Dover and Portsmouth: Protests

Debate between Sarah Jones and Alec Shelbrooke

Monday 7th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I agree that we should not give them political legitimacy. Of course, there are well-known connections between violent men and the types of violence they inflict, and it is not always in one area; it can be across lots of different behaviours—sexual violence, domestic abuse and the rest. We have no truck with these awful groups, and the gentleman to whom my hon. Friend refers seems particularly awful. Of course, the police will do what they need to do. They need to disrupt and remove the protesters so that people can go about their business, and in both cases that is what they did. We will ensure that we learn lessons and that arrests are made where they need to be. From the conversations that I have had today with the police about their response, it is clear that they were proportionate and managed to get the result that we wanted, which was the removal of the protesters and enabling people to go about their business.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

I am grateful that it is the Policing Minister who is making this statement. I have spoken to North Yorkshire police, and there is a proposal for RAF Linton-on-Ouse to be made into an asylum centre. The trouble is that calling it an “asylum centre on a military site” does not paint what it is. It is just a mass hotel, because people are free to come and go, and they will all be men. The Home Secretary said in a statement that she would not allow an asylum hotel anywhere near a primary school or a nursery, but within 300 metres of the entrance to the base is a primary school and a nursery. North Yorkshire police have made it clear that they would find it exceptionally difficult to constantly police protests, and these protests are coming from far and wide. Given the change to the way that protests are happening, the fact that North Yorkshire police would find it very difficult to police them, and the fact that there is a primary school and a nursery close to what would be a mass hotel for 1,500 people, can the Minister confirm that it is still the policy of the Home Secretary that she will not open such hotels near schools and nurseries?

[Sarah Jones]

I suspect the right hon. Gentleman has already had conversations with immigration Ministers about this particular case, and I suspect he is making the same arguments to them. I would not want to get in the way of that, and I am sure the relevant Minister would be happy to have those conversations. We need to bear down on the overall number of arrivals, which is what we are trying to do. We are not just closing the hotels, but reducing the number of arrivals and reducing the incentives for people to come in, which is why we are introducing the raft of policy interventions that I spoke about earlier.

Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban

Debate between Sarah Jones and Alec Shelbrooke

Monday 24th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I would very much like to talk to Lord Mann about the work that he has done, which was prior to me being in post. I will pick that up.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

Let us cut to the chase: Jew hatred in this country has been on the rise for over a decade. It was given a safe space in the past, and that has grown. I have a significant Jewish population in my constituency, who will tell you that Leeds sometimes feels like a really threatening place because of the protests. But the reality is that the protests that take place are okay under freedom of speech, which I support, as long as they do not break the law.

These fans were not breaking the law, and they should have been allowed to go to the match, but it appears that there were people—for example, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) outlined, in the safety advisory group—who had a biased intent. Will the Government start to analyse and audit these groups, which are supposed to be independent? We have seen bias at the BBC and a rise in antisemitic language and incidents in the NHS—which, despite the Health Secretary saying they are unacceptable, the General Medical Council clears. It is reported that 51% of students in Russell Group universities feel that it is okay to insult Jews. Can there please be a root-and-branch review from the Government to make sure that bodies are truly independent and are not hiding their blatant antisemitism?

[Sarah Jones]

To the right hon. Gentleman’s first point, the Prime Minister’s view was very clear: the wrong decision was made. That is our position. We believe that the decision made was the wrong one.

On the safety advisory groups, we have asked the inspector to look at them, their role and their function. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman is right to point out that across all our public bodies, we need to stamp out antisemitism in all its forms, wherever we find it and wherever we see it. I will certainly support him in that.