Dover and Portsmouth: Protests

Debate between Sarah Jones and Suella Braverman

Monday 7th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

Of course disruption was caused well beyond the immediate protest, because of the nature of the roads and the protest on the A20 and the surrounding roundabouts. That had a huge impact; a great many people wanting to go about their business were unable to do so. The police response, however, was good. The protest started at 7.30 am, and well before midday the protesters had been dispersed. The police established a gold command structure, as they do in such cases, declaring a major incident and ensuring that the protest was stopped. However, this behaviour is very disruptive, and the wearing of masks is clearly intimidatory. We will do everything to ensure that the police have the powers that they need to stop such protests.

[Suella Braverman (Fareham and Waterlooville) (Reform)]

I was in Portsmouth harbour this morning, near Eastney marina, speaking to local people in Fareham and Waterlooville. This is the message that they wanted me to send the Government. They are terrified, furious and desperate. They are not far-right racists. Only last week, a migrant man was arrested on suspicion of raping a 14-year-old boy in the area, and what are the Government doing? They are handing out leaflets to illegal migrants, asking them not to rape British girls and women. The Government’s response has been, frankly, pathetic.

Given that these are unlikely to be the last illegal migrants in Portsmouth, I have two questions for the Minister. Will she give the House a guarantee that in no circumstances will a migrant processing centre, temporary or permanent, be established in Portsmouth? What assurance can she give me that the national security of the naval dockyard in Portsmouth will be maintained, given that the invasion has now reached Hampshire?

[Sarah Jones]

Of course people are scared and angry about the fact that, as they see it, the borders are not secure. As the right hon. and learned Lady will know from her time in the Home Office, we have come some way since then, and have improved the system significantly. More than 1,000 boats and engines have been seized, system-wide arrests are up by 70%, 48,000 crossings have been prevented, there has been a 40% increase in French boots on the ground, and we have increased surveillance technology. There has been a huge 42% drop in the number of boats coming over, and we have removed more than 80,000 illegal migrants and foreign criminals. People are right to express a view, and it was disingenuous of the right hon. and learned Lady to suggest that I was calling those people racist, when I had made it very clear that there were people in Portsmouth who were concerned, and that local residents were coming out because they were angry. We have heard about that, and the actions of those people are very different from those of the racist thugs we see in other places—and who were there as well—and from the whipping up of hatred online. We will continue to bear down on illegal boat crossings.

Let me pay tribute to Kent and Hampshire police. Kent police dealt with 1,300 calls to 999 on Saturday, and Hampshire police dealt with 1,000. While these incidents were going on, a lot of work was being done to keep us safe across the counties.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Jones and Suella Braverman

Monday 22nd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary rightly said that antisocial behaviour brings misery and menace. As part of local antisocial behaviour plans, neighbourhood and traffic police across the country will rightly be cracking down on speeding and dangerous driving. Does the Home Secretary think that people who speed should be given the option to get private speeding awareness courses, rather than doing them with everyone else, and in her own case, what exactly did she ask her civil servants to help her with?

[Suella Braverman]

Hopefully we are not going to be too repetitive today, Mr Speaker. As I said earlier, last summer I was speeding. I regret that. I paid the fine and I accepted the points, and at no point did I seek to evade the sanction. But let us be honest about what this is all about. The shadow Minister would rather distract from the abject failure by the Labour party to offer any serious proposals on crime or policing. Labour Members want to talk about this because it distracts from the fact that they voted against tougher sentences for paedophiles and murderers. They want us to ignore the fact that Labour MPs would rather campaign to stop the deportation of foreign criminals than back our Rwanda scheme. They would rather the country does not notice their total abandonment of the British people. This Government are focusing on delivering a record—[Interruption.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Jones and Suella Braverman

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Some Government Members will be celebrating the Prime Minister’s first 100 days—it is remarkable that that is considered an achievement these days—but during those 100 days in office around 30,000 people, mostly women, will have been raped, and 20,000 of those rapes will have been reported while only about 320 will ever lead to a charge. The Home Secretary has responded by slashing Government funding for forensics, cutting this year’s funding for local police forces by £62 million and heaping pressure on to council tax payers to fill the gaps. Is that because of the Government’s disastrous mini-Budget, is it because of the Government’s failure to grow the economy over 13 years, or have they simply given up on tackling violence against women and girls?

[Suella Braverman]

I must gently point out that the hon. Lady has got to get with the programme, get with reality, and come back down to earth. The facts are that we have increased police funding by over half a billion pounds, I have just brought in more flexibility so police and crime commissioners around the country can increase their resources on the frontline, and we are on track to have the highest number of police officers on the ground in the history of policing. That is thanks to this Government’s funding and policies.

Of course we must do better on violence against women and girls and on rape and sexual offences; that is why we are pioneering the roll-out of Operation Soteria, which will improve operational support for victims of rape and serious sexual offences on the ground throughout an investigation. It is also why we are going to have specialist measures in court so that victims of rape and serious sexual offences give evidence in a much more appropriate manner. We are taking the steps; that is far better than carping from the sidelines.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Jones and Suella Braverman

Monday 14th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

New statistics published today reveal that the mini-Budget cost even more than we first thought—a staggering £30 billion. That comes on top of 12 years of austerity, which has seen a real-terms pay cut for police and staff, thousands of jobs lost and prosecutions plummet. The Home Secretary was in the Cabinet and the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire was No. 2 in the Treasury at the time of the mini-Budget. Will they both now apologise to our police for the damage they have done?

[Suella Braverman]

The Government are clear that policing must have a modern pay structure that recognises and rewards skills and competence, rather than time served. In line with that approach, chief constables have the discretion to pay an officer a starting salary of between £23,556 and £26,682 depending on qualifications and experience. The settlement is fair. We want our police officers to be empowered and strong in the fight against crime.