Immigration and Home Affairs

Debate between Sarah Champion and John Hayes

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve in the Chamber with you in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker. I wish the new Government Front-Bench team well. They know that I have high regard for many of them, including the hon. Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle) and the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson), who are in their places.

As a patriot, I wish the Government well, because they are in a position to run our country and there will be many matters on which we can agree. I have worked with a number of Government Members on the kinds of matters that go well beyond Punch and Judy politics, if I can call it that, particularly on national security. However, those good wishes are not the same as wishful thinking. Too much wishful thinking pervades the Government Benches. Having made change itself the brand, the risk they face is thinking that change alone is enough. CS Lewis said:

“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.”

Nevertheless, I wish the Government well.

We are debating a number of challenges in this aspect of the King’s Speech today, but none more challenging than that of lawlessness. Too often when we debate crime, lawlessness and order in this Chamber, we give too little regard to the victims of crime. We simply must end the culture, which has pervaded for most of my lifetime, of believing that crime is an illness; to be treated. It is not an illness; it is a malevolent choice made by those who are careless of the harm they do. When we understand that, we understand why the principal objective of the criminal justice system must be punishment. A justly retributive response to that malevolence is necessary not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it is the component of the criminal justice system which maintains the public’s faith that justice will be done and be seen to be done.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I am listening intently to the right hon. Gentleman’s speech. Does he therefore believe that people are born wicked? I believe that, with good education at a very early age and early intervention, crimes can be prevented.

Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Safeguarding and Road Safety) Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Sarah Champion and John Hayes

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Sarah Champion]

I wholeheartedly agree. I will highlight two—I will not call them omissions; that is not in the nature of this Bill Committee—additions that the Minister could consider in the future. Given the experience in this room, I hope they will be supported. The first, which the hon. Member for Darlington raised, is cross-border travel. I said that Rotherham now has some of the highest standards in the country. Unfortunately, because those standards are not replicated nationally—having CCTV in all taxis, for example—a taxi driver with lower standards could come from out of area to work in Rotherham. They may well be on the database and they may well have not committed any crime of note, but they would still be able to operate in Rotherham with lower standards of safety and protection for passengers. Will the Minister consider bringing in, at a later date, national minimum standards that apply to all taxi drivers, so that someone getting into a taxi, wherever they are, can have that same certainty?

The second addition—this is a rather a geeky point; my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings knows I am slightly obsessed with this—is around Disclosure and Barring Service checks. I met a woman whose abuser went to jail and then changed his name by deed poll, so his DBS check was clean, because the checks basically look at someone’s name and any associated records attached to that name. The Government are currently undertaking—I hope—an inquiry into the risks associated with change of name. It is known that registered sex offenders do that. There have been a number of high-profile cases that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon has been involved in. It happens. I am really concerned that close that particular loophole. I would appreciate anything the Minister could say to the Home Office and Justice, which are both looking into this, to make sure that the loophole is closed.

[Sir John Hayes]

Those issues were looked at in some detail, as the hon. Lady will know, by Professor Abdel-Haq in the report that I commissioned. I am grateful for her kind words, by the way. Cross-border travel is a thorny issue, but Professor Abdel-Haq’s recommendation 11 states:

“Government should legislate that all taxi and PHV—

private hire vehicles—

“journeys should start and/or end within the area for which the driver, vehicle and operator (PHV and taxi…are licensed.”

He goes on to say that appropriate measures need to be put in place to exempt specialist services, such as chauffeurs, disability transport services and others. However, the huge issue of cross-border journeys was looked at in some detail by that committee. Professor Abdel-Haq also looked at her second recommendation. I take the view of the hon. Member for Cambridge about local particularities, but I would go so far as to say that we cannot be too rigorous. There has to be a thorough and rigorous process that gives people the assurance that, wherever they get a taxi, those standards and checks will be in place. I strongly endorse the hon. Lady’s recommendations. This is precisely the kind of additional work that I recommended in my earlier intervention, and which I know the Minister will want to take forward.