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.

Policing and Prevention of Violence against Women

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

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

The tragedy that befell Sarah Everard is a cue for rethinking so much, including readopting and designing out crime principles in our built environment. As one small Asian woman to another, may I ask that in all new housing developments, and in the reappraisal of the low-traffic network road changes that are due, consultative consideration of women’s safety and fear of crime is mandated, so that appropriate natural surveillance is built in? We must avoid creating nouveaux ghettoes, where perceptions leave women trapped and vulnerable.

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend makes such an important and interesting point about designing out crime and threat, particularly from public spaces. A lot of work is taking place right now to keep the public safe in public places, and that is something we will look at.

Forensic Science Regulator and Biometrics Strategy Bill

Rupa Huq Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 25th September 2020 Commons Chamber

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

What a pleasure it is to be called so unexpectedly early in this debate. Obviously your algorithm is working, Mr Speaker, even though the algorithms for other things—testing, exam results—are not. Let us not get into that.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) on coming so loftily in the private Members’ Bill ballot—a sensation I have never experienced and probably never will. He is also the Chair of the Business and Industrial Strategy Committee. He is one Opposition Member who will actually make his mark on our statute book. We all dream of the day we can do that, but from what the Minister says, it sounds like my hon. Friend will.

I rise to speak in support of my hon. Friend’s Bill. I have taken on board the points against it, but I think they are all refutable. It seeks to right a whole load of wrongs that are going on in our society—we have heard about miscarriages of justice and unreliable evidence—and it also reins in the once seemingly untrammelled forces of the free market. We have seen something of that during the pandemic—yesterday, another financial stimulus was announced. I am glad that the Government are now converts to interventionism, as some of us have always been. It is great to have this Bill at a time when we are all so preoccupied by coronavirus or Brexit. It is something a bit different, but it is badly needed.

Recently, the word “forensic” seems to be used every Wednesday when Prime Minister’s questions happens and our Leader of the Opposition takes apart the Prime Minister, but we are dealing with “forensics”—plural. The mere mention of that term conjures up images of wily experts solving cold cases long after the fact, dissecting the details and piecing together the evidence from the crime scene. We think of skilful professionals, with high-tech, high-end resources at their disposal, no expense spared, crusading for justice in the public interest. The American drama serials—the transatlantic type—have shaped the imagery in the public imagination: programmes such as “NCIS” and “CSI”. I know that our previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), is a big “NCIS” fan. At the height of the cross-party talks in her Brexit negotiations, I found myself face-to-face with her at No. 10, and to break the ice, I asked, as you do, “Was being Home Secretary like ‘Bodyguard’?” Instead, she enthused about “NCIS”, which was her favourite programme, and said it was more like that.

Forensics started about a century ago with fingerprinting techniques, and it can stray into things such as taking fragments of carpet fibre and even bite marks. By the ’80s, when DNA profiling of samples was pioneered, the field really got a spring in its step. In today’s world, it is accelerating, and its use is going on and on. With cybercrime rapidly rising, it is needed more than ever.

[Chris Green]

The hon. Lady commented on the free market, but does she not think that, with DNA profiling and fingerprints, there is a happy marriage between forensics on the one hand and the free market on the other, each lending its expertise to the other?

[Dr Huq]

The hon. Gentleman is right: we need a mixed-economy approach. Yes, we can allow private firms—I am not saying ban the private sector—but they should coincide with regulation, which is a good thing.

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Lady refers to the history of forensics and fingerprinting. I want to share a small anecdote with the House. In the early days of fingerprinting, the Metropolitan police were in pursuit of a particular criminal who, it came to their attention, had apparently been apprehended in Germany. They sent away to the German police to ask for this sadly deceased criminal’s fingerprints to be sent, so that they could close the case. The German police amputated his hands and sent them whole, and they sit in a jar of formaldehyde in the Met police’s Crime Museum to this day.

[Dr Huq]

Goodness me, we live and learn, and we learn a new thing every day. What a gory story. It is sad that we are leaving the European Union, because we had access to all those databases, including Europol’s. I think that is a cause for lament, but that is probably another debate for another day.

[Mr Speaker]

I think we will leave that one there.

[Dr Huq]

Unfortunately, the reality of Britain’s forensic services is far removed from the glamour of “NCIS”. Britain’s Sherlockian sleuths and Clouseauian crime detectives do exist in our police forces, and they do a sterling job, but they have been hampered and held back for years—for at least seven years, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West said. There are three reasons for that.

First, cuts in police and research budgets have adversely affected spending on private forensics. The hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) attempted valiantly in the previous Parliament to raise that issue. Sadly, the election, which not all of us wanted, put paid to that. Whatever happened to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011? I think it is going soon. Anyway, as he pointed out, expenditure on private forensics has come down from £120 million in 2008 to £50 million at the moment. The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee uncovered those figures last year.

Secondly, there is a lack of competitiveness. Even for fans of the free market, this is not a good way of running the system. The forensics marketplace is in a fragile state, because it is not purely one thing or the other. Thirdly, there is the laxity of the regulatory regime, despite the fact that there is a Forensic Science Regulator. The Bill seeks to address that by calling for a new Forensic Science Regulator, so that our justice system is better equipped to deal with modern crime.

When the regulator itself states that innocent people are repeatedly wrongly convicted and criminals are escaping the long arm of the law due to the failure of the forensic science system to meet basic standards, something has obviously gone very wrong. It is no exaggeration to say that it is positively criminal that the watchdog—currently incarnated as Dr Gillian Tully, who acknowledges this herself—is so toothless, so lacking in cojones, that it is purely advisory. It does not have legal powers to require private providers to meet standards, or to impose fines if they do not meet them.

How did we get here in the first place? It was actually under David Cameron, another PM who swiftly left the crime scene. Paul Roberts, a Nottingham University professor of jurisprudence who specialises in this field said in 2015:

“in a moment of penny-pinching madness that future governments may regard with incomprehension, the UK coalition government closed down the world-famous Forensic Science Service, arguing—quite improbably—that the private sector would fill the gap…this move to free-market forensics is not meeting the justice system’s need for high-quality scientific support and has put in jeopardy long-term forensic research, development and training.”

He laments the closure as part of what he calls a “landscape of ‘austerity justice’”.

[Kit Malthouse]

Although the hon. Lady is right that the Forensic Science Service was closed, and that part of the argument for its closure was the cost, because it was losing significant amounts of public money at the time, there had also been a series of forensic science failures resulting in high-profile abandoned trials, which meant that reform was felt necessary. It was not purely ideological; it was as much a practical and results-driven decision as anything.

[Mr Speaker]

Just for the record, the FSS provided a very good service. The labs at Chorley were fantastic.

[Dr Huq]

I am grateful to the Minister and to you, Mr Speaker, for pointing out what used to go on in the labs of Chorley—not the stuff that happened in Germany, obviously. [Interruption.] This is quite different to the German case.

I do not want to pick a fight with the Minister, because we all agree on this. That article was from 2015, and to be fair, some austerity justice cuts have since been reversed. Fees for employment tribunals have gone. Like the Labour party, the Government are under new leadership, so let us hope we can reverse all those things. We have been told repeatedly that austerity is over, so let us rectify the situation now.

Numerous authorities on the subject, including the National Audit Office and the Science and Technology Committees in this House and the other place, have concluded that our forensic system is close to broken, and that harms the criminal justice system as a whole. Putting the forensic science regulator on a statutory footing is a vital first step to saving the field. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West pointed out, it is not a panacea, but it is a good start.

Statutory enforcement powers are badly needed in the wake of the weak market that has emerged since the FSS was privatised in 2012. As has been pointed out, 90% of traditional forensic science is delivered by just three large providers, to the detriment of competition and market resilience. Even fans of the free market cannot like the way that is functioning. Large providers are exiting the market left, right and centre, creating system-wide capacity shortfalls and increased turnaround times. Simply put, there is not even a profit motive to uphold the standards of those companies, let alone a powerful watchdog. The rest of forensics is done in-house by police forces, which brings its own set of problems.

In the context of rapid technological change, police forces have reported difficulties in managing increasingly voluminous and unmanageable workloads, particularly in digital forensics. Local police forces cannot realistically be expected to deal with those new forms of crime, or deliver the same high-quality fingerprint evidence that the FSS once provided. They are forced to spin all those different plates at once, and juggle all those balls, some of which come crashing down.

Fewer than 10% of police forces have met basic quality standards for fingerprint evidence. Three years ago, all UK forces were ordered to ensure that their laboratories met international standards for analysing prints found at crime scenes, yet as of last year, only a handful had completed that. Police forces that have failed to obtain accreditation have to declare that in court, which prompts the concern that cases could fall apart because of unreliable evidence.

Police forces are in an impossible catch-22 bind. They can outsource forensics to private providers, which is costly and incurs spending beyond their means, or they can try to cobble something together themselves. With the latter option, police stakeholders are let off the hook in the absence of a regulator that can say, “No, think again.” Outsourcing digital work to unaccredited private labs that are subject to no regulatory oversight runs the risk of punishing police forces when their commercial partners botch things up. The much cited example of Randox Testing Services highlights that point. That private provider was suspended in 2018 after a number of motorists convicted of drug-driving offences were cleared after evidence of manipulation was found in Randox’s testing processes, and there are other examples of serious offences being quashed as a result of faulty data and contaminated evidence. The sector is badly crying out for quality control, rather than unsatisfactory quasi-casino capitalism that does not quite work, fused with police services that are unable to cope.

The public and private arms of the UK’s forensic services are at breaking point. That has led to a mass shortage of skills, particularly in digital forensics and toxicology. No wonder Dr Tully said in February that

“forensic science has been operating on a knife-edge for years”.

When we cut corners in legal matters of this type, it is the public who lose out. It is a false economy for which we all pay dearly. Reliable, high-quality, trusted evidence underpins our justice system in this country. It is simply wrong that victims of some of the most heinous crimes do not see perpetrators put behind bars where they belong, because the evidence was not handled properly. That “anything goes”, sloppy culture has to stop. We should be striving for excellence in every lab, whereas now we do not have a system fit for purpose. We should not be scrimping on justice and putting up with unreliable evidence, as that destroys public confidence in our entire legal system. Saying that the wheels of justice will probably turn is not good enough. We need certainty that justice will be served.

We have heard before that we have had enough of experts, but I am glad that that thinking has given way to following the science. As I say, there is a long list of expert opinion in favour of such legislation. The Minister said it was in his own manifesto—buried away somewhere—and it is good to hear heavyweight Government support for it. As well as reports from the two Select Committees, the FSR’s own annual report this year says that the quality and delivery of forensic science in England and Wales is “inadequate”. This raises alarm bells that crimes may go unsolved and that the number of miscarriages of justice may increase.

I know that, at this time in the cycle, we are all receiving emails from conspiracy theorist types denouncing the Coronavirus Act 2020 as interfering in all our lives. I am no fan of totalitarianism, but on this one, regulation can be a force for good. Clauses 2 to 4 would introduce a code of practice with safeguards and standards, which means protecting consumers and encouraging levelling up—to coin a phrase. That means companies on the wrong side of the regulations will simply go out of business. Clauses 5 to 8 would allow for investigations with a built-in appeals process. Clause 11 defines “forensic science activity” as the application of scientific methods for the purpose of detecting or investigating crime and preparing evidence in criminal procedures, but it is flexible enough that there is scope to expand to areas of civil law, if needed.

Forensic science plays a pivotal role in modern criminal proceedings, and there is an increasing reliance on it. Yet such evidence can be boon as well as bane, because it poses such multifarious challenges when it is unreliable or misleading. Biometrics are not covered by this Bill, although the word is in the title, but we do not want forensics always to be associated with miscarriages of justice, which is in danger of happening. Making provision for the appointment of a beefed-up Forensic Science Regulator, ensuring the regulation of forensic science outfits and requiring the Secretary of State to publish an annual strategy are eminently sensible things. I am delighted that this proposed legislation has so much support from so many powerful quarters, and I, too, commend the Bill to the House.

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) on bringing forward such an important Bill at such an important time. There is so much pent-up demand in both Houses of Parliament for this Bill to be delivered, and I know that the Home Office is incredibly enthusiastic about it, so it is timely that we will get it done. Unfortunately, in the previous Parliament I tried and failed, and for me it is a lesson about instability in Parliament having an impact on people’s lives and about the ability to deliver key services. It is really important at this stage to get this Bill delivered.

As has been highlighted, there have been reports in both Houses, which I think indicates not only the level of support for the Bill, but the critical necessity of doing so at this stage. In 2011, 2013 and 2016, the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee recommended that the regulator should receive statutory powers to enforce compliance with quality standards. In Sir Brian Leveson’s review of the efficiency of criminal proceedings—that was in 2015—he repeated the call for statutory powers. In 2019, the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, in a very extensive and authoritative report, called for such powers. The body of evidence building up indicates a signal failure within the system which now needs to be put right.

It is worth bearing in mind that there is a little bit of history before the dates that the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) highlighted, so I will touch on that briefly. In 2002, the Forensic Science Service stopped being a preferred supplier of forensic services to the police forces. In 2003, a Home Office review of the Forensic Science Service recommended that it become a Government-owned company, and in 2005 it became a Government-owned company in that sense. In 2008, the Forensic Science Regulator was established without the statutory provisions that are now so important. The Home Office also established the national forensics framework to allow police forces to purchase forensics from private suppliers and the FSS, using standard contracts with pre-agreed terms and conditions. Police forces therefore could choose not to purchase forensics through the framework but had to use the procedures for such services. Understandably, in 2010, with a whole series of concerns and problems, the coalition Government announced that they would shut down the FSS, citing in the decision its losses of £2 million a month. The need for reform was at that stage and is now abundantly clear; how the system is reformed is a different question.

[Dr Huq]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the history lesson. I accept that there was some tinkering under the Brown and Blair Governments, but he must admit that it was under this Government’s previous incarnation that full-on privatisation occurred. That needs addressing. As I said, I do not want to have a fight with him, but I did want to put that on the record.

[Chris Green]

The hon. Lady makes a fair point. When a direction of travel is set, it is sometimes difficult to change it around.

The Forensic Science Regulator, Dr Gillian Tully, in her foreword to the 2019 annual report, published earlier this year, sets out clearly and comprehensively what we ought to think about in the debate. I will therefore read from the foreword at length, which says:

“Whether it is data science, computer science, physics, chemistry, biology or another discipline, forensic science should be firmly rooted in good science. Courts should not have to judge whether this expert or that expert is ‘better’, but rather there should be a clear explanation of the scientific basis and data from which conclusions are drawn, and any relevant limitations. All forensic science must be conducted by competent forensic scientists, according to scientifically valid methods and be transparently reported, making very clear the limits of knowledge and/or methodology. Implementation of quality standards is a means to this end, ensuring a systematic approach to scientific validity, competence and quality. It therefore remains my absolute priority to publish a standard for the development of evaluation opinions, to ensure that this systematic approach to quality covers all scientific activities from crime scene to court.

Some practitioners and leaders understand quality. They may be (and indeed should be) challenging about the detail of how to adopt the standards and may rightly point out the need for additional resources. However, they seek to use the requirement to adhere to quality standards to innovate in terms of process and/or technology and, in doing so, they bring about positive change. Often, they are truly inspiring.

Others misunderstand. They may grudgingly implement standards, but in a way that cripples their productivity and locks staff into rigid protocols, no matter what the case requires. Or they may devote much time and energy to avoiding compliance, arguing against change and sticking to ‘how we’ve always done it’. The problem is that technology has moved on. ‘How we used to take anti-contamination precautions’”—

for example,—

“is no longer fit for purpose in a world where the sensitivity of DNA methods has increased by several orders of magnitude.

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) is not currently in his place, but, on his point, perhaps with ever-changing technology and a need for higher levels of technology, there is a requirement for additional resources in this area, not just in general but for the regulator and her team.

The foreword continues:

“‘How we used to do digital forensics’ is no longer fit for purpose in a world where data volume and complexity have ballooned, and a substantial subset of the data required is in the cloud. Throwing massive volumes of extracted data to investigators, who generally lack the tools and methods to interrogate the data effectively, just shifts a problem; a more integrated approach could be transformative.

Leadership and innovation are critical, because trying to transpose quality standards onto ineffective processes without change only succeeds in adding inefficiency to ineffectiveness.

Whilst the body of this report deals with the year to 16 November 2019, the foreword presents an opportunity to comment on more recent events and I am pleased to note that the Government has committed to investing approximately £28 million over a year to improve forensic science, via the Transforming Forensics Programme. It will be a massive challenge for the programme to deliver effective change, but it is my hope that the work will design quality into innovative approaches, in a way that brings together the best of the public and private sectors and academia.

A new government has been elected and I have been assured that there is no change from the policy to legislate to provide statutory enforcement powers for the Regulator. I am, however, disappointed to note that there is, as yet, no definite plan for government legislation. I therefore welcome the Forensic Science Regulator and Biometrics Strategy Private Member’s Bill, proposed by Darren Jones, MP. The delay in legislating has, without doubt, resulted in slower progress towards compliance with quality standards, particularly in very small companies and police forces. Nonetheless, there is much learning from the progress thus far and this is reflected in my priorities around assisting with and improving the adoption of standards.

I will continue to lobby for change to ensure that the policies for commissioning forensic science support the provision of high quality forensic science. That has two main elements: the first is that those making case-specific commissioning decisions do so in a knowledgeable, collaborative and outcome-based manner, proportionate to the seriousness of the case and the potential for forensic science to contribute to criminal justice outcomes. I therefore welcome a new project, in the”—

Home Office,—

“that aims to better quantify the impact of forensic science in the Criminal Justice System. The second element is to ensure that a longer-term strategy for sustainable provision of high quality forensic science is developed as a matter of urgency. The pricing uplifts put in place to stabilise the market this year were the beginning but not the end of this process and I have recently been made aware of concerns in the digital forensics community about unsustainable pricing, driven by high weighting on price in procurement. We must not go back into a spiral of unsustainability.”

The sense of a spiral of unsustainability is incredibly important for the future, for the resources are allocated, encouraged and supported through the regulator and for those that police forces around the country allocate to different parts of what they deliver on justice and policing. This cannot be as underfunded as it has been. Ground needs to be regained.

Fundamentally, this is about the credibility of a significant body of evidence that should be used to convict the guilty and, in many cases, set the innocent free. Without rigour and the statutory enforcement power to back it up, too often, we will not see justice delivered and law and order upheld. In recent times, there have been a couple of very significant instances where we have seen failures in the system, if not necessarily in the market, and we have to be careful even though they are market providers—I am thinking of the failures of Randox and Key Forensic Services. Fundamentally, these could and perhaps should be seen more in the context of a lack of oversight, or a lack of ability to enforce concerns in the oversight position, as opposed necessarily to being a failure of the private sector. Whether we are talking about the police forces and their forensic units, or the market forensic units outside the police forces, they are all under pressure and under constraints, so we ought not to use Randox and Key Forensic Services as case studies against the market sector. However, we can reflect on the impact that those cases have had and how we should go forward.

Many thousands of cases are affected when a laboratory, in whichever way, goes wrong. Thousands of samples may not be analysed in the right way or may be contaminated, and that can have an impact on trials. In some cases, the guilty can get off; in other cases, the innocent may be found guilty.

We can just imagine the circumstances if someone who needs to drive for their living is convicted of drug-driving and can no longer do their job. That has a massive impact on them personally—perhaps they have to switch jobs or they become unemployed—it has an impact on their ability to look after their family and pay their mortgage, and it will have an impact on family life. Even though in many ways this issue can seem abstract and niche in its concerns, it has an impact, because law and order and the courts system have such a wide impact on so many people’s lives right around the country. That is an important reason why we need to tighten regulatory oversight.

There are two broad categories for forensic science: trace forensics, which is perhaps what people will be familiar with, thinking of DNA, fingerprints and drug samples, and digital forensics, which looks at computers, smartphones, mobile devices and social media. Increasingly, there are concerns about cloud computing and the colossal volumes of data we produce these days. It is thought that about 90% of crime has a digital element and, hearing the awful news of what happened in Croydon overnight, we can be pretty sure that there will be a significant forensics contribution to that investigation.

That digital element can expand to cover many different areas, including CCTV and cyber-attacks. I was startled to read that the average British household now has on average 7.4 digital-enabled devices, and we have to look at that being set to continue into the future, so there are massive challenges. That perhaps goes into the whole idea of big data, because big data is not just about large volumes of data but about the extraction, manipulation, use and interpretation of that data. There is far more to it than just getting hold of a device; we have to do so in a managed and controlled way.

As with any science, these disciplines do not sit in isolation, so increasingly we see that any given crime will require that expertise from both the trace element and the digital element of forensics. How we manage those two sectors coming together and working together places increasing demand on the sector, requiring more and more advanced management. If we do not have the resources to look into how we manage the system and perhaps do not have the resources going in, that creates increasing strains, which then have an impact on the rest of the criminal justice system and policing.

Immigration (Citizens' Rights Appeals) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2020 General Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. I am sure the Minister will tell us that all is rosy, but I asked the Library about the number of British citizens applying for passports from the EU 27, and I got some quite alarming figures. In 2017, which is when the Library’s latest figures are from, there were more than 15,000 applications, whereas a decade ago there were about 1,000. If everything is okay with the British passport, how does he explain that? The number of applications for a Swedish passport used to be only in the double digits, but last year there were nearly 5,000 applications. The Irish figure is well known; it is 112,138. What conclusion does he draw from that?

We are always told that people voted out and want to lose freedom of movement, but those figures suggest that people want to live, work and play—I think that is from the Mars adverts—love, study and all those things in the EU 27. Those of us with Commonwealth origins have no recourse to another European passport. That calls to mind the hostile environment, which was mentioned so powerfully by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley. I echo the praise for her, and ask the Minister what we can attribute those figures to. I also ask, because you are chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, Ms Nokes, where the equality impact assessment is.

[Kevin Foster]

It has been an interesting debate, and I appreciate the support of Opposition Members. My remit does not quite extend to the Swedish passport system, so I will have to keep my remarks rather limited on that.

I start by responding to the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood. There have been more than 3 million applications and now just over 3 million determinations, and so far we have had 900 requests for an administrative review. While there is no appeal right, people who disagree with a decision can still request that review. With 900 reviews after 3 million determinations and well over 3.2 million applications—I accept that people would not apply for a review until they had got their decision—we felt the number of appeals was likely to be low. Where people have additional evidence, the logical process for them is to make another free-of-charge application to the settlement scheme. As the deadline is June next year, they have plenty of time to do that and get the status they believe they are entitled to. To be clear, if someone reapplies because they think they should have settled status rather than pre-settled status, that does not prejudice the pre-settled status they have been given. I am conscious that Members might ask whether if someone reapplied, it might prejudice the status they had been granted. The answer is no.

For those who applied before 31 January, the way to gain an appeal right is to make a reapplication to the settlement scheme. That is free of charge for anyone; there is no supplementary charge for making another application. We felt that struck the appropriate balance, because an appeal would have a charge to it, and in most cases, if there is a need to present additional evidence, it is easiest to do that through another application. To be clear, anyone who has a right to apply to the EU settlement scheme, including as a Zambrano carer and in the other examples given, may avail themselves of those appeal rights. On legal representation, the position is similar to that for use of appeal mechanisms in other immigration law.

On the system being engulfed, any member of the Committee or of this House who is interested in how the process is going is welcome to pay a visit to Liverpool. We are happy to arrange for people to visit and see what the teams are doing. Hon. Members would see that, far from being engulfed, the teams are working quickly through the largest documentation of immigration status in UK history, providing many people with certainty and assurance.

[Dr Huq]

The Minister pooh-poohed my point about other nationalities. Will he not accept that it is people who are trying to bypass this cumbersome process who are applying for another nationality? Does he not see a causal link there?

Windrush Compensation Scheme (Expenditure) Bill

Rupa Huq Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Money resolution & Programme motion
Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gary Sambrook (Birmingham, Northfield) (Con)]

Birmingham is in many ways a Commonwealth city in more than just name, because one in 10 Brummies were born in Commonwealth countries overseas, and I believe that every Commonwealth nation has at least one resident who lives in Birmingham. So as a Birmingham MP, I am horrified that so many people were so badly let down by successive Governments over many years. They are men and women who have given so much to this country through their work, their charitable contributions and their community work, and they will rightly feel hurt and upset by what has happened. That is why it is important that the Bill passes through this House tonight, in order to go some way towards righting that terrible wrong. When the lessons learned document is published, it is important that we look at it properly and take on board many of the lessons that genuinely, seriously need to be learned.

The independent nature of the scrutiny of the compensation scheme is important, because it goes some way towards instilling faith in the scheme. It included the independent QC, Martin Forde, as well as many community groups and people who had been affected by the Windrush scandal, and that is important to ensure that people have faith in the scheme and can see that it is robust. It is really important that we do all we possibly can to ensure that community engagement is central to the campaign for awareness, and it must be real and extensive community engagement that reaches out into many different communities across the whole of the United Kingdom. I acknowledge the work done by people such as Desmond Jaddoo, a community and faith leader in Birmingham. I think it was my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) who said earlier that Members of Parliament could look at ways of engaging community activists such as Desmond, who has done so much work over many years as a campaigner for equality and fairness. Having worked in community groups over so many years, he can highlight where things are going wrong and make a useful contribution to ensuring that the scheme is robust and fair and that it is reaching the people that it needs to.

The second Windrush Day, which will take place on 22 June, is another key occasion that we must use to engage with people to ensure that they are aware of what they are entitled to. The taskforce, which was set up last year, was an important step towards helping the 3,600 people who have now secured their British citizenship. It was important that the taskforce was set up. I am pleased that the Government are continuing their commitment to a national memorial for the Windrush generation, highlighting the importance of the contribution that those people have made over many generations.

I am sorry to see so many Members on the Opposition Benches trying to absolve themselves of all responsibility, because this is an issue that has happened over successive Governments. The hostile environment has been mentioned on a number of occasions, but it is important for Opposition Members to appreciate that the National Audit Office has acknowledged that this issue dates back to 2004. The former Home Secretary, Alan Johnson—

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

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gary Sambrook]

I will.

[Dr Huq]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but does he not recognise that all these things stem from the Immigration Act 2014, which was passed by his Government? He seems to be denying that the Conservatives have been in government for the last 10 years, during which the hostile environment policy has had rocket boosters on it.

[Gary Sambrook]

I completely disagree with the hon. Lady. It was the former Minister Phil Woolas, who stood up in the Chamber to introduce an immigration Bill, or some kind of procedure, that referenced the hostile environment. This issue has been going on for many years, and too many Opposition Members attempt to absolve themselves of any responsibility for it. It was Alan Johnson, the former Home Secretary, who recognised that the Windrush generation scandal was an administrative decision taken by UK Border Agency. We should be attempting to depoliticise the issue as much as possible and working cross-party as a Parliament to ensure that people across this country get the compensation they deserve, and that we focus on righting this terrible wrong that happened to the Windrush generation.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) and to be the last Back Bencher called in this thoughtful, sometimes passionate and always informative debate today.

The word “Windrush” used to have positive connotations, but in the past couple of years it has become symbolic with fiasco, catastrophe and, above all, scandal. I used to teach courses on post-colonial Britain, and I remember showing monochromatic slides of the SS Empire Windrush docking, with all those faces full of expectation and those people coming to make a positive contribution, with a new life in the motherland, and bursting with pride. These were brave pioneers, who went on to rebuild the nation and its public services from the post-war rubble and ruin, including as NHS nurses; my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) mentioned her own mum. These were people in our city and working on London Transport. I remember that at the height of John Major mania, if there was such a thing, they uncovered the bus conductor, a lady from Lambeth or Camberwell garage—one of the two—who had picked John Major for the post of bus conductor back in the day. So how did we get from all that positivity and expectation to a place where, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) said, this word is synonymous with national scandal? People who were legally in Britain and had been here for decades were denied basic rights. People were denigrated, detained and deported.

I am proud to be one of the 170 Members who signed a cross-party letter demanding that tomorrow’s forced deportation flight is withdrawn. I will not go into tons of detail on that issue because we had an urgent question on it earlier, but I am still none the wiser about when the lessons learned review will see the light of day. The demands of the letter are fairly modest. We know that, in line with the leaked review, there should be a pause in the process until the lessons are learned, so the sequencing seems all wrong. We still do not know when that review is going to come out. As has been said by my hon. Friends, people with no ties to places are being sent tomorrow to “destination unknown”—people who have families here are being wrenched away from them.

We are addressing the compensation scheme in this debate, so that is what I shall turn to. There are still victims out there who need justice. The process of an 18-page form that needs 44 pages of guidance to complete it is seen as onerous. The Government talk of compensation, but it feels like implementation is a slow, protracted and burdensome process. All the burden is on the claimant, who must often prove the unprovable. People feel unsupported. The “Dear colleagues” letter that the Minister sent around this morning said that Citizens Advice will be the partners in the process. In the London Borough of Ealing we have 360,000 residents—it is the capital of west London—but we do not have a citizens advice bureau. What is the mechanism for somewhere like that?

Many people are just completely unaware of the scheme, or are unwilling to make contact because of the connotations of the hostile-environment climate that the Government have fostered. The Home Office is often seen as a dirty word in immigrant homes. We are all constituency MPs as well, and week in, week out we see at surgeries the Home Office’s incompetence, with a bit of someone else’s case pasted into the letter a constituent has brought before us. People are waiting for years on end and told that it is a “complex case”, a term that I noticed the Home Secretary used in her opening remarks. It seems pretty tawdry for people who have been waiting for years and years to be told it is a complex case. The Home Office is the Department that is meant to administer the scheme and, as many of my colleagues have said, there is a level of mistrust and distrust if that same Department is judge and jury. I welcome the fact that the Minister mentioned in his note this morning that there is to be some independence, with a QC being introduced to the process, but we need finally to disentangle the two.

[Kevin Foster]

To be clear, Martin Forde QC, who is the independent adviser, is already in place, but we are looking to go through a recruitment process for the permanent appointment.

[Dr Huq]

I am grateful to the Minister for that and welcome his point. As I say, it looked a little vague, so I am pleased that we have got a bit more vagueness out of him this evening. We await to see the detail and what that turns into. Independence is a good thing in a process such as this one when there is historical distrust between these communities and the Minister’s Department.

Others have cited these figures: of the 1,108 applications —8,000 were expected—only 36 have led to anything. The £64,000 sum sounds very low for people who have had years and years of loss of earnings. Again, there is the issue of proving the unprovable. We have heard today that there are people who served in our armed forces for 10 years, yet that is not sufficient proof for whatever the hoops are that the Home Office wants people to jump through. It just looks like it is being done in a perfunctory way, almost to deter people from applying.

Where is the national media campaign? The Home Secretary talked at the beginning of the debate about doing travelling road shows, which I have yet to encounter in my own borough. Was it before or after the illegal Prorogation that £140 million was spent on the Get Ready for Brexit campaign, to excite people in a politically motivated, partisan, propaganda way? It contravened the civil service code, but all the complaints seemed to get swallowed up in the swirl of the general election. We need some sort of advice campaign for this scheme so that people know about it, because people out there are unaware of it.

As we all know, 60 million Brits woke up the other day without the right to live, work and study in 27 other EU nations as part of the greatest democratically accountable trade zone that the world has ever seen. Currently, record numbers of people with British passports are applying for other passports. The highest number is the 94,000 last year alone who applied to the Republic of Ireland, but people are even applying to other countries to which it used to be unknown for Brits to apply. Some 4,800 French passports have been applied for. That does not instil us with confidence that ours is a gold-standard passport anymore. When the Windrush generation have been waiting for years and years, that just adds insult to injury.

There are worries that other categories of people may be at risk from similar difficulties with the Home Office and the mix of cruelty and ineptitude that we have seen with this particular scheme and policy. The House of Commons Library briefing lists Chagos islanders, EU citizens and a whole load of other people who may fall into this category. A million people have applied for the EU settlement scheme, but we can already see people falling through the cracks, because that scheme is way short of where it should be. The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), said at the beginning of the debate that 160,000 people could be eligible to apply for Windrush compensation.

We should remember that this entire scandal cost the scalp of a Home Secretary. The massive governmental failure we have seen in respect of the relatively small numbers—in the thousands—caught up in the Windrush scandal should be a warning against demonising communities without ID. Additional burdens are now being created just for people to go and put an X in a box every five years—the Government are insisting on extra documentation just for voter ID—but we know that 3.5 million people do not have any sort of photo ID. It all bodes very ill. If we really are learning lessons, we need to take heed, especially as to date there has been only one conviction for election fraud in the 2017 general election. I await to see the figures from the recent general election, but it is all part of a pattern, is it not? It looks more hostile environment than one nation Government, which is what they claim to be.

To compound things, the Windrush generation are the people who faced those “No dogs, no blacks, no Irish” signs when they came to this country. Between the original 492 passengers who set sail on the SS Empire Windrush back in June 1948 and right up to 1971, many other people came from the British empire—I think the number is nearly half a million, including my own parents, who came in 1962 from the former East Pakistan. For all those people, all these things are a great worry. We are talking about compensation, but it looks like it is not forthcoming for a lot of people. The wheels of justice are being extremely slow to turn.

At a time when other London boroughs seem to be doing away with things such as Black History Month, I am proud that in my own, the London Borough of Ealing, we have had a Windrush flowerbed in our flagship park, Walpole Park, since 1998. It was re-consecrated or renewed—whatever is done to parks; it is not religious—in 2014. There is a sense that black history is being belittled by all these things. In the neighbouring Tory boroughs, Hillingdon and Wandsworth, they have done away with black history week and are calling it diversity week, which is not the same thing. All these things are not just for a week; they are about lives and livelihoods. I am incredibly fortunate that in my borough we have on a Friday the Acton Anglo Caribbean lunch club, members of which have been affected by the Windrush scandal, although I will not go into individual cases. We also have their kids, who have formed a group called Descendants, and the WAPPY youth group.

I welcome the extension of the timeframe to 2023 and the element of independence that we have talked about, and Labour is obviously not going to oppose the Bill because it is a money Bill that allows compensation, but the scheme is still woefully inadequate. Only 3% of Windrush claimants have received compensation and the scheme falls pitifully short of all the expectations on it. Even the Home Secretary herself, in her own words, and the Government, in their “Dear colleague” letter this morning, as good as admitted that they are continuing to fail the Windrush generation. That is all wrapped up in this whole hostile environment policy, which has created a climate of fear, so that people do not want to come forward. After all, this is the Government who sent “Go home or face arrest” vans all around the London Borough of Ealing.

The Government will not end the Windrush scandal until they completely do away with the hostile environment policy. That means they must repeal the Immigration Act 2014, which overturned legislation that had been in existence since 1973 and that was relatively liberal on freedom of movement.

Right at the start of this debate, the Home Secretary said that this is about ruling out inaccuracies. Many people do not have tons of confidence in this Government and in this Department, especially as it took people of the press—people such as the journalist Amelia Gentleman and campaigner Patrick Vernon—to shine a light on these murky waters in the first place. As I have said, this matter has already claimed the scalp of one Home Secretary. What we need is a proper restorative justice attitude—not something that is perfunctory. The Government may have achieved a stonking great majority, with dozens of new oven-baked MPs, but I hope that they do take heed of what we have been saying about the principle of restorative justice. They could introduce a flat-rate scheme with room for those who have complicated cases. They need to treat this as what it is—a genuine injustice and scandal—rather than in a deport first, ask questions later, too little, too late, inhumane way, which is what this woefully inadequate scheme appears to do.

Serious Violence

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One way the Government are trying to get that message out is through the #knifefree campaign, which I will come to in a moment.

From having all these conversations and meeting people, including the families of victims of knife crime, one message is loud and clear: there is no one single solution to stopping serious violence. To tackle it properly will require action on many fronts and joined-up action across Government. With our serious violence strategy, we are fighting on all fronts with all partners to try to stop this senseless violence. Our united approach is starting to see some progress. National crime statistics for the last year show that the rate of rise in knife crime is starting to slow. The most recent figures from the Metropolitan police show a fall in the number of homicides in the past 12 months, and the number of knife injuries among under-25s fell by 15% in the capital, with over 300 fewer young people being stabbed, but still far too many lives are being lost and I remain resolute in my mission to help end the bloodshed.

Allow me Mr Speaker, to update the House on some of the work that is already under way. First, we are empowering police to respond to serious violence. I have joined anti-knife crime patrols and met senior officers from the worst-affected areas. They are the experts, so I have listened to what they say they need. They told me they needed more resources, so we have increased police funding by almost £1 billion this year, including council tax. As a result, police and crime commissioners are already planning to recruit about 3,500 extra officers and police staff.

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

The Prime Minister told me at Prime Minister’s Question Time last week that £1 billion was going back in, after she had cut 21,000 officers. In Ealing, Acton and Chiswick, where the number of aggravated burglaries and muggings has rocketed, how many officers will we have at the end of this year, compared with the number now? If they like, the Home Secretary and the Policing Minister would be welcome to visit; senior officers in Ealing and Acton would be happy to host them. We have lost both our police counters, but we would be happy to sit down and thrash this out. Our door is always open.

[Sajid Javid]

My understanding is that this year the Met plan to hire at least 300 additional officers. I cannot tell her how many there will be in Ealing, because that will be an operational decision for the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, but that increase can take place because of the rise in funding—the largest cash increase since 2010.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Abbott]

I do not think I was confused at all. I know the point that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle is trying to make, and my point is that this is so much more than party politics; it is people’s lives.

[Dr Huq]

My right hon. Friend is making a moving and powerful speech. On the subject of party politics, does she agree that this is not even a political choice for councils anymore? Councils of all political complexions are cash strapped. Youth services in Labour Ealing have been cut by 50%, but in Tory Hillingdon, the borough of the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service, youth services have been cut by 85%. This Government said austerity is over; they need to put their money where their mouth is and reverse those local government cuts.

Macpherson Report: 20th Anniversary

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

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

The hon. Gentleman is making some moving points about bias and discrimination. Does he agree that unconscious bias can be something that people have not thought of, that it needs stamping on, in addition to the policies that he mentions, and that more training is needed at all levels of the police?

[Douglas Ross]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s points. I say this to her gently, but she might be even more impressed when she hears some of my speech, now that she has entered the Chamber.

I agree with the point about unconscious bias, but the point I was coming to was about training. Whether training is for unconscious bias or to improve officers’ interactions or responses to racial incidents, it cannot simply be a tick-box exercise. We cannot simply say, “Go online, enter this portal, and at the end of it”—maybe five or 10 minutes later—“click the ‘submit’ button and suddenly you are racially trained,” or, “You are trained to deal with racial incidents,” or, “You are trained to deal with communities from BAME backgrounds.” I have a serious concern that those at the top of the police in all parts of the United Kingdom think that they are achieving what we want them to because they can say, “100% of our officers are trained in x,” or, “We have ensured that this is done at the policing training college,” in Tulliallan in Scotland or elsewhere.

If that training does not having a lasting impact among new recruits or officers, it is quite simply a waste of time, because we are not getting to the root of the problem and ensuring that we can enhance opinions. We have to look at the training element of all this, rather than trying to tick a box and saying, “It’s done. Move on and concentrate on the rest.” Again, we heard in evidence to our Select Committee that some tutors at those colleges were basically saying, “Do this bit and then we can get on to the exciting part of policing.” That is basically saying: “You don’t have to worry about it. You just have to do this to pass and then you move on to the rest.”

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Friday 11th January 2019 Commons Chamber

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

Seventy-seven days to go and breaking up is hard to do—disentangling ourselves from 45 years of arrangements that touch every aspect of our lives. This is bigger than any piece of legislation, any Budget and anything that any of us has ever voted on. It is a big deal. This is existential stuff.

I will not be voting for this deal because it is the culmination of a string of calamities. This week I received 373 emails in one day asking me to oppose it. People cannot understand why we had the referendum at all. We then had the triggering of article 50 with no plan. Holding a general election in that timeframe did not work out very well either, did it? The abandoned vote of last year then added another 30 days of wasted time. Now we have this bastardised compromise before us, uniting a whole pile of departed ex-Ministers, every living former Prime Minister, the ideological purists of the ERG and every single Labour Member here today.

Never mind the backstop, my constituents—13,000 outraged EU nationals among them—are worried about their financial passporting rights or their carbon credits when the EU emissions trading scheme ends. We are now told not to make the perfect the enemy of the good. That is a mighty big downgrade from “the easiest deal in history”. It is a bit of a downgrade from, “They need us more than we need them.” But there is plenty of material for any student essay on “Can a minority Government ever behave like an autocracy?”

There are desperate measures from No. 10, including evenings of drinky-poos for Tory MPs and knighthoods for some. A meeting was even offered to the 218 cross-party MPs imploring the PM to rule out a catastrophic no-deal Brexit, which would be like jumping out of a plane with no parachute, without even a safe landing space. That is one in three of us who are concerned about just-in-time supply chains and rules of origin. Indeed, I ended up at that meeting myself. Alas, nothing new came from the Prime Minister—same old, same old. There comes a time when being resolute becomes being pig-headed and stubborn. Meanwhile we see the farcical scenes of a multi-million-pound ferry contract paid to a firm with no vessels. We see the stockpiling of drugs. We have become the biggest buyer of fridges—that is one thing we can revel in.

[Layla Moran]

Does the hon. Lady think it is farcical that it was revealed that we have spent £1 million on these fridges so far?

[Dr Huq]

I absolutely do. In fact, we must think of all the money that this is racking up—never mind the £39 billion just for the split.

We have seen the no-deal notices, one of them recommending that Britons should vary their diets to avoid bananas and tomatoes in future. There are 3,500 troops on standby. Our great nation has descended into a “Dad’s Army”-style farce. “Just getting on with it” is easier said done when all the “it” that we should be getting on with is so interconnected.

Last year, in the sixth-richest country on earth, we saw 600 deaths from homelessness, including one here on our very doorstep. We know from the UN report on extreme poverty that 14 million of our fellow citizens are in extreme poverty. The NHS is haemorrhaging EU staff. Hoarding insulin is now a thing—that never used to be the case. The Home Secretary has left now, but desperate people being washed up in dinghies on our shores underlines the need for international co-operation at a time when we are turning away from our neighbours. We have heard about the coarsened climate of “them and us”, not only “them” as the EU and “us” on this side, but in this debate—the leavers and the remainers.

As the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) pointed out, Brexit has cost us dear from the public purse. We have two new Departments, Brexit planning across the entire civil service, and costly experiments creating a dress rehearsal with motorways in Kent. That is even before we get to the £39 billion that perplexes some Conservative Members. Every Government analysis shows that this will contract our economy by 9%. The best deal, obviously, is the one that we already have as existing members with a seat at the table rather than paying out to remain aligned. We know that what was promised was always improbable; now we know that those outlandish policies were undeliverable and the process was illegal.

As D-day looms, we need a plan B to break this logjam, impasse, gridlock, deadlock, cul de sac. We must have the meaningful vote that has been so hard resisted by the Government so as to reassert the sovereignty of Parliament. Thank you, Mr Speaker, for your role in changing the relations between the legislature and the Executive as you have done. We all thank you for that—although it was nothing to do with the Conservatives; they resisted every drop of it.

The last thing we need now is a blackmail Brexit with guns held to our heads. Increasingly, by the end of last year, good will, as well as time, was in decreasing supply. We have all this parliamentary game-playing when the functioning of our country, and people’s lives and livelihoods, is at stake. Given the magnitude of all this, it is time for calm action. We need a fresh assessment of the will of the people. It is 2019 now, not the middle of 2016, when circumstances were so different. Trump had not even been elected then, and it feels like he has been there for 50 years already.

We should extend article 50, given that there is only one deal on the table. As we have heard, “Nous n’allons pas renégocier le deal.” They have said it to us in every language. So that one deal has to be put to the people—to the electorate—for endorsement as to whether they think it is a good one. What are the Government scared of? We need a people’s vote with the option to remain, as we know what that looks like—to remain and reform, because we know it could be better. Now that is what I call taking back control.

--- Later in debate ---

Debate to be resumed on Monday 14 January (Order, 9 January).

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

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Quite a few speakers in this debate referred to the toxic climate outside this place as a result of the entire Brexit issue, so I just wanted to seek your advice on a related matter. The brain injury charity Rehab holds an annual and very popular MPs versus journalists pancake race, in which the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), and I both participated last year. However, the event has been pulled this year over worries that the climate outside is so horrible that it is not worth running it; apparently Shrove Tuesday is very near exit day and the charity does not think it is worth the risk. I wonder whether you might know which parliamentary authority to raise this case with. Could we have some reassurance that it is still possible for the event to go ahead, because the event raises money for a great charity?

[Mr Speaker]

Clearly it is a magnificent cause, and I am very sorry to hear news of the postponement or cancellation, and the rationale for that decision. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order because it gives me an opportunity to say a very small number of words on the subject of security. She was very likely present in the Chamber earlier in the week when very grave concerns were aired about aggressive, threatening and intimidating behaviour towards Members and journalists. In response to points of order on that matter, I hope I gave sympathetic and understanding responses. More particularly, I committed to inquire further into the matter and to make appropriate representations.

On top of the letter sent to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner by well in excess of 150 colleagues, as I subsequently advised the House, I myself wrote to the commissioner in explicit terms underlining the extent and intensity of concern felt in this place about the threat to security. Further to that letter to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, I must tell the House that in Speaker’s House yesterday morning I hosted, with the Lord Speaker, a meeting with Commissioner Cressida Dick and her colleagues for members of the Commissions of both Houses and the consultative panel on parliamentary security. In the course of that constructive engagement, the police communicated plans for increased security in the period ahead, which they trust and we very much hope will enable Members, journalists and members of the public to go about their business unimpeded by aggressive, threatening or intimidating demonstrators.

In that context and flowing from that meeting, a detailed letter has today gone to all colleagues from Eric Hepburn, the director of security for Parliament, and Jane Johnson, the Chief Superintendent of the Metropolitan police based here, together with a short covering letter from me. I hope that is of interest and potentially of reassurance to colleagues. I am looking in particular in the direction of the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), who very eloquently raised his concerns, together with other colleagues, on the matter earlier in the week. I hope that its relevance to the event to which the hon. Lady has referred is obvious. That event is some distance in the future and the question of whether it goes ahead is not a matter for the Chair, but I very much hope that, as a result of the increased security that is now to be set in train, people organising events within the precincts of the Palace of Westminster, adjacent to it or in close proximity to it, will feel confident and comfortable that they can safely proceed with their plans. I hope that is helpful to the hon. Lady.