Members—indeed, this does not seem to be debated at all, except on Opposition motions—are calling for any rights to remain in the UK to be rescinded. Nobody on our Benches is using the words “bargaining chips”. I point that out because the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), whose speech I listened to carefully, used those words about five times. Such rhetoric is coming from SNP Members, not those on this side of the House. I ask Opposition Members to be a little more responsible with their language, because that sort of language is not being used by those of us on the Government Benches. We absolutely must ensure that we serve the rights of those from EU member states working in the UK, but we must give equal priority to serving those people from the UK living in the EU. I hope that the official Opposition and the SNP will start to talk in the same language and even things up.

In the minute remaining to me, I want to caution against using the EU referendum result in the separate debate on immigration. I recognise that 52% of the country voted to leave the EU, but nowhere within that was there a definitive mandate for curbing or controlling immigration. I know that many people—including colleagues on the Government Benches—will say that the immigration debate was implicit in the referendum, but from my perspective, all we know is that 52% of the UK voted to leave, so 48% voted to remain, and nothing more. Similarly, we do not know that a large chunk of the 52% were duped into voting to leave the EU; we know only that we are leaving, and that is that.

In a recent YouGov poll, two thirds of people stated that they wanted to see immigration reduced, somewhat busting my argument. However, when asked how much they would pay personally for it to be reduced, about the same amount said zero, and therefore that they would be willing to have the same number of immigrants in this country. I add that purely as a note of caution. I recognise that we are leaving the EU, but I return to my real passion for making sure that we protect the EU workers who have come this country and that we do not use the referendum as anything other than a decision to leave the EU.

Terrorist Attack: Nice

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. He is absolutely right that the terror threat level is already at severe, and that we must all be vigilant. We will continue to take that approach until we have any other information to the contrary, but our current status, given that so many people want to do us harm, is that we must be vigilant.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

Once upon a time, it was useful to refer to lone wolves—individuals who would attack without any institutional support. Does my right hon. Friend agree that such people do not exist today? Due to the internet and online radicalisation, behind every lone wolf is a pack of wolves supporting them online. Will she make it a priority as Home Secretary to tackle online radicalisation so that we can be better protected in the future?

[Amber Rudd]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A theme is emerging of many Members asking questions about the radicalisation of people through the internet. I will indeed ensure that we put extra effort into tackling that and keeping it under review, and that we take down the relevant websites as often as possible.

EU Nationals in the UK

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

In the absence of the Home Secretary, somebody needs to provide some leadership, don’t they? Somebody needs to meet the community groups that are worried about the current situation. I hope that the Minister is listening to what my hon. Friend has just said, because the sheer lack of any direction at the moment is causing real difficulties on the streets of her constituency, mine and others.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

With 3,500 eastern European citizens living in my constituency, I have a huge amount of sympathy for this motion. However, with respect, the Home Secretary’s position is simply that this issue requires a degree of consideration before proceeding. What is the right hon. Gentleman’s position? Is it to give all the European citizens living in this country indefinite leave to remain tomorrow? Is it to make them British citizens? Surely this requires a degree of consideration.

[Andy Burnham]

That is precisely my position. Those people came here when they were legally entitled to do so and are contributing to our society. Absolutely, they should be allowed to stay. I am amazed that that is not the hon. Gentleman’s position as well.

The clearest explanation of the Government’s position came from the Minister for Immigration on Monday:

“It has been suggested that the Government could now fully guarantee EU nationals…the right to stay, but that would be unwise without a parallel assurance from European Governments regarding British nationals living in their countries”.—[Official Report, 4 July 2016; Vol. 612, c. 607.]

I want to take the House through the logic of that position and what it means in practice. Effectively, the Government are saying that if, in the course of negotiations, Britain was unable to secure the rights of British nationals living abroad, it would consider sending home EU nationals in retaliation. Let me put it another way: the Government are willing to put the lives of millions of people living here in limbo, and also the lives of their dependants, to secure the position of people who have chosen to make their life elsewhere. How can that be right? I have to say to the Government that this is not good enough.

Yesterday, we had an expansion on the Government’s position from a spokesperson, who said this:

“At last night’s meeting of the 1922 committee Theresa was very clear about the position of EU nationals in Britain, and argued that it was equally important to consider the rights of British nationals living abroad”.

I am all in favour of the UK Government doing all they can to secure the rights of UK nationals living in the rest of Europe, but it should not be at the expense of the security of families who are living, working and paying taxes here. The effect of this position is to prioritise British nationals living abroad at the expense of those living here, and I cannot defend that. I would argue that the best way for our Government to strengthen the position of British nationals living abroad is to make a decisive unilateral move now to secure the rights of those from other countries who are living here. Surely that would build the trust and good will that have been sorely lacking in the aftermath of the Brexit vote.

There is no reason at all why this issue needs to get mixed up in the negotiations with Europe. It was this Government’s decision to make these 3 million people an issue in the negotiations, and it is entirely within the gift of the UK Government to remove this uncertainty today and commit to changing the immigration rules. Although I understand the Minister’s argument that giving status to anyone who is already here before the UK formally leaves the UK could be an incentive for others to come here, he could easily fix that by making it clear that those with the right to stay have to have been resident in this country before 23 June, referendum day. It is very simple; a national insurance number would prove it. According to international convention, people should not have their rights retrospectively eroded. Does it not follow that people who have made a life here, which was perfectly legal for them to do, should not have the rug pulled from underneath them?

There is another more serious implication of the failure to take away the uncertainty. It will create the conditions for the climate of hostility that we have seen since the referendum to continue, and with it the potential for abuse and violence. That is not something that any Home Secretary or Home Office Minister should put his or her name to. If the Government’s formal position is that they might in due course ask people to go home, it can only give encouragement to those who wish to stir up division and hatred in our communities.

UK Citizens Returning From Fighting Daesh

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting this debate, and to so many right hon. and hon. Members for expressing an interest in it. I am particularly honoured that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) will respond to the debate for the Government. I know that the nation sleeps more soundly and sweetly in the knowledge that he is our Minister for Security.

This question is not a new one. We have grappled with how to view and respond to our fellow citizens who go abroad to fight in foreign wars. They did so not for money, as mercenaries, but because they believed that was the right thing to do, and they joined the side of the conflict that at least ostensibly—and certainly, for those unversed in the complexities of an individual conflict—held widespread public support. That side was viewed by many, perhaps at times the majority, as the right side, or as, in one way or another, Britain’s ally. Some 50,000 English, Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish fought in the American civil war, and several thousand fought in the Spanish civil war, as was memorialised by George Orwell. More recently, dozens of British volunteers joined Croatian units during the Yugoslav wars between 1991 and 1995.

After the experience of the American civil war, Parliament passed the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870, which prevents Britons from enlisting in a foreign army that is at war with a state currently at peace with the United Kingdom. However, that Act has never been properly enforced. It was, and it remains to this day, extremely difficult to monitor and to prosecute such an offence. Those returning from the Spanish civil war frequently expected to be given a hero’s welcome; in fact, they were invariably treated with suspicion by the police. They faced workplace discrimination, and many were even prevented from enlisting during the second world war.

Today, many—perhaps hundreds; I do not have an authoritative estimate, but perhaps the Minister will give us one in a moment—British citizens have travelled to northern Iraq, and from there into Syria. They have trained with Kurdish forces and militias and, ultimately, fought on the frontline against Daesh, in some cases in the fiercest fighting that there has been in this conflict, at Sinjar and Kobane.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate about a very interesting issue. Many people who went to the middle east to fight on the allied side—the side that the Government are supporting—checked with their own police forces and Government officials to let them know that they were going, and they were allowed to go, but when they returned, some were arrested, questioned and detained. Is there not something wrong when someone checks to see whether it is all right to go but then is arrested on their return? Why should that be?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Gentleman gets to the point of the debate and I will return to that issue in a moment. The Government and the country need a clear and consistent policy. If we let individuals go, why should we arrest them for terrorism on their return?

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I applaud my hon. Friend for securing this debate. The opposite happened in my constituency. Anthony Harrison, a constituent, went to Iraq and fought with the Kurdish YPG forces. When he returned to Heathrow, he expected to be stopped, but was not. He then went back to Gillingham and self-referred to the police. The first duty of the state is to protect its citizens. We should be checking those individuals who have gone out and come back, otherwise there is a real risk to our national security.

[Robert Jenrick]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. Whichever side of the argument we take—whether we are supporters of these individuals or have reservations—their stories suggest that there is no clear policy. Those stories do not give us great confidence in our border controls, as different individuals have clearly been treated in different ways.

A growing number of individuals have been profiled in the media. Some have even been on more than one tour, as it were. I have been in contact with 20 families, some of whom I will refer to this evening, including that of one of my own constituents, Aiden Aslin. Two Britons and an Irishman were arrested this weekend crossing back from Syria into northern Iraq, so this remains a topical issue. At least one British citizen, a former marine, Konstandinos Erik Scurfield from Barnsley, has been killed in action. The Foreign Office says that owing to the difficulties and the lack of consular services in the area, it is difficult to estimate whether more British citizens have been killed in action and what may have become of their bodies.

Behind every one of those individuals is a family. I have been in regular contact with my constituent Aiden’s mother, Angela, and his grandmother, Pamela, throughout his 10 months abroad. I cannot overstate their concern and anguish. Their initial thought was that one day they would turn on the television and see their son and grandson in an orange jacket. In their case, at least, there is also acceptance that their son and grandson took this extraordinary decision freely, in sound mind and good faith, because he could not continue to watch the atrocities on the television every night and turn a blind eye. I would not dare to generalise about the motives of all who have gone out there, but I have now met several, and they are brave and good people who deserve our respect and fair treatment under the law.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to seek a bit of advice about the highly unusual case of a UK citizen injured fighting the forces of Daesh whom I met in a refugee camp in France. He is leading a pretty miserable existence there because he refuses to abandon his wife and baby boy who had to flee Kurdistan, but are not entitled to seek asylum in the UK. The family do not meet the minimum income requirements for spouse visas, partly because of his injuries. How can we help this courageous UK citizen who fought our common enemy, Daesh, and get him and his family out of their miserable existence in the refugee camp in Europe and back here where he belongs?

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point; perhaps the Minister will respond to it later in the debate. I am pleased that other hon. Members have come across individuals who are in the same circumstances as people I have met.

These individuals are entering an exceptionally dangerous situation, and many are not at all prepared or suitable for these conflict zones. Some of the militias with which they wittingly or unwittingly become involved divide opinion sharply, and it is difficult for the layperson to navigate their record and legal status in the United Kingdom. Some of the groups have been accused of war crimes or association with terrorism. The diplomatic situation is complex, and things are becoming increasingly hostile towards those who are enlisting in Iraq and Turkey. It is exceptionally difficult to understand what citizens have done while in the field and who they have associated with, or to predict with complete confidence how they will behave on their return.

I start with the premise that although we acknowledge people’s bravery and seek fair and appropriate treatment, we should as far as possible discourage and inhibit British citizens from going out in the first place, particularly if we plan to arrest some of them under the Terrorism Act 2000 when they return. Several militias operate in the region, but the principal group recruiting British citizens that I have come across is the YPG, or its foreign fighters organisation, the Lions of Rojava, which has a Facebook account and is easily contactable online.

My constituent, who had no prior knowledge of the region, was able to carry out a Google search, to make contact and to organise his travel at low cost and with great ease. As far as I know—perhaps the Minister will comment on this—the Home Office and internet providers have made no effort to close down such sites as they might for those that encourage the recruitment of British citizens to fight on the other side. Many of those recruited are making rational choices, and it is not my intention to imply otherwise or discredit them, but there is clear evidence that some are far less equipped than others to make these decisions, such as a 19-year-old man who previously worked as a florist in Manchester and had never left the United Kingdom in his life, a young man with Asperger’s, and a British citizen who had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and had previously tried to take his own life three times. Journalists in the field to whom I have spoken have reported being contacted on numerous occasions by former servicemen who are asking for ways to return to Iraq to finish the job and to support the Iraqi and Syrian people, particularly in the name of their fallen comrades who gave their lives in the Iraq and Afghan wars.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on initiating this excellent debate, and he is right that we must try to prevent people from going out there in the first place. What more does he think that internet companies should do to bring down these sites as soon as possible? At the moment, the referral process takes too long.

[Robert Jenrick]

I completely concur with the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. It is important that Facebook and others take down not only sites that are actively recruiting British citizens to fight for IS, but sites that might be preying on naive and vulnerable Britons who, in their eyes, have decided to do the right thing, but are none the less getting themselves into grave danger.

Some of those individuals, particularly ex-servicemen and women, would be advised not to go to the conflict zone. Few questions are asked by the recruiters and no military experience is required. Health is never checked, and many if not most people arrive at airports such as Sulaymaniyah completely in the dark about what they should expect. They could be kidnapped and held to ransom—who knows?

[Rehman Chishti]

My hon. Friend says that health is never checked when people go out, but given the trauma that people may have suffered on the battlefield, their state of mind needs to be checked when they come back if we are to consider security, because such people may inadvertently get drawn into other criminal activity.

[Robert Jenrick]

The short answer is that very little support is offered to returning individuals. Indeed, my research suggests that the vast majority of people are not even questioned by the police or security services on their return.

Many people going out have little knowledge of the principal militias such as the YPG. My purpose tonight is not to besmirch the YPG, but to point out that it divides opinion and that many if not most Britons who go out have no real knowledge of that group or the accusations against it. Amnesty International has accused the YPG of war crimes.

The Turkish Government believe, rightly or wrongly, that this is an offshoot of the PKK, which is of course a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK and the USA. Recent reports suggest that some foreign fighters have left the YPG in the field because of its views and joined other even more obscure militias such as the so-called “self-sacrifice” group, which operates in the Nineveh region.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman should be congratulated on securing this debate. Having said that, I have been listening to what he has been saying and I wonder how he would regard ex-British servicemen who fight alongside the Kurds? Is it not an interesting question to ask what happens to them when they return?

--- Later in debate ---

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Charlie Elphicke.)

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, showing the complexity of the situation. As I understand it, the Kurdish army, the peshmerga, has said that, as a result of direct representations by the US Government, it is no longer recruiting foreign fighters, but militias are different and continue to recruit foreign volunteers. Some of these groups use a language of martyrdom that is not altogether dissimilar from that of the people they are fighting against, which certainly makes me extremely uncomfortable.

The position of British citizens in the field has become even more complex recently because it appears that Turkey has applied pressure on Iraq to take action against the YPG and foreign fighters because of its links to the PKK and the Kurds. The two Britons and an Irishman arrested over the weekend were detained by the Iraqi Government due to “visa irregularities”, which seems a fairly spurious reason for arrest, given that there is no working Iraqi-Syrian border. It none the less suggests that, given our limited consular services in northern Iraq, British citizens are getting themselves into a complex and dangerous situation. British citizens should be discouraged from going out. The sites should be taken down and the Government should, behind the scenes, persuade the Kurdish authorities to keep British citizens out of the conflict. The peshmerga are no longer accepting foreign volunteers, as I say, but the militias certainly are.

Why are individuals not being prevented from travelling when they openly inform officers of their intentions at the airport, as my constituent did, when these immigration and security officials should surely know that these individuals are likely to be arrested on their return? If British citizens are to be arrested under the Terrorism Act, why are we waving them through immigration and on to their planes? That is perverse and unjust to those individuals.

Let me turn briefly to how we treat these individuals on their return. Of the 20 I have spoken with or their families, two were arrested under the Terrorism Act; four were questioned, but not arrested; 14 came and went at will, unquestioned, three of whom have been on a second or third tour of duty overseas. That does not give me a great deal of confidence in our border controls.

[Rehman Chishti]

My hon. Friend talks about people being stopped and questioned by the police. I have a letter here from the Minister in the other place who is responsible for tackling extremism, which states that the stopping and questioning of these individuals is an operational matter for the police, but surely we need guidance for each case from the Government rather than having issue after issue being looked at by the police.

[Robert Jenrick]

I could not agree more.

I do not know whether this is a representative sample, so perhaps the Minister will tell us in his remarks how many British citizens have been arrested in these circumstances, but it is clear that there is not a consistent approach. Much, as my hon. Friend has just said, is left to individual police forces. My own police force in Nottinghamshire arrested my constituent on his plane and took him for brief questioning, yet he has awaited news of whether he is to be charged for the past 12 weeks. The outcome has now been postponed once again. I am told that the Crown Prosecution Service has not been given the file or been asked for its advice.

Do police forces know how to handle this situation? Some treat these individuals and their families in exactly the same way and in the same circumstances as they would for those fighting for Daesh, which is particularly rough on the families and loved ones, whose homes are searched and computers taken while neighbours watch on through twitching curtains. Others may well chose not to get involved as some individuals have been in the press, but are never troubled by the police.

Clearly, individuals need to be questioned; we need to understand what they have done. I can appreciate, as the Minister may argue, that a single mistake or an individual wrongly assumed to be fighting on the other side who then returns home and commits a terrorist act, is a risk that we cannot bear. However, I suggest that we should exercise caution before arresting individuals, because that will remain on their records for the rest of their lives. If we do arrest them, it should be done consistently, and police forces should be equipped with guidance so that people like my constituent are not left in limbo for months and months while they decide what to do.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will give way one last time.

[Kevin Foster]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing a debate that has proved quite interesting to me. He has described the complexity of a situation in which different militia groups—different forces—are fighting Daesh. Does he agree that guidance is needed because the task of any immigration or police officer who is presented with a case of this kind is to investigate crime rather than looking into international affairs?

[Robert Jenrick]

That is absolutely true. This is an unenviable task for anyone who is involved in such investigations.

I do not pretend to have the answers, but let me draw the attention of the House and the Minister to an issue that I think needs careful thought. Given the existence of social media and cheap international flights, it has never been easier for individuals to make contact, to be recruited, and to travel to conflict zones. It might be thought that in this modern age when we are all mollycoddled, people would not dream of doing something of this kind, but people are doing it, and it is becoming easier and easier to do.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is essential for the Government and law enforcement agencies to send the clear, consistent and credible message that those who decide to go abroad and risk their lives run a very real risk of prosecution when they return? Would that not constitute a powerful disincentive?

[Robert Jenrick]

I could not agree more.

Most of these individuals—certainly most of those whom I have met—are doing this for what they believe to be good reasons. Most are braver men and women than you or I. However, doing this carries great risks, beyond the risk of being killed, captured or ransomed: the risks involved in being caught fighting with a group that is viewed by some as a terrorist organisation. Even if it is not, people will still be arrested, and that will remain on their records for the rest of their lives.

The Government need a considered and consistent policy, which they do not appear to have today. They need a policy that discourages British citizens from taking such risks, which ensures that, whenever possible, they are advised of their likely legal status on their return, and which, above all, treats these brave men fairly and appropriately when they do come home.

Litvinenko Inquiry

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

We are very clear that we want to ensure that those responsible for the murder are brought to justice. That is why, as I have indicated, every effort is being made in relation to the two individuals named in the report as having conducted the act here in London. The investigation is ongoing and every effort is being made to ensure that they can be arrested and brought to justice here in the UK.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

I, too, was struck by the reported final words of Mr Litvinenko to his son, Anatoly. What an assured and articulate man he has grown into, as we saw on the TV recently. To repay the confidence of Mr Litvinenko in this country, may I ask the Home Secretary to go further? In particular, will she respond in detail to Mrs Litvinenko’s request regarding the additional names she has prepared with Ben Emmerson, and whether those individuals should be banned and sanctions taken against them?

[Mrs May]

I echo my hon. Friend’s comments about Anatoly Litvinenko. His demeanour in the interview on television last night showed a fine young man who has grown up in this country against a background of very difficult circumstances, given what happened to his father. As I indicated earlier to the shadow Home Secretary, I would be happy to meet Marina and Anatoly Litvinenko. Obviously, that would provide an opportunity to discuss the matters my hon. Friend raises.

Paris Terrorist Attacks

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I join the hon. Lady in commending her constituent Michael O’Connor for the action that he took. It is unimaginable to have been in that situation, with the shots all around and so many people being killed; the presence of mind that he showed was considerable. As the hon. Lady said, it saved two lives.

I can confirm that the support available to British nationals who have been caught up in this extends to those who are temporarily resident in France.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

I share my right hon. Friend’s gratitude to our intelligence and security services, but as long as Schengen continues—and I hope that the British Government are actively advocating reform and the end of Schengen, to the extent that that is possible—our security will depend, at least in part, on those on the front line of Europe. What support are the Government giving the intelligence and security agencies on the front-line extremities of Europe to beef up our own security?

[Mrs May]

As I have said in reply to a number of Members on both sides of the House, the internal borders of Schengen are primarily a matter for the countries that are in Schengen, but the United Kingdom takes very seriously the question of the external borders of the European Union. We have been working to enhance the security of those external borders by, for example, encouraging the proper registration of migrants who are crossing them. We have also supplied resources to Greece in particular, but we have offered resources to Italy as well, to help those countries to deal with the numbers of people crossing the borders, as part of the process of strengthening the security at the external borders, which, as my hon. Friend said, is so important to us.