Leaving the EU: UK Language Schools

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the impact of the UK’s departure from the EU on language schools in the UK.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Nokes. It is that time of year again when in seaside towns or big cities, the traditional sight of be-rucksacked groups dressed in fashionable attire—often pastel colours—descending on the streets is common.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)]

There are loads in Torbay.

[Dr Huq]

There are loads in Ealing as well, although a lot less than there used to be. Local householders—as the Minister will know as a local—also get leaflets through the door asking for a spare room or two, saying there are posts going as host families and promising pretty decent money. The reason for all that is English language teaching and English language schools. It is a phenomenon that peaks in the summer months. They offer an all-round experience, typically to teenagers, for a number of weeks. Students get the full immersion: an English breakfast with a typical English family, English lessons during the day, perhaps a spot of early evening work as a barista or pulling pints before dinner en famille and then a bit of sightseeing and cultural programme built in as well—maybe visiting London, Oxford and Southend.

Either side of the weekend I have had an insight into that subculture. I visited two English language schools in Ealing: Edwards Language School and West London English School. They tell me that the two weeks from now are set to be the busiest of the year for them. However, the story is mixed. At WLES, where I was yesterday, I saw multiple classes. It has outgrown the couple of rooms it takes in an office block on Uxbridge Road. Edwards Language School is in a large Victorian house on the same road—although the road is called something else at that point. It used to span two houses, but it is in one now. It has halved in size. The school was set up by lecturers from the University of West London, which is also in my constituency, 30 years ago. It then got swallowed up by a chain, and that chain’s operations in Brighton have not survived.

I keep saying what used to be because although in 2019, the sector’s last normal year of trading, there were 550,000 students, half of them under 18, contributing £1.4 billion into the UK economy, supporting 35,000 jobs and underpinning the wider £20 billion education market, it feels dangerously at risk of decline because of the end of freedom of movement and visa changes. After I spoke to the trade body English UK, and exchanged emails with the Association of British Travel Agents, the Tourism Alliance and the British Educational Travel Association—they have all been falling over themselves to brief me for this short debate—some startling figures emerged.

The BETA says that between 2019 and 2022 the number of student groups coming from the EU dropped by 84%. In Ealing, not that long ago, I would have had a choice of five different schools to visit and sample, but two of them—one had been there since 1980—have completely bitten the dust. A third exists on paper as an online operation, leaving only its Wimbledon branch; the Ealing branch has gone.

For context, while West London College, which has an Ealing campus, offers some English language teaching, and some universities offer it too, the bulk of the provision locally and across the country comes from private businesses. That means they have sometimes been viewed with suspicion, although the British Council accreditation—the regulatory framework that they have to go through—is among the most stringent in the world. To attain trusted status is not cheap either; it weighs in at £20,000.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

rose—

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

rose—

[Dr Huq]

The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) was first.

[Wera Hobhouse]

As a former language teacher in a secondary school, I take a huge personal interest in the subject. Language schools are an important part of Bath’s rich tourism industry, which depends on language schools and young people visiting, so it is important to address that issue with the Minister. Does the hon. Lady agree that the passport requirement for each individual student creates a barrier? We need to ask for a new youth travel scheme or collective passports to overcome some of the barriers for such fantastic businesses in my constituency. Without them, we could see the collapse of that industry.

[Dr Huq]

The hon. Lady, who is from the lovely city of Bath and is a polyglot herself, is completely right. When I was a kid in 1984, we did a trip to Le Touquet on a group passport of that nature. The teacher had it and everyone was waved through. I think the kid with slightly dodgy status ducked at the moment when we did the headcount—I am only revealing this now. The hon. Lady is right that we have to find a solution. The majority of European kids under 18 do not have passports, because they travel on ID cards. The Government have said that they will not budge, so that would be a sensible solution. I think Jim Shannon wanted to intervene next.

[Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)]

Order. Can we not use colleagues’ names, please?

[Dr Huq]

My apologies: I think the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) wanted to intervene next.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady for bringing the debate forward. Does she agree—I think she does—that there is undoubtedly work to do to highlight the benefits of learning English and other languages in the superior schools that we have? Consideration must be given to fast-track visas and discounted fees, which may be a necessary push to make that happen and to bring about what she is trying to achieve.

[Dr Huq]

I completely concur with the hon. Member. We have all heard about the backlog—perhaps the Minister will talk about it—of people waiting to get passports at this time of year when they want to go on holiday. The laborious, ponderous hoops that people have to jump through seem a bit too much, compared with what used to be a relatively simple thing when we had freedom of movement.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I would point out that the groups do not just come to England; they also come to Wales and other parts of the United Kingdom, including to Peartree Languages in my constituency. During the Brexit debate, I do not remember a slogan on the side of a bus saying, “Vote Brexit to stop all these schoolchildren absconding when they come to visit our language schools, castles, museums and other tourist attractions.”

My fear and that of other members of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, including my hon. Friend, is that this has become an ideological issue about Brexit and immigration, when it has absolutely nothing to do with that. There is no problem with under-18s absconding when they come, so the Government and the Minister, who is a reasonable person, should look again at this and let schoolchildren come as they always have done—in a group, using their ID cards, with a responsible adult or adults with their passports. That would not undermine the stance on freedom of movement or our immigration system, but it might help our tourism sector and language school sector, which are begging for action from the Government, because the woods are burning out there and they are doing nothing about it.

[Dr Huq]

My hon. Friend is so right. He is from a capital city; I mentioned cities at the beginning. I understand that the number of language schools in Cardiff has boomed from a small number a decade ago, but they are in jeopardy now. We are meant to be going for global Britain, so, as he said, shrivelling up and putting the barriers up seems completely wrong. We should enable students to study these languages on our shores, not the complete opposite, which is what seems to be happening. That may be an unintended consequence, but I know the Minister is a reasonable man. When I come to my list of demands, I hope that he will see sense.

The fact that we had a global pandemic that nobody foresaw means that it is difficult to disentangle what was Brexit and what was covid, but a bit of Brexit-proofing would not go amiss. Surveys done by English UK show that the ID card issue is a major factor. We should of course be proud of the English language; it is our greatest export, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) says, there is a danger of killing off the market for these schools, even though as recently as 2019, we had twice as many as any other English-speaking competitor country. The business operates on pretty tight margins. One school owner I spoke to said, “I’m paid the highest of everyone here, but I like doing this. I want to spread the English language. Money doesn’t matter to me.” However, we are in danger of losing this lucrative category of student to Ireland and Malta, even though they are both pretty tiny, have capacity issues, and actually cannot cope.

To be fair, I must admit that the sector suffered multiple hits long before Brexit. Ben Anderson, of the Edwards Language School, said:

“There were a tiny minority of visa shops in the 1990s created by the old Tier 4 visas. Gordon Brown ramped up regulation.”

So the problem did not start with Brexit—it started long ago—but all this stuff has been put on steroids with the end of freedom of movement. Further tightening occurred under the coalition: until about 2014, this long-time form of soft power became conflated with immigration targets to get net migration down to the tens of thousands, which were never achieved,.

Asif Musa of West London English School said:

“There was a problem and so a crackdown was needed, rightly private schools lost their licences but then UKVI went OTT”.

In 2012, London Metropolitan University temporarily lost its right to recruit international students from outside the EU because of, in the Government’s words, “serious, systematic failure” of its monitoring of its international student body. New checks were added on monitoring. The problem is conflating language students, who are temporary and have more in common with tourists, and cutting down on bogus net migration. The legacy of that whole period, which persists to today and has been added to by Brexit, is that there is now a presumption of guilt. As one of the school owners said, “Basically, it is as if they are looking to shut you down; they are looking to suspend your licence.”

There is a danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. English is indisputably the lingua franca of the world, so why are we creating unnecessary obstacles when a hungry young public are eager to take courses in English on our shores? VisitBritain, in 2020, found that language school students stay three times as long as the standard tourist and spend twice as much—crucially, in local communities, on accommodation, local transport, cafes and attractions. In “Everyday Is Like Sunday”, Morrissey sang about the seaside towns they forgot to close down. They used to have a bit of a “God’s waiting room” reputation, but many have been revitalised by this vibrant business, and rejuvenated by the youngsters coming in. I feel that we cannot just do nothing while the sector is hitting the rocks.

Ealing, in losing three out of five colleges, is not alone; The Guardian says that there are just seven out 20 left in Hastings. The Minister, I am sure, shares my concern that both LAL Torbay and the Devon School of English have closed their doors. They are no more; their websites say they are permanently closed. While some post-covid recovery is under way, English UK reckons that by the end of this year, we will be at 40% to 60% of pre-pandemic volumes, but that is after an average 88% decline in student numbers over the past two years. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West and I are on the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, and we know that that is far worse an outcome than for any other type of tourism, with £590 million of lost revenue on 2021.

I talked about one school that looked like it was booming yesterday, but a lot of that is courses left over from 2020 that could not be taken and are now being realised. West London English School calls it pent-up demand because they honoured all courses, whereas I think other schools gave vouchers, which turned out to be pretty meaningless. As I said, these schools operate on tight margins—one of them said they were “almost non-existent”. Of those that have not gone under, many are crippled by debt. That is a shame when the power of English throughout the world is an inestimable good and a key component of soft power. Those attending UK language schools, often as children or adolescents, are much more likely to go to a UK university. I know from working in universities that we were always encouraged to get overseas students with their lucrative fees. Language schools are a linchpin of an important pipeline, which is coming under strain. At one end are school exchange visits that might see oversees students go into one of these schools; at the other end, they return for higher education. It should be noted that 57 of our current world leaders have studied at UK universities, and there is often a language component there.

The pipeline of host families is also under pressure. The cost of living makes the £200 to £250 a week per student, which used to be good money, go less far. I am told that in Ealing there used to be established residents who could be relied on, but now that houses change hands for £2 million, the new generation of homeowners is a bit befuddled at why anyone would want kids in their face. There are also things like Airbnb which are less intrusive.

What has Brexit got to do with it? I have a list of three main recommendations that I would like the Minister to take away. Enabling ID card travel is not happening, as we have heard. Ninety per cent. of under-18s in mainland Europe travel using only their ID. What about the idea mentioned by the hon. Member for Bath—the group travel option, with a group leader in charge of the rest? There is no risk that these people would abscond; they did not with the previous EU list of travellers option. We could try youth mobility schemes. The Government already have bilateral deals with New Zealand, Australia, the USA, Japan, South Korea, Canada, and others; they could sign deals with EU countries—the big ones, such as France, Germany and Italy. It can be done; I can supply the Minister with the paperwork.

I do not know if the Minister has seen in today’s Standard that our hospitality sector has loads of vacancies. Traditionally, part of the experience for oversees students was for the adult, non-minor students to spend about 10 hours a week pulling pints, as part of their immersion. These are valuable work and life skills. Limited work rights should be loosened up. People used to be able to do this as university students. Seventy-five per cent. of all English language teaching business in the UK is conducted in the summer bulge months of June to August. That is when these seasonal vacancies need to be filled. It has been done for fruit picking; it is something that the Minister could do here too.

[Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind the hon. Member that she will want to give the Minister time to respond.

[Dr Huq]

Okay. Minister, I had a bit more, which I will try to cover in a couple of sentences.

The other thing that worries me is that this hostile environment has prevailed at other levels, too. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West said, there is no danger of 11-year-olds absconding and becoming minicab drivers in Eastbourne, so there is no need for Border Force to treat them as risks, yet there seems to be a presumption that everyone is a criminal. Sometimes people are asked at the border to provide means for their stay, and they have an all-inclusive package with meals.

The last time this sector lobbied MPs, the discussion was about coronavirus. The Government acceded to the additional relief fund, so I am hoping they can do it again. Ealing Council has administered loads; I get praised for it. The Minister cannot do anything about the cost of living and business rates, so I will leave those out of it, but let us have a concerted effort to improve our visa regime to eliminate the xenophobic attitudes towards oversees students. There were two really horrible incidents in Canterbury and Cambridge in 2019, at the height of the papers saying that MPs were not allowing Brexit to happen. We need to have a better climate. After all, we want levelling up, global Britain, Brexit opportunities, and this is a lucrative sector that includes all of those. What is not to like?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)]

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. I thank the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) for securing the debate. This is a subject that I have a strong personal interest in, as my Torbay constituency is home to several excellent English language schools. The Government and I therefore fully appreciate the important contribution they make to the economy and the cultural value of all educational visits and exchanges between the UK and other nations.

I suggest from my own experiences that simply focusing on language schools and the issues raised today misses the range of factors that affect the sector. I noticed that the hon. Member referred in her opening speech to institutions that have closed in my constituency. I am not sure whether she is a regular reader of our newspaper Herald Express. Sadly, one language school closed down following a significant fraud involving one of its employees, which has been well publicised, and another building is hosting a local state school. Looking at things in isolation and then drawing conclusions from them may not be the best approach to this type of debate, without the local knowledge that a constituency Member of Parliament has.

[Dr Huq]

There may be bad apples out there, but that does not detract from the fact that during the votes my hon. Friends the Members for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) and for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) were saying there has been a contraction in numbers. There is a problem—let us not ignore that.

[Kevin Foster]

Again, when we cite specific examples, we perhaps need to check them out first.

In terms of understanding the pressure on the visitor economy, we have ambitious plans for the improvement and digitalisation of our future border and immigration system, alongside its simplification to make the UK an increasingly attractive destination for visitors from around the world and to support our tourism and language teaching sectors. Reference was made to processing passports, but those coming to the UK to study on a language course—the hon. Member focused mostly on EEA nationals—would not be applying for a UK passport, so those would not have any impact either.

Ending the use of EU/EEA national identity cards was touched on several times, and we have moved to end their use at the border. It is worth noting, however, that some EU identity cards were among the least secure documents seen at our border, and until this policy was implemented, they absolutely dominated detection figures for document abuse at the border, with just under half of all false documents detected at the border being EEA identity cards. To deal with this oft-abused hole in our border security, since October 2021, EU, EEA and Swiss visitors, like all others entering the United Kingdom, have been required to have an individual passport.

[Dr Huq]

Will the Minister give way?

[Kevin Foster]

I will not continually give way, given that I have already had the time reduced for my reply as the intro was slightly longer than the normal 15 minutes. I will go through my next arguments, then perhaps I will have the chance to take some more interventions.

We provided a year’s notice for the change to allow people and groups in Europe to plan ahead and obtain passports before they travelled. The indications are that the change has been understood and complied with. I note that before the change, the vast majority of EU, EEA and Swiss citizens arriving in the UK were already using their passports. One of the biggest benefits of using a passport is that it enables people to use the e-passport gates available at many of our ports. To link directly to the debate, we are actively working to change the system to allow the minimum age for their use, which is 12, to be reduced. That has the welcome side effect of reducing queues at immigration desks on arrival by using a more automatic process, rather than people needing to be seen in person by a Border Force officer.

Looking at the issue in isolation misses the chance to look at some of the wider changes we are making to the immigration system, particularly in relation to this sector. I highlight our extension of the electronic visa waiver scheme to Saudi and Bahrani citizens. That simplifies and reduces the cost of the visa process by allowing them to obtain an online visa waiver, rather than going through the full visa application process. Put simply, instead of paying about £100 and going to a visa application centre, they pay £30 and apply from home. I know Saudi nationals have been regular customers of language schools in Torbay, so this measure will help the sector.

In 2021, directly linked to feedback from the language sector and universities, we changed the immigration rules, to allow for most short-term study activities to be included in the general visitor category, under which most tourists arrive in the UK, reflecting that much of this activity is more like tourism than coming to study a degree for three or four years. Now, non-visa national students coming for a course of study of up to six months do not need to apply for a separate short-term study visa, and visa nationals can simply apply for a visitor visa, or if they already hold one, arrive under a long-term visitor visa.

We are introducing a permission to travel requirement, which will eventually require everyone travelling to the UK, except British and Irish citizens, to seek permission in advance of travel. Those permissions will include electronic travel authorisation for passengers visiting the UK who do not need a visa for short stays, or do not have an immigration status prior to travelling. Similar systems are used by the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The EU is also planning on introducing its own system for the Schengen zone.

We recognise there will be challenges around electronic travel authorisation and a need to engage with sectors about how it will be used, just as many of those sectors already engage with the US electronic system for travel authorisation, but there are also clear benefits. The Government have announced that citizens of the Gulf Co-operation Council nations will, in 2023, be able to obtain an electronic travel authorisation rather than have to use the current electronic visa waiver, simplifying the process and making the UK a more attractive destination for them. To be clear, permission under the electronic travel authorisation will be similar to arriving as a non-visa national now, giving up to six months under the visitor route. That all links to our move towards increased automation.

We are clear that we have a global immigration system. We moved to end the use of the list of travellers system, which is an EU scheme allowing visa nationals to travel to another EU member state. It should be noticed that we provided a slightly longer grace period for people coming to the UK than was allowed for our residents travelling to Europe. That was an EU system and we have now moved towards a single global system.

There was some reference to collective passports. It is probably worth noting that we remain a signatory to the 1961 Council of Europe treaty, which provides for collective passports for young people. The Council of Europe is separate from the European Union. We continue to accept passports from those who have ratified the treaty, although it is worth noting that few countries other than the UK continue to issue them. A number of EU countries have declared that they will no longer accept UK collective passports. It is worth considering, with the EU’s European travel information and authorisation system and our ETA system coming in, how much longer travel documents based on a treaty that is now more than 60 years old will continue. That has to be seen alongside the various issues that can come with issuing collective passports. However, we continue to issue them for now.

I feel this debate was a slightly missed opportunity for a sector that plays a large part in the economy of my constituency and our country. By simply focusing on the Home Office and immigration requirements, we miss the range of factors that drive student choices to study, from the quality of the course to the types and quantity of accommodation available—something that I know is a challenge for language schools in my area. Many families have hosted in the past and more have come forward. It is again about how we move forward, for instance, to having dedicated student accommodation, particularly for those coming for a longer period, who will still use the short-term study visa if they are looking to study a language course of up to 11 months.

We must not send out unhelpful, inaccurate and counter-productive messages of it being hard to come here, when in reality our short-term study rules are some of the most generous globally, allowing up to six months’ study without applying for a separate visa to do that. I contrast that ability to be in the UK for up to 180 days, including doing a short English language course for up to 180 days, with the Schengen area’s 90 out of 180 days applying to non-visa nationals, or the US visa waiver system, which is 90 out of 180 days and a maximum stay of 90 days. Our system is much more generous.

That is driven by the type of open economy we want to have, and as we move forward with ETA, we expect slightly more countries to move to non-visa ETA national status, which will benefit the sector directly. I want to make it very clear that the rules on ID card use at our border will not be changing, but our generous short-term study offer will remain and that is what the focus of future debates should be.

Question put and agreed to.

Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is why the Department has been working overnight to secure the judgment so that we can give responses. It is right that we do so: there is no point in dragging the processes out, because, quite frankly, people will continue to die and people will continue to be smuggled. That is why we will continue with our policy of removals and deportations to third countries and safe countries. That is the right thing to do, because we have to strain every sinew to break up these smuggling gangs.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary claims that this policy will destroy the business model of the evil people traffickers. That sounds good, but when Israel adopted the identical policy, every single deported asylum seeker attempted to escape from Rwanda. Many did so successfully, straight into the arms of those same people smuggling rings. It fed the model rather than smashing it. When will the Home Secretary admit that that worked example of trialling the policy—a policy that has been slammed by royalty, clergy, the lot—shows that it is just immoral, expensive and unworkable?

[Priti Patel]

With all due respect to the hon. Lady, I disagree profoundly. This is not the same agreement as the country that she mentioned has in place with Rwanda; it is a migration and economic development partnership. We are investing in the people who will be removed to Rwanda; they will not only be housed and taken care of, but have the opportunity to rebuild their lives. That is fundamental to the Government of Rwanda and the resettlement policies that they already have successfully in place. The hon. Lady cannot compare this policy to any previous policy whatever. It is important that we continue with it so that we can not only demonstrate, in quarters, that it will work to break up the people smuggling model, but show that we can provide new opportunities in safe countries around the world.

Public Order Bill (Third sitting)

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Sarah Jones]

My point is that where the police needed to intervene at Greenham Common, they intervened. Where they needed to arrest and charge people, they arrested and charged people.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, and I am not quite sure what the previous intervention had to do with it. Is it not the point that, after the passage of time, people who were criminalised for what they did are now seen as valiant? Not far from here, there is a statute of Viscount Falkland in St Stephen’s Hall. The statue’s foot spur was broken off by suffragettes in, I think, 1912. At the time, that was a locking-on offence, because they attached themselves to the statue and the police took them away. The foot spur has never been replaced because it is part of our history, and we now see the suffragettes, the women at Greenham and the anti-apartheid protesters as valiant people who were on the right side of history. This clumsy offence gets it all wrong by getting heavy-handed at an early stage.

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Not all lockons are a criminal offence and nor should they be, but where people are locking on in a way that is dangerous and disruptive, that should be an offence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

No, but the point is that the clause will make such protesters think twice about their actions, because the offence that they are committing when charged is not necessarily vague.

[Dr Huq]

Will the Minister give way?

[Kit Malthouse]

Just a minute.

The clause creates a new offence of locking on that will be committed when an individual causes serious disruption by attaching either themselves or someone else to another individual, an object or to land, or attaching an object to another object or land. Their act must cause or be capable of causing serious disruption to an organisation or two or more individuals, and the person intends or is reckless as to that consequence. The offence carries a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment and an unlimited fine.

Referring only to the act of locking on rather than to the equipment used recognises that protesters deploy a wide range of equipment to lock on, from chains and bike locks to bespoke devices, and ensures that the offence will keep pace with evolving lock-on tactics. The offence can be committed on either public or private land, and that ensures that those who use that tactic in, say, an oil refinery do not evade arrest and prosecution for the offence. Furthermore, new stop and search powers that we will consider shortly will allow the police to take proactive action to prevent locking on in the first place, by seizing items that they believe will be used by protesters to lock on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

Clause 2 supports the new offence of locking on created by clause 1, and specifically it creates a new criminal offence of going equipped to lock on and cause, or risk causing, serious disruption. During fast-moving protest situations, the police need the power to proactively prevent individuals from locking on to roads, buildings and objects, as we heard powerfully from the operational police commander during our evidence sessions. Therefore, along with the associated stop-and-search powers, which the Committee will scrutinise later, the new offence will allow the police to prevent lock ons before they occur, taking punitive action against those who attempt to lock on and deterring others from considering doing so.

Much has been made of criminalising people who happen to be carrying everyday items such as bike locks—the hon. Member for Croydon Central raised that—near a protest. To be clear, that will not be the case; the offence will be committed only when someone is carrying an object with the intention that it may be used by themselves or someone else in the course of, or in connection with, committing a lock-on offence as defined in clause 1. The police will need reasonable grounds for suspicion to arrest someone for that offence. There is a clear difference between a person pushing a bicycle past a protest and a person walking purposefully towards a gate with a lock in hand.

As the hon. Member for North East Fife knows from her policing experience, the offence of going equipped is well used by the police in England and Wales, and indeed in Scotland, in the prevention of burglary. I have had individuals arrested in my constituency who were going equipped to commit a burglary, and I am not aware of a plethora of plumbers, carpenters or builders with vans full of tools being arrested in my constituency on the basis of their going equipped, or having the capability to break into my home. The police are well able to adduce intention—and often that is tested in court—in charging someone with going equipped.

As we heard most powerfully from the operational police commander in our evidence session, the ability to stop and search, which we will consider later, and the ability to charge with going equipped would allow the police to operate in a situation where there would be less infringement on people’s right to protest, rather than more. He was strongly supportive.

[Dr Huq]

I remind the Minister that it is not just the Opposition who think that the locking on offence and the offence of preparing to lock on is a crazy idea. The last time the matter was subject to a vote in the Lords it was defeated massively, in a vote of 163 to 216. Has he got any new arguments for them, because the offence of being equipped to lock will never make it to a vote? Is there not a definition of insanity that is repeating the same action and expecting a different result? That saying is attributed to Einstein. I just wonder what new arguments the Minister will pull out of the bag for the Lords.

[Kit Malthouse]

As I understand it, one of the main arguments used in the House of Lords to vote against the measures in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill was that they did not feel that the matters had been properly scrutinised by the House of Commons. Those measures were introduced as amendments in the Lords, and therefore would not have gone through Committee here. So here we are, listening to their advice and subjecting the measures to democratic scrutiny by a forensic Committee of which she is a part, in the hope that the House can now the support them. We can then signal to the Lords that the intention of the democratic House is to strengthen the police’s ability to deal with this difficult and dangerous tactic.

Anyone found guilty of the offences will face a maximum penalty of an unlimited fine. I commend the clause to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Ordered, That further consideration of the Bill be now adjourned.—(Scott Mann.)

Public Order Bill (Second sitting)

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 9th June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Mrs Elphicke]

Q I will start with Mr Parr. In terms of that level of disruption not being right, we have also seen eye-watering costs. I have some figures here. In 2019, Extinction Rebellion cost about £37 million, and at least £6 million was spent on just the policing costs alone. I appreciate all the comments that have been made about choices of policing and taking people from alternative policing duties. That is an enormous amount of resource that is going on this type of political activism, rather than on preventing and detecting serious crime. Part of that resetting is, obviously, ensuring that this has a deterrent effect and fills in some of those gaps. By filling in those gaps and giving greater clarity, will that help with this resetting and start some of that resetting of behaviour?

Matt Parr: We made that point in the report. There are certain things that probably would have a deterrent effect—the £37 million is something that we referred to. I think it is relevant. It is difficult to say that you cannot put a price on articles 10 and 11 and, of course, you are right. However, just for context, the two operations we looked at in London cost £37 million. That is twice the annual budget of the violent crime taskforce, so it does have a significant effect.

The other general observation I would make is that protest has been increasing and the complexity and demand on policing has increased. It does not seem likely to us that it will go in a different direction in the years to come, so something has to be done to prevent it becoming too much of a drain. Yes, I think that some of these act as a deterrent, of course. It rather depends on how they end up progressing through the courts—if, indeed, they are brought to court—and if it turns out that they are not meaningfully prosecuted and there are not meaningful convictions, any deterrent effect will pretty soon dissipate after that, I would have thought.

Sir Peter Martin Fahy: I would make the same point. Anything that could be put in the legislation to clarify the issue about “serious”, which absolutely could be some financial calculation, would be extremely useful. You have to remember that it was quite clear that the vast majority of people thought the Insulate Britain protests were extremely disruptive and pointless.

There are certainly some protests where you have two sides. Therefore, you will get pressure from one side to use this legislation, and we should not be naive about the pressure that police leaders come under from local politicians to do that. I will be honest: they were some of the most uncomfortable times in my police career when that happened. Therefore, having clarity about the legislation is really important, as is anything that can be put in to help that.

I do not know whether there is actually any evidence that people are deterred. Common sense says that some people will be deterred by harsher sentences and the threat of a conviction in court, but clearly some people are so determined, and have a certain lifestyle where it does not really have any consequence for them, that—if anything—it makes them martyrs. Certainly, as Matt said, if they are not convicted or get found not guilty, if anything that gives them a greater status as a martyr and leads to further criticism of the police.

Phil Dolby: I want to make a point on the precision of the legislation. When looking to consider stop and search without suspicion, I think no matter how hard you try, there will be a complete, solid line in the public discourse between that and section 60, which is the existing power to have targeted stop and search around violence principally. That is a tool that is being used increasingly with the challenges we are all facing around youth violence and knife crime. It is also something around which communities have not always necessarily experienced fair treatment.

With all that we are trying to do now, it is still a key point of discussion and, sometimes, contention. We have the community coming in and scrutinising how we have used it. They watch our body-worn video of what we tried to do. We have even got youth versions of that for young people. I do not know how you would do the same kind of thing with protest. I think there is something that needs to be done there. There is best practice advice on how to conduct stop and search, and I think there is potentially some real thinking if those go ahead to start with that position as opposed to learning those lessons as we go along.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Q We touched on what a protest is and also what serious disruption is. Some of these things have very vague boundaries. Peter, you mentioned the Sarah Everard case. For me, it was disappointing that the words “woman” or “women” are not in there at all. After the Sarah Everard vigil, I know you said it was all done by the book, but to the public it looked like very insensitive policing of the vigil. The reason it looked scandalous is that it was taken alongside all the other scandals with the Met police at the time, with that previous commissioner. The case itself is pretty horrific, and then there was the policing on the other side of it. What I wanted to ask you is whether serious disruption could be different for different people, and could it include psychological distress?

Sir Peter Martin Fahy: On your point about the Sarah Everard vigil, there is a question about what the difference is between a vigil and a protest, which is really critical for policing. Again, I would come back to that point: it did not really matter how legal or professional the police operation was. Because of that wider context, the public view of it is really clear.

Going back to what the chief superintendent said, you have to take into account absolutely the feelings of your local community. I would say that on things like this extension of stop and search, for me there would need to be a well-documented community impact assessment, where the police worked with other agencies and community groups to assess what the impact is going to be. I am not sure about the psychological impact. It is about the fact that this is how policing is judged now, and that is the risk.

I would bring in the issue of disruption orders. Anything that is about gathering intelligence is extremely problematic. Even if you go way back to the 1970s and the big scandal about undercover policing, that came from a desire to try to gather intelligence about protesters, and look where it got the police service. This is about what could be a group of people here organising a protest against a local road development and the police using the local council CCTV to try to show that, for instance, three people had met and a gentleman had put something on Facebook to bring about the protest. That is the form of intelligence gathering that I would suggest some of your constituents, if they were involved in something that was local and very emotional, would find extremely disturbing.

I think the police service has to be very careful about going down that route. Again, I think most people would say that we want the police to use intelligence gathering against serious criminals. It would need to be a very serious degree of public protest and disruption for the police to be using some of those tactics, in terms of the degree of trying to hold on to public confidence in law and police powers and tactics.

Matt Parr: As the person who conducted the study into that vigil, I was genuinely shocked. I had a team significantly composed of female senior police offers—mostly detectives or people with firearms backgrounds. Therefore, they had done relatively little public order in their careers. I found astonishing the look on their face at some of the evidence they saw from that night and the abuse that the police took. There was a very, very clear difference between an entirely well conducted and peaceful vigil that lasted until a certain time of the night, and the disorder that—

[Dr Huq]

That was what it looked like. It was like—

Matt Parr: Exactly. The vigil and the disorder that came after were two entirely different things. That is a significant point as well, of course, because we talked at the start about getting the resources and it is increasingly difficult, in many forces, to persuade people to volunteer to do public duty, for reasons of the social media aspect and also, frankly, because to do so means you will be on the receiving end of some real nastiness from certain—not all, by any means—members of the public.

When it comes to your wider point about how you take into account the seriousness and the psychological aspects and the presentational aspects, I think they are all absolutely relevant factors to take account of. One of our recommendations in the report was that police decision makers should be given better tools to be able to assess what serious disruption looks like. It cannot be as simple as financial cost; it has to be far more complex than that. At the moment, we have seen a number of cases where senior decision makers had clearly been left floundering by not understanding the nature of the disruption that was likely to be a consequence of a particular protest and therefore they shrank from making sensible decisions. Better tools for understanding when the thresholds for the nature of disruption have been crossed strike me as an essential part of this.

Phil Dolby: There is a sense in which we are always doomed to look like we are failing in some of these incidents—even though the right thing may have been done—because we are the ones in uniform, with personal protective equipment that makes us look quite tough. You have a passive protester, for example, or somebody at a vigil. Say it is an older person. To safely take that person away requires five officers—to take a corner each and the head. The newspaper photograph of that looks like a lovely old person being taken away by five militaristic-looking police officers. They are actually doing that because that is the duty of care they have—to safely remove that person who will not move. The reporting is usually of a very solid moment.

Something that could be interesting relates to the body-worn devices that we currently have, which we are using to invite the public to come after the fact and see how we have done and give us learning points and their views, particularly from communities that we have not necessarily always got the correct engagement with. The next generation of these will be live, and there might be some instances where we would invite affected members of the community in to watch what we are doing and give us live-time feedback. That will not necessarily always change decision making, but it is another part of the decision-making model to say, “Well, actually, that community impact we are describing”—

[Dr Huq]

The other reason—

[The Chair]

We are very tight for time, so I am going to Tom Hunt.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Ms Needleman, would you like to comment?

Stephanie Needleman: Sorry; I could not hear very well. Were you asking me whether I wanted to comment?

[Dr Huq]

Can I ask a question? It is my amendment.

[The Chair]

Order. I am going to come to you, Dr Huq, but I will decide who speaks and when. The Minister is currently speaking, and we are asking Ms Needleman, who is joining us by Zoom, whether she wishes to give a response.

Stephanie Needleman: I do not think I have that much to add—Justice, as an organisation, does not have a formal position on this—but I agree in terms of protecting the rights of women to access abortion services, obviously, and that should be done in a way that does not infringe the right to protest. The right to protest is not an unlimited right, so there is scope to do something, but it needs to be limited so that it is within the bounds of articles 10 and 11.

Olly Sprague: We agree totally with that. In general, we would take a very dim view of the idea of protest buffer zones, unless there are exceptionally good reasons. We would be looking at things like drawing on existing regulations around incitement to hatred and privacy rights—those sorts of things. A way of protecting rights on both sides would be seen as important. As Martha said, what mitigation could be allowed to make sure that one right does not overshadow the other, if that makes sense? But, obviously, this is an incredibly sensitive and difficult area.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Dr Huq, you can have your say now.

[Dr Huq]

Q Sorry, I just thought that, seeing as it is my amendment, I could explain what it proposes, rather than being ventriloquised by the Minister.

The distance need not be 150 metres. We just took that from Ealing, because that is where the main road is, so then it is not in the eyeline. But it again comes back to this question of what is a vigil—those people would say they are doing a prayer vigil—what is a protest and what is harassment. In the eyes of the woman who is going in for a traumatic procedure, it feels like that, and it can be psychologically distressing. The French legislation allows for psychological distress to be considered.

Is there a right to privacy as well? I ask that because the London Borough of Ealing has acted under local authority powers, and only three local authorities in the whole country have done so since 2018, because the process is too onerous. Every time a case has gone to the High Court, the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court, the privacy of the person having their procedure has trumped freedom of thought, expression, conscience, belief—all that stuff. I just wondered where the three of you stand on that. Again, I am disappointed, because with Sarah Everard, we said so many times, “This should never happen again; she was only walking down the street,” but, in my eyes, these people are just trying to access the pavement to have a perfectly legal procedure. As the Minister pointed out to me in the House the other day, this has been lumped in with the vax protests. I think it is about women—a marginalised community who should be protected, as you said at the start—being able to use the pavement. They should be able to do so unimpeded. What do you three of you think?

Martha Spurrier: Absolutely there is a right to privacy. One of the conditions in your amendment is to prohibit the filming and photographing of people using the services. We would say that no one has a right to capture someone else’s identifying information and record it. I do not have the amendment in front of me, but the points about harassment, being physically approached or being physically manhandled—anything of that nature—would be a breach of women’s rights and would fall down in favour of women and the buffer zone, not in favour of the protestors.

However, there are also conditions in the amendment on things such as seeking to influence and showing distressing imagery. Our view is that that falls on the other side of the line. People are entitled, as part of their right to protest, to seek to influence people, as long as they do not do so in a way that is harassing. Similarly, if you walk past certain embassies in London—the Chinese embassy, for example—there will often be very distressing images on show as part of protest against states’ policies. The same applies outside abortion clinics, where distressing images may be shown, but may be part of a legitimate right to protest. There is a balancing act.

[Dr Huq]

Q I feel that they should not be on the doors of the clinic, though, because that is deliberately designed to shame women and not really to do anything else. Otherwise, they should be targeting legislators or doing it on the other side of the road, where it is not visible and upsetting.

Olly Sprague: The only thing I would add is that your location point is quite interesting. The mitigation measure or countermeasure that you might put in place to balance those two rights in a proportionate way might differ depending on the location. In the case you mentioned, it may well be the location of the pavement—I do not know where the clinic is—but for another clinic, there might be a more concealed side entrance or something else that could be used. You would have a different approach to maintaining the dignity and security of women having a perfectly lawful procedure, and managing a counter-protest. You could apply a different model depending on geography.

[Dr Huq]

Q I totally agree; it should be considered case by case. I would have asked about our local police, if I could have had a go. There were two groups—it was “West Side Story”—with the protestors and the counter-protestors, who felt they had to escort people in each time. The process has freed up police time, and no one has been fined under it.

I want to ask about suspicionless stop and search—no one has said anything about it—which corrodes trust for BME communities, and about how body cameras could be a way out of completely suspicionless stop and search.

Martha Spurrier: Again, just to set the context, the proposal to extend suspicionless stop and search into this area is extraordinary. At the moment, suspicionless stop and search is available in the context of serious violence. It was available in the context of terrorism. It was struck down and Theresa May had to abandon it. That is in the context of crimes that will potentially kill many, many people.

We know that stop-and-search powers are implemented in a racist way. Under suspicion-led stop-and-search powers, a black person—a person of colour—is seven times more likely to be stopped than a white person. Suspicionless stop and search is twice as racist, at 14 times more likely. The idea that you would take a corrosive, racist and deeply controversial policing tool and apply it in the context of protest is extraordinary to us. We cannot see how it will do anything other than cause huge damage for particularly marginalised communities and have a chilling effect on seeking to exercise protest rights, particularly for them. There is a wealth of evidence on the detrimental impact of stop and search, and if there is a threat that people may be stopped and searched at a protest, there is every chance that they simply will not go and make their voice heard.

Olly Sprague: I agree 100% on suspicionless stop and search. It is enormously problematic and, on this one, Amnesty would say that the proposal fails the test of lawfulness—we talk about proportionate necessity, but there is also one of lawfulness. For example, the confiscation powers that go behind the stop-and-search powers around the locking-on offence capture an enormously broad range of items that an officer could argue might be capable of causing an offence. You have so many caveats that you will get into a situation where an ordinary person could have no idea why they were stopped, or why somebody might be taking an item off them that was completely lawful—everything from string to a bit of glue. It fails on that basic principle of lawfulness, which I think is incredibly problematic.

[The Chair]

Order. You will have to draw it to a close, Mr Sprague, because we are at the end.

Olly Sprague: Oh, I am sorry, Chair.

Public Order Bill

Rupa Huq Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Hunt]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend’s comments. We have heard—both today, but also outside of this debate—from senior Opposition Members that they get it, and that actually they do want to put some restrictions in place to stop excessive protests that can have very damaging consequences for people. But we have seen absolutely no evidence that, in practice, they are prepared to do that, and whenever there is an opportunity to vote in favour of what they claim they support, they have opposed it, which I do think is quite damaging.

This points to the wider problem that those in the Labour party have, which is that, on the one hand, they know that actually the majority of people do see this distinction between peaceful protest and the reckless behaviour of a minority, but on the other they want to pander to extremist elements to the left of the political spectrum, and they are caught between those two different pressures. Fortunately, on this side of this House, we feel no such pressure. On this side of the House, we are absolutely clear who we support. We support the 63% of people who, when polled very recently, said that they support the criminalising of locking on—and actually it is not populist to listen to the overwhelming majority who find it deeply frustrating.

In East Anglia, we were among the worst regions impacted, partly because of the oil terminals around Tilbury, the Thames estuary and south Essex. We were incredibly badly affected for days on end by the behaviour of some of these individuals, and on a bank holiday weekend. We obviously have the story of the care giver, but we also have the example of businesses—small businesses—desperately trying to get themselves back on their feet after an incredibly difficult period, being stifled and limited in their ability to do so, again because of the reckless behaviour of a small minority. I myself remember the day—I think it was the Monday that was particularly bad in our area—that it was only at the sixth petrol station I got to that I was able to get petrol. The amount of petrol that the average petrol station held in East Anglia went from I think 45% of capacity to lower than 20%. That is a direct consequence of the protesters’ behaviour.

I welcome the fact that we are introducing these new criminal offences for some of the most reckless behaviour, such as the individuals who go on to the M25 and block hugely strategic roads. That is dangerous to themselves, it is dangerous to drivers and it causes immense disruption, and the targeted action the Government have taken is to prevent that reckless activity. But the point here is that there have been too many occasions where the police have not been as hands-on as they should be. It has caused huge frustration to my constituents when they have seen pictures of reckless protests. Actually, let us be clear: these are not protesters; they are criminals. I am going to stop calling them protesters, because at the point at which they decided to sit down on the M25 and endanger themselves and others, they ceased to be peaceful protesters, so I will unashamedly call them criminals.

When these individuals take that decision, why are we seeing images of police forces that are just, frankly, dilly-dallying—dancing around and doing very little? Why are we seeing that? Why, when the roads to key oil terminals in south Essex are blocked, cannot the police immediately go in there, intervene and move them off, with no pause and no delay whatsoever? So, yes, this Bill is a step in the right direction, and I very much hope that it will create a powerful deterrent to prevent this sort of activity, but I also believe that a firm signal needs to be sent to the police that there have been times when perhaps they have not been as proactive as they could have been in moving some of these individuals on.

I have spoken about the Opposition and what I think of their views on this matter, but some of the comments made by organisations such as Greenpeace and Amnesty International have also been deeply regrettable. Trying to compare the measures in this Bill with measures promoted and implemented by the Putin regime and the regime in Belarus deeply demeans the whole argument, and those organisations do themselves no service whatsoever if they cannot in their own minds make the distinction between peaceful, legitimate protest by individuals in Russia campaigning for democracy, free speech and the ability to live in a world without persecution or fear and the behaviour of individuals who have every democratic channel open to them but who just want to get their own way. These people say, “I’ve used every democratic channel open to me, but I haven’t got exactly what I want, so I am going to disrupt and undermine our economy and divert police resources.” That is not good enough.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tom Hunt]

I will not. This Bill provides further evidence that this Government and Conservative Members get the difference between peaceful and other protests, and that they understand the anger of my constituents and others who are sick of being in hock to an extreme fringe. We do not have the conflict that exists in the Labour party, and I welcome this Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Here we go again: illiberal legislation on public order and regulating protest boomeranging back in here after the other place flung it out last time. I do not deny that there can be value in appropriate sentences and tighter enforcement in the face of serious disorder—for example, pitch invasions are increasingly common and unwelcome nowadays—but we have to be proportionate about these things.

In 2019, it did seem a bit bizarre when we saw Extinction Rebellion on top of tube trains, when that is one of the most green forms of transport. It probably did not make any new fans there, and ditto when the A40 in Acton was blocked. We all prize living in a liberal democracy, but if curbs are disproportionate and the exercise is about curtailing everyday freedoms primarily to win favour with the red tops and to play to their party base and the gallery, then we do have a problem.

These things are always a balance, but we have to tread carefully when it comes to limiting protest. Not that long ago, the Government were going softly, softly on stop and search. We even saw the police dancing with protesters, but the Bill goes for the eye-catching and draconian, such as creating the offence of locking on, where someone is potentially subject to 51 weeks in prison and an unlimited fine for intentionally attaching themselves, someone else or an object to another person, to an object or to land in a manner capable of causing “serious disruption”. It is so vague that it could apply to people linking arms. That is not to mention, as has already been said, that the most famous lockers-on in history were the suffragettes. It is just outside here where Viscount Falkland’s foot spur is missing, because in 1909 people locked on to it. That is part of our history and it is never to be replaced.

We have to beware of being heavy-handed and being led by moral panic with these things. The European Court of Human Rights has held that the freedom to take part in peaceful assembly is of such importance that it cannot be restricted in any way, as long as the person concerned does not commit any reprehensible acts. Concerningly, there is such widespread discretion in the Bill that the police have carte blanche. These laws are not dissimilar to what they have in Russia and Belarus.

If we think about the memorable protests of recent years, yes there has been Extinction Rebellion, but there have also been the school strikes. I do not condone bunking off school, but Greta Thunberg and her lot and the UK equivalent did put the lie to the youth being apolitical and apathetic. We have had Black Lives Matter and what happened to Colston, but I would argue that the sea change should have been the heavy-handed policing of the vigil for Sarah Everard. It was a shocking incident, and the policing was disgusting. In the immediate aftermath, we had a little bit of hand-wringing and concern, but the content of the Bill is a huge disappointment.

Unlike with the average road, where there is a minimal risk of disruption or it being blocked when we get in our car, women going about their lawful business every day in this country find that their route is blocked. What I am talking about specifically is women seeking an entirely legal abortion. It could be for any manner of reasons, and it is probably one of the most stressful and distressing moments in someone’s life. There is a one in four chance—this is from the Home Office’s own figures—that the clinic they attend will be subject to protests or vigils from anti-abortion protesters.

I have raised this issue with a number of different Home Office Ministers. I presented a ten-minute rule Bill in 2020 with massive cross-party support—from Members of seven different parties—so I know the will of the House is there. Even the Home Secretary, in answer to my oral question in February, was positively glowing, and I know she sees a lot of merit in it—but here is a Bill to curb protests and there is absolutely nothing on protests outside clinics. At least four more clinics have been affected since my 2020 Bill and, if we add it up, the issue affects 100,000 women a year, yet the Government say that there is not enough impact to warrant intervention. We know that psychological distress and damage is being done to those women and that precious police time is eaten up—Members should ask the police in Ealing.

In Ealing, we are lucky to have a pioneering council that put through a public spaces protection order to end more than 20 years of harassment at the Marie Stopes clinic. The street is now transformed, with no more gruesome foetus dolls or women being told that they are going to hell for a completely legal medical procedure. We are lucky in Ealing, but it should not be about luck. It was an act of last resort by our council, and only two other local authorities have followed—Richmond and Manchester. It is a fundamental part of the rule of law that people get equal protection under the law wherever they are, so why are people covered only in those three places?

BBC Newsnight had a feature on the subject last week. There is a huge file of evidence at the clinic in Bournemouth, but the council does not want to act, or shows no sign of acting. It is enormously onerous for councils that do want to push through the legislation, because of the burden of proof and officer time, so with everything else on their plates, it is not a priority for most of them. We are in a bizarre situation where, pending the outcome of a Supreme Court challenge, women seeking abortion in Northern Ireland could soon have greater universal protections from harassment than those in England and Wales.

At the same time, the Bill criminalises a huge range of peaceful non-disruptive behaviour and goes far and beyond what most people would ever deem necessary by supplementing powers that are already there. I give the Minister advance warning that I will be seeking to amend the Bill to protect women from this most distressing and unpleasant form of protest. Canada, Australia and several states of the US already have such legislation; it is not a crazy idea. We need a national approach. People will still be able to protest if they do not like abortion laws in this country, but the appropriate place to do that would be here, rather than around defenceless women in their hour of need. Every woman should have the same protection as people in Ealing.

[Mr Holden]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Huq]

No, because other people still want to speak. The so-called hon. Gentleman has eaten up everyone’s time and my hon. Friends will not get in because of him.

Give or take a bit of tinkering with wordings and clauses, this Bill is essentially a regurgitation of the failed Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. It replicates all the underlying principles and measures that their lordships previously debated and comprehensively rejected. There is no imagination in it to deal with real problems, so for that reason, I and all Opposition Members will vote against the Bill tonight.

Metropolitan Police: Strip-search of Schoolgirl

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

If a strip-search is deemed necessary to be undertaken on a child, then an appropriate adult, whether a parent or otherwise, has to be present. [Interruption.] Indeed, they were not in this case, and the question we have to ask ourselves is why—what went wrong? Why did the officers do what they did? Why did they decide to have two present? What were they doing? We will know that from the IOPC report. Once we have that, as I say, we will have the full picture and we will be able to look at it accordingly.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

In 2019, Cressida Dick said that police officers should be

“embedded in the DNA of schools”,

and we have seen how that massively failed Child Q in this disgusting case. How far has the search for Cressida Dick’s replacement gone? We have heard that she is clinging on, haggling over her settlement. The Minister blamed Sadiq Khan. Could there be additional safeguards for Parliament in this process? The Met’s workload is of national significance; it is not just a normal police force. Could we have an urgent review of the boundaries of cops in schools?

[Kit Malthouse]

I did not blame the Mayor of London—I just pointed out that he has as much influence, if not more, over the Metropolitan police than we do. I was the deputy Mayor for policing. If this had happened under me, I would have taken responsibility for it and tried to sort it out myself. I am just saying that the Government and City Hall will have a duty to work together on this issue.

As for police officers’ involvement in schools, it is, I am afraid, a source of great sadness that it is necessary for police officers to be involved in and around schools, but we have found over the years that such is the problem with youth violence and youth crime, particularly in the capital, that creating a good relationship with young people through the police’s involvement in schools is critical to success, and where it works, it can be of enormous benefit to their safety.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is right that we change our laws, have tougher sentences and make sure that perpetrators absolutely feel the full force of the law. He is right to make that case. The Government are also undertaking wider work on perpetrator behaviour and education campaigns across all Departments.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

We all agree that women should be able to go about their lawful business free from intimidation and able to use public spaces, yet every day thousands are affected by protests outside abortion clinics that are designed to shame women out of their legal rights to healthcare. Will the Secretary of State meet me to ensure that we have consistency nationally on the situation and that protesters who seek to control women’s bodies and stop them making choices are stopped and moved away from the clinic gates?

[Priti Patel]

I commend the hon. Lady for much of the work that she has been doing. I would be very happy to meet her. All the points she raises are absolutely valid: women should be able to go about living their lives freely, safely and without harassment.

Draft Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Order 2022

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2022 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Order 2022.

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone.

The Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Order 2016 sets out the immigration and nationality functions for which a fee is to be charged, and the maximum amount that can be charged for each function. Members will have noticed that the draft order is not the longest piece of immigration legislation that we have ever considered in a Delegated Legislation Committee, given that it seeks to make only two changes to the fees order, specifically amendments to the maximum amount that can be charged for two application types: entry clearance as a visitor for a period of up to six months, more commonly known as the short-term visit visa; and entry clearance or leave to remain as a student.

I want to make it clear at the outset that the changes do not alter the fees paid by customers. Specific fee levels are set out in separate legislation, namely the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Regulations 2018, and those levels are not impacted by the amendments we are debating. The changes in the draft amendment order, however, will serve to increase the flexibility on fees in future.

The maximum amount that can be charged for a short-term visit visa will increase by £35, from £95 to £130. That will align the fee maximum to the published unit cost for that product. The maximum amount for entry clearance or limited leave as a student will be raised by £10, from £480 to £490. That relatively small increase will provide some additional headroom on student fees, in particular those close to the existing maximum.

For background, both changes mark the first time that the maximum amounts will have increased since 2016. They will provide additional flexibility on those fees, allowing the Home Office to consider a balanced approach to fee changes across our visa routes.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

The Minister and I have history, and I like him as a person. It is interesting that these amounts are a ceiling, but I wonder whether he has seen the figures from 2019. He talks about student visas, but in the five years to 2019 the fee for limited leave to remain went up by 79% and that for indefinite leave to remain by 119%. At the time, there was an excellent comment in The Times Thunderer page—by me, actually—headlined, “Home Office must be stopped from running fees racket”, because apparently processing costs had gone down in that time, although the fees went up. I am pleased that he is setting a ceiling, but will he bear in mind that fees have been ratcheted up and up in the years until now and will he ensure that it really is a ceiling, to keep the fees down?

[Kevin Foster]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. As she says, we get on well. It is good to get that totally independent analysis—in quality and method—in the article that she wrote for The Times.

Over recent years, immigration fees have generally risen so that more of the costs of the migration system are borne by those who use it, rather than by the wider taxpayer. Colleagues will have realised that in the past couple of years there has been a big difference in the income from fees because of the pandemic. Inevitably, wider funding from the taxpayer has increased.

The changes we are discussing specifically will be only to the maximums for two routes. They will reflect the current unit costs, in particular for the short-term visit visas, although, as I said, the draft order will not change the fee to be paid by applicants. That would need a separate statutory instrument to alter the fees themselves.

We are conscious that we need to ensure that our routes are competitive and give value to those who apply for them. One of the core rules in the rest of our work is to simplify our immigration system to reduce the amount of times that people need to instruct a lawyer to help them with their application, which in many cases can represent a significant cost that might not be seen as a fee, but affects how much people end up paying to secure their status in this country.

Changes under consideration by the Home Office are about adjustments to simplify the range of fees payable by customers, including removing specific additional charges and consolidating what people are required to pay into one overarching fee. A good example is removing the biometric enrolment fees charged alongside certain applications, with these costs recovered through the main application fees instead, which we believe is a simpler and much more transparent approach to the cost of a visa. We will of course share further details about some of the changes we are looking to make with colleagues and the House when we are in a position to do so.

Colleagues will be aware that migration and borders functions are largely funded by immigration and nationality fees as part of the Home Office spending settlement to reduce the burden on the taxpayer more widely. It is critical that any changes are funded by other changes within the system. It is therefore vital that the maximum amount set out in the fees order allows appropriate choices to be made on individual routes to support a balanced approach overall to the fees we charge. I emphasise again that we are not changing any fee levels through the order. Any changes to specific fees would be subject to cross-Government consultation and further parliamentary clearance and would be implemented through fees regulations, not this order, I therefore hope Committee members see the need for it.

Humanist Marriages

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, I remind Members to observe social distancing and wear masks. I think that officially went overnight; nevertheless, the advice is still to wear masks. I call Crispin Blunt to move the motion.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered humanist marriages in England and Wales.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate in response to my application just last week. I appreciate the Committee’s immediate response to the application, but inevitably, many of the supporters I named have been unable to rearrange their diaries to speak this afternoon. However, there is support on this issue from a broad section of the political spectrum, and I hope the quality of the debate will do justice to that support.

From my own party, we have support from my hon. Friends the Members for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan), for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti), for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell), for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), for Wycombe (Mr Baker) and for Shipley (Philip Davies), from my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Dr Davies), who I see is in his place, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mark Eastwood).

Today, 53 members of both Houses have written to the Lord Chancellor urging immediate legal recognition of humanist marriages, in the light of the recent move to recognise outdoor civil and religious marriages, which, as I will explain, has removed the last vestige of the arguments put forward by the Government for not getting on with what would be a welcome reform for so many people in our country.

Humanist weddings are non-religious wedding ceremonies that are conducted by humanist celebrants. Humanists UK defines a humanist as a non-religious person who trusts

“the scientific method when it comes to understanding how the universe works”

and does not rely on

“the idea of the supernatural…makes their ethical decisions based on reason, empathy, and a concern for human beings and other sentient animals”

and

“believes that, in the absence of”

evidence for

“an afterlife and any discernible purpose to the universe, human beings can act to give their own lives meaning by seeking happiness in this life and helping others to do the same.”

Humanist ceremonies are a manifestation of what gives our lives meaning—the meaning we create for ourselves and the happiness we bring about in others. Ceremonies, then, are a reflection of what will be most meaningful to the participants. They are built around the idea that the best ceremonies are all about the participants—their beliefs, their values, their family, their friends and their wider place in the world—and they recognise the need to be inclusive of all those attending and their diverse religions and beliefs.

I chair the all-party parliamentary humanist group with the noble Baroness Bakewell, and the secretariat is provided by Humanists UK. Humanists UK trains and accredits celebrants, particularly in conducting weddings. Such celebrants are trained specifically in how to make ceremonies as meaningful as possible for the participants, and their expertise and experience contributes to making these important moments in our journey through life of the greatest relevance and meaning to those who choose them.

The process of creating a thoughtful, meaningful and personal wedding ceremony for a couple is extensive. It is not unusual for a humanist celebrant to spend 35 to 40 hours—often even more—working closely with the couple. That is quite a lot longer than the average for most people who preside over weddings, who, in many cases, may turn up only for the marriage itself. That is because the process the humanist celebrant is engaged in is lengthy and is focused on getting to know the couple well, finding out what matters to them collectively, and helping them explore what most matters to them about each other, so that the ceremony can be as meaningful, and have as strong and lasting an impact as possible. The impact of the ceremony is reinforced by the ceremony’s being in the location most meaningful to the couple. That often means the kinds of places that already get approved as premises for civil marriages; it could be the family’s back garden, or their local beach or park. I have even heard of couples choosing to have their wedding in the very spot they met or got engaged.

The consequence of this process is that humanist marriages are more likely to last. All parties recognise the public policy benefits of stable relationships, which ought to make the legal recognition of humanist marriages an uncontroversial public good. I understand that many couples, if not most, stay in touch with the humanist celebrant who conducted their wedding for years afterwards. They highly value the process in which they engaged in getting to the wedding day and the relationship that they built with the celebrant. I rather doubt that most participants in civil marriages are still in touch with the registrar who conducted their marriage or, frankly, can remember their name.

The training to become a humanist celebrant provided by Humanists UK is an extensive process, and those who embark on it do so with no guarantee of success. Humanists UK courses run for several months and include an induction day, residential training sessions, coursework and a mentor to support the training from the outset. Once accredited—many who start the programme are not—celebrants become part of a growing national network. They are quality assured and regulated by a code of conduct, and they have a transparent complaints procedure and mandatory ongoing professional development. A former Registrar General for England and Wales, Paul Pugh, has trained to be a humanist celebrant with Humanists UK in order to conduct funerals. He certainly believes that the training provided is rigorous enough to merit legal recognition for Humanists UK celebrants, as do the Northern Ireland Executive, who also deal with Humanists UK.

Given all this, it can hardly be a surprise that humanist marriages have taken off in jurisdictions where they have been legally recognised. In Scotland, they gained recognition as long ago as 2005. In 2019, they made up some 23% of all marriages—a truly impressive figure that I understand even includes some Members of this House. In 2012, such marriages gained recognition in the Republic of Ireland, where they now account for 10% of all marriages. Since 2018, they have gained legal recognition in Northern Ireland, Jersey and Guernsey. It is early days, but I understand that the number of humanist marriages in Northern Ireland—regardless of one’s impression of religious adherence and people’s enthusiasm for it in the Province—is following precisely the same trajectory as in Scotland and Ireland.

That brings me to England and Wales, where, at present, there is no legal recognition of humanist marriages. That means that couples who have a humanist wedding—around 1,400 do so with Humanists UK every year—must also have a civil marriage separately in order to gain legal recognition. That can be a big financial burden; if the couple wish to have their wedding and marriage at the weekend, many local authorities will charge upwards of £500 for a civil marriage. That is a burden that religious couples do not face.

In addition, many local authorities are making it increasingly difficult for people to access a cheaper ceremony. There is a statutory option of around £50 that local authorities must offer, but many have taken such options off their websites. Some restrict marriages to just one registry office—for example, North Yorkshire, which is the biggest authority in the country, restricts them to just Harrogate—and many severely limit what such ceremonies can entail. Humanists UK tells of local authorities restricting attendance to the couple and their two adult witnesses, meaning that if they have children, they cannot attend. Some have banned having flowers or even exchanging rings.

Either way, such couples face distressing questions from their loved ones about which is their real marriage or when their wedding anniversary is. It is very sad that the wedding that they wish to see as their real act of commitment is not the one that the state enables—and for what purpose? Why do we not have legal recognition here? I think there are two ways of answering that question. One is to reflect on what has happened over the last decade and the justifications that the Government have given at each point in time for their behaviour, and the other is to think about what might have been going through the Government’s mind but has not been made a matter of record.

The Government gained the power to extend legal recognition of humanist marriages all the way back in 2013. The power was given to them by Parliament through the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, and it was clear at the time that there was a majority in both Houses in favour of using that power. Indeed, what the Government said at the time suggested that they intended to do so. All that stood in the way was that the relevant part of the 2013 Act mandated that the Government must consult on the matter first. Indeed, it was proper that the Government did so to determine how best to use that order-making power. The Government duly consulted in 2014, and the consultation found over 95% of people in favour of a change in the law.

What happened next was where things went off script for people who were anticipating the opportunity to have their marriage and wedding in the way that they wanted. Instead of proceeding to draft the required statutory instrument, the Minister responsible for marriage at the time, Simon Hughes, decided to refer the matter to the Law Commission for further investigation. The Government’s response to the consultation gave the following justification for that decision:

“One key difficulty concerns where belief marriages would take place… allowing belief marriages to take place at unrestricted locations would create a further difference in treatment in our marriage law”

and

“would create an inequality for the majority of religious groups and couples who are restricted to their registered place of worship. Registration services report a growing demand for outdoor marriages, and the Government is aware that allowing belief marriages in unrestricted locations may also be seen as unfair by couples who are neither religious nor humanist but who also may want a greater choice of marriage venues.”

Marriage law at that time allowed for marriages to happen outdoors if they were conducted by Quakers, Jewish groups, the Church of England or the Church in Wales. Forms of marriage other than deathbed marriages were restricted to either registered places of worship in the case of religious marriages, or register offices and other indoor approved premises in the case of civil marriages. Relatedly, it was said that the kind of piecemeal legislation being sought, and the added complexity that it would bring, was undesirable given the apparent inconsistency in existing marriage law.

The inconsistency in marriage law is clearly problematic, but I hope that colleagues will see from what I have said why outdoor weddings are particularly important in the humanist tradition. At any rate, the inconsistency does not seem to me a good justification for blocking recognition of humanist marriages as a whole. None the less, that key difficulty was used as justification to refer the whole question to the Law Commission to examine further. The Government stated:

“We wish to avoid any negative consequences that may result from undertaking further piecemeal legislation… The Government will therefore ask the Law Commission if it will begin as soon as possible a broader review of the law concerning marriage ceremonies.”

That is where the issue got firmly stuck in the long grass. In 2015, the Law Commission produced its report. It did not conduct the broader review it had been tasked with; instead, it simply concluded that, although the fact that humanist marriages were not legally recognised was unfair, the inconsistency around outdoor marriages and concerns about piecemeal reform justified its asking to do a second and even more thorough review of marriage law as a whole.

Now, the Government did not appear to have an immediate appetite for that, as they did not respond to the Law Commission proposals for some two years. When they did finally respond, in 2017, they said no to taking things further. That was the end of the road until 2018, when a humanist couple threatened litigation over the failure to extend legal recognition to humanist marriages. It is a pretty sad state of affairs that a stated Government intention to move in this area in 2013 had, by 2018, resulted in the human rights courts having to be engaged in trying to establish this right for humanists in England and Wales. Shortly after that, the Government announced they would, after all, be commissioning the larger Law Commission review. There was then a further year’s delay while the Government and the Law Commission worked to agree the terms of reference for that review.

Perhaps, if my hon. Friend the Minister is familiar with “Yes Minister”—I appreciate that that was my generation’s early-evening television rather than his—he will see that there is a certain pattern emerging. The review was meant to conclude last year, but it has been delayed further by the pandemic, and it is now expected to conclude in July.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nia Griffith]

Indeed—that was very well outlined by the hon. Member. The support is there from the Welsh Government and the humanist tradition is also there in Wales. So this change is something we would very much welcome and want to see.

Of course, people may say, “Oh well, a couple can go and have their civil marriage and then they can have the celebration of their choosing afterwards”. But I would argue that that does not really give the humanist viewpoint and ceremonies the same status as that given to the religious viewpoint and ceremonies. Indeed, the High Court has ruled that that lack of legal recognition is, in fact, discrimination.

Why should humanists have to feel that they are second-class citizens and that their celebration does not count? Why should they have to wonder, as the hon. Member for Reigate pointed out, which is the date of their wedding anniversary if the civil ceremony took place on one day and their own celebration took place on another day?

As has also been noted, the legal recognition of humanist marriages in Scotland resulted in the number of couples opting for a humanist wedding increasing to over 6,000 in 2019—more than 20% of the total—and there are now more humanist marriages than Christian marriages in Scotland. Legal recognition gives humanist weddings a status, and more people then feel confident about seeking out the humanist option for a wedding, because they believe it is real and do not feel that it is somehow not good enough, does not really count or is second-class. It has the genuine status that obviously everybody would wish their wedding and marriage to have.

Our laws in respect of religion are very outdated and do not reflect the current beliefs of the population. Here in Parliament, both with the Church of England bishops in the House of Lords and the format of Prayers in the Commons, we are made very conscious on a daily basis that we still have an established church: the Church of England. However, the British Social Attitudes Survey of 2018 shows that only 12% of the population are Anglican, with some 52% of the population describing themselves as non-religious. Of course, the Church in Wales was disestablished over 100 years ago, back in 1920.

Our legislation has a lot of catching up to do in order to reflect the society we live in. We now have a majority of the population—some 52%—who have to make do with second best for what is one of the most important moments in their lives. What happens is that many people who have no religious belief end up in religious settings because of the convenience, which should not have to be the case. It should not have to be that because they cannot get themselves halfway across North Yorkshire, they opt for something local instead, or for something that does not reflect their background and beliefs.

I have attended humanist funerals that were planned by families and that respected the fact that the deceased did not have a belief in the afterlife. Those are recognised as legitimate funerals. I have attended humanist civic ceremonies for incoming mayors or chairs of local councils. Those are recognised as appropriate ceremonies and, again, reflect the beliefs of the people taking part. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) has described the preparation that can be made for a humanist wedding, the thought that goes into it, and the beliefs that the people have—all those make it a very special moment. To deny people the idea that it is the genuine ceremony, the genuine act and the marriage itself, is an insult to the work and preparation and the feelings that they have.

Let us get on with it now and have legal recognition for humanist marriages. We recognise that we are in a particularly difficult situation at the moment, post covid, with so many having had to put off the opportunity to have weddings—sometimes once, twice or even three times. As has been mentioned already, having celebrants who are able to deliver a legal marriage would mean less pressure on registrars, and it would help to clear the backlog. On that note, I say once again to the Minister that this matter is something that could be resolved very quickly and easily and be well supported by Members across the House.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Because I am nice, I call the last of the Back Benchers—Jeff Smith.

Strategy for Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

Not only will I commit to working with the Ministry of Justice, but it has been incredibly important in informing cross-Government work on the strategy. On the family courts, there is an ongoing piece of work arising out of the harm panel report, which was created last year in light of the Domestic Abuse Bill. I am very happy to meet my right hon. Friend to update him on the work of that panel, along with Ministry of Justice colleagues.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab) [V]]

In today’s Times, the Home Secretary wrote:

“Nowhere should be off limits to women and girls. Nobody deserves to be victimised or feel unsafe.”

This week the Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment stated in the House that nobody should be intimidated when accessing legal healthcare, so when will the Government join Australia, Canada and France among others in legislating for consistent national buffer zones around abortion clinics? Surely the status quo, with women and girls protected only in the areas of three local authorities—and they have to stretch antisocial behaviour order provisions in order to do so—creates an unsatisfactory, unequal situation of justice that is subject to legal challenge all the time and cannot stand.

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Lady is diligent in her campaigning in this important area. We believe that the public space protection orders regime that is in operation in three local authority areas provides balance in protecting women who are seeking medical care and only that. However, as I have said, the Government are determined to keep this area under review and to ensure that women are not intimidated or harassed.