Hong Kong Democracy Activists
Sarah Olney Excerpts(3 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Dan Jarvis
I do not want to get too far ahead of myself, as I will be making a statement shortly. I can say that we are working at pace to implement the FIR scheme. This is an important tool in the Government’s armoury. It will strengthen the resilience of the UK political system against covert foreign influence, and it will provide greater assurance around the activities of certain foreign powers and entities that we know to be a national security risk. We are getting on with the work, and we plan to lay the regulations that underpin the scheme in the near future, ahead of it going live in the summer.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
It is a privilege to represent a substantial community of Hongkongers in Richmond Park. I notice from Hansard that I was last here two months ago to ask the Government about renewed reports of repression against Hongkongers in this country, yet here we are again and nothing has been done to reassure my constituents about their continued safety and security in this country. I was interested in the Minister’s response to the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel), who talked about reviewing transnational repression. I urge him to give us some more detail about when we in this House, and my constituents in Richmond Park, can expect to hear more about what the Government plan to do about this.
Dan Jarvis
The hon. Lady makes an important point. Let me give her an absolute assurance that we take these matters incredibly seriously. That is why, through the defending democracy taskforce, which I chair, we have continued a process that was initiated by the previous Government to review the issue of transnational repression. For the sake of clarity, I can say to her that any attempt by any foreign Government to coerce, intimidate, harass or harm critics overseas, which undermines our democracy and the rule of law, is completely unacceptable. We have at our disposal now the National Security Act 2023, which enables law enforcement and the security and intelligence agencies to deter, detect and disrupt the full range of modern-day state threats, including actions that amount to transnational repression. As I say, the defending democracy taskforce is looking very carefully at the issue of transnational repression. There has been a lot of work taking place across Government, and we will have more to say about it shortly.
Iranian State Threats
Sarah Olney Excerpts(3 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Dan Jarvis
My hon. Friend makes two important points. I completely agree with his point about the Iranian people. This is not about them; it is about the targeted activity of the Iranian state. We are absolutely clear that the measures we have announced today are specifically for those state entities, not for the people of Iran.
My hon. Friend also made an important point about police training. I confirmed in my introductory remarks that work by counter-terrorism police, with all our territorial police forces right around the country, is already under way. It is absolutely essential that police officers on the beat, wherever they may be, have the training that they need to spot and more effectively understand the risks and threats that some of our citizens are subjected to. That is relatively new work; it is being progressed at pace. I am grateful to counter-terrorism police and to police forces right around the country for their commitment to it.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
It has been a privilege and an honour to engage with my many Iranian constituents over the years, but I am always filled with horror when they tell me stories not only of what is happening to their family and friends back home in Iran—particularly the oppression still suffered by many women—but of their experiences in this country. I very much welcome the measures that the Minister has outlined, particularly in relation to police training, which I know will make a big difference to my constituents.
One issue that those constituents often raise with me, and which is one of the biggest for British-Iranians living in this country, is banking. I very much welcome the Minister’s response to the hon. Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) on money laundering, but British-Iranian residents who have been living here for many years often find that their bank accounts are frozen, which leaves them in considerable financial hardship—some of those banking restrictions are just imposed without discrimination. Will reassurances can the Minister give my constituents about their ability to continue banking without restrictions?
Dan Jarvis
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for those points, and for referring to our work to ensure that, wherever they are in the country, police officers have the requisite knowledge and experience to handle such matters when they encounter them. She makes a good, practical point about frozen accounts and banking arrangements for British-Iranians. Let me take that away and come back to her. She will recall that I mentioned earlier the work being done, through the defending democracy taskforce, to review the issue of transnational oppression. We are looking carefully at what more we can do in that area. I will take away her point about banking, for which I am grateful.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sarah Olney Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Dame Angela Eagle
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing this matter to my attention. My officials have investigated, and Serco has referred the case to healthcare partners, who are currently in the process of providing a suitable wheelchair following a thorough assessment of the child’s needs. Officials are monitoring the situation closely to ensure the family receive the support they require.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
Domestic abuse services in my area are telling me there is a specific shortage of places in shelters for men, which is a particular problem for women fleeing domestic abuse with their teenage sons. What is being done to address this problem specifically?
Jess Phillips
Refuge accommodation actually sits within the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. However, we have invested £30 million extra for councils to look at the need they have in their area, which will include creating dispersal accommodation, as women with older boys are often not allowed into group accommodation.
Police Grant Report
Sarah Olney Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
I welcome the Government’s increased funding for the Metropolitan police, but this commitment does not go anywhere near far enough to deliver what is required for safe policing on the streets of London. The Labour party was elected into office on the mandate to restore community policing, which was gutted by the last Conservative Government. The shadow Policing Minister, the hon. Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers), may profess his own interest in police funding, but a more eloquent story is told by the empty Benches behind him when it comes to their commitment on this issue, which was demonstrated throughout their Administration.
We need to see real action and a real commitment to neighbourhood policing in order to address the ongoing issues of crime and antisocial behaviour that we are seeing across London, and to give the police the tools that they need to restore trust and confidence in our police service. I am concerned that this grant is not enough to protect current services provided by the Metropolitan police from further cuts, let alone enough to restore policing numbers and infrastructure to their previous levels. The force is experiencing real challenges in the recruitment and retention of police officers, which is affecting its ability to fill vacancies.
I receive regular correspondence from my constituents, who have passed on their experiences of being victims of burglaries and other criminal activities. The recurring theme in this correspondence is the difficulty that victims experience in ensuring that their cases are investigated in detail and at length by the Met. That is a direct consequence of cuts to our forces because our neighbourhood teams are severely stretched, meaning that the time they can spend on each case is limited.
My constituency of Richmond Park used to be home to three police stations, but after years of cuts they have all been closed. Richmond police station acted as a hub for our community, and provided reassurance to residents that they could quickly report a crime or a development in a case to an officer in person. The lack of these police stations in my constituency is causing that connection between the public and the police to be lost, due to the reduced visibility of police officers on our streets.
Chris Vince
Does the hon. Lady recognise, as I do, that the previous Government’s cuts to policing have led to a void of experience in community policing? We need to get that experience back, but that, sadly, will take time.
Sarah Olney
The hon. Gentleman is precisely right. Having had conversations with local police teams, what I find frequently is that there is a large turnover of police officers in neighbourhood policing, which really affects the ability of police officers to develop a relationship with their local communities. That lack of experience can be so telling when it comes to responding to issues such as antisocial behaviour.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
Although I represent a Sussex constituency, when I knock on doors in towns across my constituency I often discover that I have Met police officers living in my patch. I vividly remember a conversation last year with an officer in Burgess Hill, who told me the only reason he was still in the police was out of loyalty to his colleagues. Does my hon. Friend agree that more needs to be done to boost morale in the police?
Sarah Olney
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When I speak to my local police officers—the officers patrolling the streets of my constituency—I find very often that they actually live quite some distance from the communities they serve. That is obviously a direct result of the cost of living in London, but it creates a real problem for Londoners in that they are not served by Londoners in the police force. My hon. Friend is also exactly right about morale—that really has to be urgently addressed.
This story is common across London. More than 100 police stations have been closed by the Met, while there has been a 64% reduction in community policing since 2015. However, the Met is now in a position where it cannot sell off any more of its estate to balance its budget, and it is clear that it requires a significant influx of funding.
The Metropolitan police is responsible for policing regular and well-attended protests in central London, which require a greater intensity of resource to police. In Richmond Park, we regularly see our local officers abstracted away from their neighbourhood responsibilities to provide additional support at these events, which has resulted in a lack of cover on our streets, which adds to people’s anxieties about the lack of policing.
Recently, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, has warned about the deeply concerning shortfall faced by the Met. In December, referencing a £450 million funding shortfall, the commissioner warned that if substantial funding is not provided, the Met would be forced to cut 2,300 officers and 400 members of staff in the next financial year. The funding proposed by the Government today is, therefore, a drop in the ocean compared with what is required to prevent cuts to our London officers, and this provision of funding is certainly not in keeping with the Government’s promise to restore neighbourhood policing numbers to our communities.
While I cannot match the speeches on rural crime from my hon. Friends the Members for Winchester (Dr Chambers) and for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart), my constituency does have a significant police force, the Parks police, which specifically patrols the Royal Parks. The Parks police plays a crucial role in keeping crime and antisocial behaviour in the Royal Parks across London to a minimum, while its expertise in its domain enables the force to quickly address emergency situations. In response to a survey I recently conducted, nearly 1,000 of my constituents voiced their strong opposition to any proposed cuts to the Parks police, as well as providing first-hand accounts of times the Parks police helped to provide a quick resolution to what could otherwise have developed into a crisis situation.
With all that in mind, will the Minister provide us with assurances that the new grant funding for our police forces will mean that cuts to such important and valued police departments are not on the table? I urge the Minister to go further, and to really consider the specific demands of the Metropolitan police and the valuable work it does right across our city in keeping our community safe.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sarah Olney Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Suella Braverman
Antisocial behaviour is a real focus for neighbourhood policing. Ultimately it depends on local police forces having increased numbers of policemen and women on the frontline, responding quickly to neighbourhood crime, antisocial behaviour, burglary, vandalism and graffiti. That is why I am glad that across the country we are seeing increased numbers of officers recruited to our ranks.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
The police in my constituency work tirelessly to keep local residents safe, but every year they are asked to do more with less. We have lost Richmond police station, we have had budgets stretched further every year and our local officers are increasingly being pulled out of the community at short notice to support events in central London. Does the Home Secretary agree that a visible, regular local presence would help the Met Police to build trust with Londoners, and will she support the Liberal Democrats’ call for a return to community policing and put an end to police station closures?
Suella Braverman
The hon. Lady should take up some of her concerns about London’s policing with the Mayor of London, who I am afraid has a very disappointing track record when it comes to rising crime in London, particularly knife crime. I urge the Lib Dems to stop their meaningless opposition and get behind the Government’s plan to recruit police numbers and ensure they have the right powers.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sarah Olney Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Amanda Solloway
These are all tragic circumstances, which is exactly why we are working on the reforms. Tackling violence against women and girls is a Government priority, and it is unacceptable that this preventable issue, which blights and limits the lives of millions, is allowed to continue.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)
Together with our colleagues in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities we provide a range of support in accessing public services including essentials such as school places for children and housing. Around 7,400 people have moved, or are in the process of being moved, into new homes since the first ARAP flights in June 2021, an unprecedented rate of resettlement.
Sarah Olney
Of those who have arrived in the UK, around 10,000 Afghans remain stuck in hotels up and down the country at a cost to the public of £1 million a day. Most of them have been there for a year now, left in limbo due to the Government’s failure to work effectively with local authorities. Will the Minister commit to opening up safe and legal routes so that those in Afghanistan who are at risk can come to the UK? That also requires working constructively with local authorities so that Afghans in this country can finally start their new lives properly, in a home rather than a hotel room.
Kevin Foster
We are working constructively with 350 local authorities to ensure people get the accommodation they need. Given the cohort, that is clearly a challenge as there are large families and a balance needs to be struck with local authorities meeting their housing duties to local people. This also involves working with others, but we are grateful to see the number of local authorities taking part; their reaction is far better than that of the Lib Dem leader of my local council who initially, until he made a U-turn, refused to take part.
Metropolitan Police: Misogyny and Sexual Harassment
Sarah Olney Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Judith Cummins (in the Chair)
Before I call Sarah Olney to move the motion, I remind hon. Members not to make references, beyond passing factual references, to cases that are live before the courts.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered reports of misogyny and sexual harassment in the Metropolitan Police.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Cummins. I extend my thanks to the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for the debate, especially today, on International Women’s Day. The last time I made a speech in Parliament to mark International Women’s Day, I was the only female Liberal Democrat MP. Five years later, I find myself a proud member of a party that is, as of December 2021, 70% female. It is my profound belief that stronger female representation in all of our organisations and institutions can improve the lives of women and girls everywhere, and it is that belief, above all else, that propelled me along the path that led to Parliament.
When I was re-elected as the Member for Richmond Park in December 2019, it was a particular pleasure to find that women were in positions of responsibility at every level in the police force. My local borough inspectors in both Kingston and Richmond have at various times been women. The commander of the local basic command unit and her predecessor are women. The Commissioner of the Metropolitan police was a woman. The Home Secretary is a woman. How could my part of London not be a utopia of safety and justice for women? There have, however, been several events over the last year that have caused many of my constituents to be concerned about police officers’ attitudes towards women, and I am grateful for the opportunity to talk about that.
Our debate today will be haunted by the memory of Sarah Everard, who was killed by PC Wayne Couzens of the Metropolitan police just over a year ago, on 3 March 2021. Women across London and beyond experienced the news of her disappearance and the discovery of her body with a sense of real dread and fear. I felt it very personally, because the address where Sarah said her final goodbye to her friends was only a few streets away from where I used to live, and I would have pushed my baby daughter’s pram along the route where my namesake walked her last walk. Like many other women on that night and many others, she was just walking home. Thousands of women who did not know Sarah felt real grief at the news that her body had been found. Everything that we had heard about the case seemed to speak to our very deepest fears.
But then something even worse happened. Even now, 12 months later, I can still recall how terrifying it was to discover that the man who had been arrested in connection with her murder was a serving Metropolitan police officer. A person who was employed to keep us safe and enforce the law, and whom we ought to be able to trust, had betrayed that trust in the worst possible way and committed an act of violence against a defenceless woman.
A few days after the arrest, Reclaim These Streets wanted to organise a vigil for Sarah Everard. They approached Lambeth police but were refused permission. A gathering took place anyway; it was attended by police, and it proceeded in an orderly fashion until the early evening, when speeches started to be made from the bandstand and crowds grew denser. A number of arrests were made, and pictures of women being handcuffed while being held down by police spread on social media. For many women, myself included, it looked like an appallingly heavy-handed response to a peaceful vigil. It felt like an insult, on top of an already grievous injury, that the colleagues of the man arrested for murdering a woman were now using force to prevent other women from gathering together to pay tribute to her.
The subsequent report into the police’s conduct by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services exonerated the police while criticising politicians and others for expressing their opinions on what had happened. The 60-page report made only the most passing reference to the fact that the man arrested for the incident that sparked the vigil was a police officer; its analysis of the factors that contributed to the event does not include that fact. The report states that public confidence in the police will have been undermined not by the violent actions of a police officer but by “media coverage” and “uninformed commentary” on social media. I remember being furious at the report, not just at its complete failure to reflect the full context of the vigil, but at its implication that those critical of the police response—and I was certainly one of them—were more responsible for undermining trust in the police than was the fact that one of their number had been arrested for murder.
The sense that the police were not acknowledging the implications of the fact that Sarah’s murderer was a police officer was compounded by messaging from the Met police about women’s safety, following the conviction and sentencing of Wayne Couzens in September 2021. It advised women who were unsure whether a police officer intended to harm them that they could flag down a bus or shout to a passer-by for assistance. It felt not only as though the Met was accepting that it was the norm for women to fear the police, but as though it was not going to take any responsibility for resolving that.
That episode has damaged public confidence in the Met, but we also know that Wayne Couzens is not the only police officer to have committed violence against women. Freedom of information data shows that 2,000 accusations of sexual misconduct, including rape, have been made against Met police officers over the past four years. Only a third of officers who were found guilty have been dismissed. We also know that Couzens was previously convicted of indecent exposure and regularly shared grossly offensive messages over WhatsApp with other police officers. That did not trigger concerns about his conduct.
However, PC Couzens is not the only officer guilty of sharing disturbing messages on social media platforms. Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, sisters from north London, went missing in June 2020. Their bodies were eventually found by family members in a nearby park after police showed little interest in investigating. Two police officers were subsequently jailed for photographing the women’s bodies and sharing the photos on WhatsApp, including in a group of 41 police officers. The court released details of how the images had been altered and the accompanying messages, but I will not repeat them here.
A recent Independent Office for Police Conduct report on behaviour at Charing Cross police station revealed
“a culture of ‘toxic masculinity’, sexual harassment and misogyny.”
One officer had sent a WhatsApp message to a female colleague, saying:
“I would happily rape you”.
Another bragged about how he had hit his girlfriend, saying:
“It makes them love you more.”
Women officers were belittled and ostracised if they spoke out about this behaviour.
Women fear that an internal culture of misogyny might also affect how police treat members of the public. I have had women get in touch with me to share their experiences of having complaints of stalking and harassment dismissed—even laughed at—by Metropolitan police officers, leaving them feeling powerless and abandoned, and as though the behaviour of their perpetrators had been normalised.
I am grateful to the superintendent of our local basic command unit for taking time to give me her perspective on the issue. She reports a great deal of frustration among police officers that there is so much public attention on and criticism of the police in relation to those events, when the majority of police officers are dedicated, law-abiding and committed to helping their communities. Politicians, particularly Members of Parliament, can relate strongly to the feeling that the damaging actions of a small minority can lead to a disproportionate erosion of public trust in a collection of people, but there is a special responsibility on both law makers and law enforcers to ensure that they uphold the law, in public and in private, and that when there is a visible breach, adequate action is taken swiftly and effectively to denounce the polluting behaviour and to restore public trust.
Public trust is earned; it is not a given. To have it, we must constantly work to uphold the values that are expected of us—both police officers and politicians. Events as horrifying and disturbing as the instances of misogyny described in this speech will, rightly, lead to a large public response. The events of the last year are, after all, not just minor misdemeanours, and I believe that the public’s questioning of the police is valid, even if the perceived scale of damaging attitudes among officers is disproportionate.
That is not to say that public trust has been damaged beyond repair. Baroness Louise Casey is leading an independent review of culture and standards in the Met, in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard. The review offers the Met an opportunity to identify areas in which there is a need for cultural change and to inform a dedicated strategy to tackle misogyny. To ensure that damaging attitudes are given appropriate recognition, I urge that the review’s terms of reference be expanded to make specific reference to misogyny, alongside racism and homophobia.
Our police officers need our trust, and the vast majority deserve it. They have a unique job to do, which requires them to put themselves in harm’s way without a second thought. I am grateful for the excellent job that so many of them do without recognition or appreciation. They have been badly let down by their colleagues, and I recognise that many of them feel as horrified as I do about what has been revealed over the past year.
The recent IOPC report on Charing Cross revealed a number of factors that contributed to the toxic culture it identified. Those included the fact that officers were often isolated and lacked supervision, and that there was widespread acting up, with officers taking on unofficial promotions. That meant that inappropriate behaviours or attitudes were not properly challenged at the right time, and so they became normalised. That strongly suggests that the lack of appropriately experienced or trained police officers has been a contributory factor in allowing negative behaviours to flourish unchecked, which leads back to the dramatic cuts to policing in the capital over the past decade. We know that the Met has been promised more officers, but reports suggest that recruitment is slow and new, inexperienced officers will not change the picture overnight.
The most high-profile new recruit will be the new Metropolitan Police Commissioner. I look forward to a speedy appointment. If I could end this speech with one ask, it would be that they pay attention to the findings of the IOPC report and to the review by Baroness Casey, and think hard about how to create a culture that reinforces respectful behaviour at all levels, deals robustly with evidence of misogynistic, racist and homophobic attitudes, and, above all, understands the impact that violent or disrespectful behaviour by police officers, even when it is by only a very small proportion, has on their relationship with the public.
Sarah Olney
Thank you very much for chairing our proceedings, Mrs Cummins. This has been a really excellent and thought-provoking debate, and I am incredibly grateful to everybody for their contributions. A few things struck me, and I just want to touch on them. The hon. Members for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) and for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) both highlighted the issue of undermining public confidence in the police. We heard particularly from the hon. Member for Vauxhall about the number of rape victims who are dropping out of the process because they do not trust the police. For me, that really sums up what the issue is, or how the issue manifests itself.
Another thing that really struck me was when the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) and the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) talked about their constituents who have had to go out and fight for justice themselves. The hon. Member for Nottingham East talked about the case in relation to protesters and undercover police officers. That took 10 years to come to justice. There was also the case of Dr Konstancja Duff, so vividly described by the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. That took nine years to come to justice. It really brings home to me the extent to which women have had to be responsible for their own safety and for getting justice for themselves because we have seen this wall of inertia, defensiveness or, potentially, something more sinister from the police. Those are the two points that really came home to me during this debate.
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for the points she made and in particular what she said about mandatory relationships education in schools and how important it is that we tackle the scourge of misogyny in wider society, because it is not found just in the police or in the Metropolitan police. We heard so many examples of police forces across the country, including the one in Northern Ireland, which was referred to by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I was really pleased to hear the Minister touch on that when she gave her response. She said that we are already seeing mandatory sex and relationships education in schools, and I think that that is really important. I just want to raise a tiny point. She talked about consent and resisting pressure to have sex. I would like to think that we are also teaching boys not to apply pressure. I am sure she is happy to clarify that.
I was really pleased with the response from the Minister. She spoke with great passion and great conviction, and that gives me quite a lot of optimism that this is genuinely an issue that is at the core of the Home Office’s work. We have a female Minister here and a female Home Secretary. As I said in my opening remarks, I believe—I continue to believe—that having women at all levels of Government and politics is good for women and girls. I was really pleased with a lot of what the Minister said. In terms of where we are at, we seem to have quite a lot of reports coming out. She mentioned the Angiolini review. There is the Casey review. There is the Barber review. It is brilliant to see that this issue is being looked at seriously and that the problems are being identified. What we really want to see as we move forward is action and police forces across the country being held to account. We need to see measures and to see progress.
I want to touch on what the right hon. Member for Basingstoke said about transparency; I think I saw a tweet or a Twitter thread about the issue she mentioned. That is so important: these things should not happen behind closed doors. As she says, transparency is the best form of disinfectant.
I want to close by reiterating my thanks to everybody for taking part today, but I also want to pay tribute to the families of Sarah Everard and Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman. They are still suffering unimaginable grief at the loss of their daughters. It must be so much harder knowing that those cases are being used to highlight bigger issues and in particular that their deaths happened in such an appalling way, so I want to take a minute to pay tribute to them and to send my sympathies to them. I am conscious that talking about all those cases so often today may well have increased the families’ distress, but it is so important that we do not allow these incidents to go unremarked and that we take every opportunity we can to see the step change we all need to see to ensure that this does not happen again. I put on record my gratitude to them and my respects to them.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered reports of misogyny and sexual harassment in the Metropolitan Police.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sarah Olney Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Kevin Foster
Again, we would make the point that moving this operation out of the Home Office would merely further delay the provision of the compensation that we all want to see paid. As I have touched on, we are recruiting more caseworkers and speeding up the process. Given the age cohort we are talking about, we are aware that some people have sadly passed away. However, that is why we are more motivated to speed up the process and make a real difference. As I have said, we have more staff coming in, and we will streamline the process to make it not only quicker, but simpler for those claiming compensation to engage with the team.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Rachel Maclean)
I speak regularly with the Equalities Office and campaigners on ways to tackle violence against women and girls. We believe that women should not have to change their behaviour to stay safe, which is why our strategy sets out preventive measures to tackle violence against women and girls focusing on changing misogynistic attitudes; however some people might choose to use one of the many apps, including the Path Community app, that are available to them.
Sarah Olney
Many women’s rights campaigners, including Reclaim These Streets, have called apps such as the Path Community app insulting to women and girls. They claim it does nothing to tackle men’s violence against women, so why are the Government continuing to push the app and present it as some kind of solution?
Rachel Maclean
I thank the hon. Lady for giving me the opportunity to put on the record that we are not specifically pushing—I think that was the word she used—or promoting or backing that one app. As I said in my answer, there are many apps, and many women use those apps of their own choice. Of course we welcome that choice for individuals; on the other hand, it is vital that the Government play our part in tackling violence against women and girls through the multiple other measures set out in the “Tackling violence against women and girls strategy”, which I invite her to read.
Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism
Sarah Olney Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Hilary Benn
I recognise that, and it is one of the consequences of the blockade that has affected the people of Gaza for a very long time.
Secondly, what about peacebuilding organisations such as Forward Thinking? Over the years, as the Minister may be aware, Forward Thinking has brought leaders of the parties to the conflict, from Israel and from the Palestinian side, to Britain and Northern Ireland to meet former foes who talk them through the journey they made that led from armed conflict to the Good Friday agreement. That has included leaders from Hamas. I have seen the work of Forward Thinking at first hand, and I have participated in some of it. It is deeply impressive and, in my view, very important.
The Home Office document, “Proscribed terrorist groups or organisations”, published in 2015, sets out the offence and draws attention to section 12(4), which
“provides a defence, in the case of a private meeting addressed by a member of a proscribed organisation, if a person can prove that they had no reasonable cause to believe that the address would support the proscribed organisation or advance its terrorist activities.
Further, the explanatory notes to the Terrorism Act 2000”—
the explanatory notes are designed to help the courts and prosecutors in deciding whether it is in the public interest to prosecute—
“explain that the defence in section 12(4) is intended to permit the arrangement of ‘genuinely benign’ meetings…designed to encourage a designated group to engage in a peace process or facilitate delivery of humanitarian aid where this does not involve knowingly transferring assets to a designated organisation.”
There is also the question of journalists. On reading the guidance, it seems to me that the activities I have highlighted would not be caught by this order, but I look to the Minister for reassurance.
None of the individuals involved will want to fall foul of the law. I recognise what is said in the Home Office document but, for the kinds of organisations that a number of Members have raised, it is not a satisfactory answer to leave people in the following position: “Well, there is a defence. Hey, if you are prosecuted, you can go to court and advance the defence. You may win, you may not. You may be found guilty.”
Will the Crown Prosecution Service now produce guidelines on the implications of this kind of order for the activities to which I have drawn attention? I am aware that the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation suggested such guidance in 2018, and I understand that in October 2020 the Home Secretary said she had written to the Attorney General to ask her to discuss the question of such guidance with the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Can the Minister tell us how those discussions are going? That would help to reassure Members who want the good work of Forward Thinking to continue while supporting the order today. We have an obligation to the staff who do the work and to the trustees of the organisation, because what they are doing is self-evidently good and important work, and I hope it will be able to continue.
Sarah Olney
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will keep my remarks short.
The Government should undoubtedly be doing all they possibly can to combat terrorism and stamp out antisemitism wherever they find it. Within Gaza, Hamas’s persecution of and discrimination against marginalised groups—including Jews, the LGBT+ community and women—civil society organisations and democratic opposition is abhorrent, and it is certainly true that Hamas’s attitude to the conflict in Israel and Palestine, including its entrenched and extremist rhetoric, its antisemitic incitement and its refusal to recognise the state of Israel, is a significant barrier to peace.
That was only too apparent in the dreadful terrorist attack carried out by a Hamas operative in Jerusalem on Sunday, in which an Israeli citizen tragically lost their life, with others wounded. I hope that Members on both sides of the House will join me in paying tribute to those victims and their families. Those awful scenes underline the fact that this is a conflict, in which peace is desperately needed. It is needed for Israeli citizens and for Palestinians.
The military wing of Hamas is currently proscribed by the Government and has been for nearly 20 years, and rightly so. However, we have some concerns about the legislation before us today. Under the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, jurisdiction for offences relating to proscribed organisations was extended on an extra-territorial basis. Offences such as these carry a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison. We are seriously concerned that someone who meets the political wing of Hamas for the purposes of advancing peace, in the UK or even in a country where the political wing of Hamas is not proscribed, such as Palestine, could still be prosecuted for it in the UK. We must not risk criminalising those who work towards peace building and dialogue. There is a concern among UK charities who play an important role in working towards peace that this measure may impact them. There is genuine confusion about what this means for their work.
Worryingly, we have heard from such charities that the Home Office did not conduct a consultation regarding this step. If that is true, it is remarkably irresponsible. Those charities may find that overnight they are criminalised, with a risk of significant prison sentences, for work that they are currently undertaking, and have undertaken for years. Will the Minister commit to meeting charities such as Forward Thinking to discuss how this may impact them? Will the Government consider exemptions for British-based charities working on peace building and dialogue? I hope that Members in all parts of the House agree that it is vital that greater reassurance is provided to these charities, so does the Minister agree that the Crown Prosecution Service should urgently bring forward prosecutorial guidance in England, to provide that certainty?
We also have concerns regarding the delivery of aid to Gaza; again, it is vital that this step does not obstruct or criminalise charities that are trying to improve the situation on the ground in Gaza. Have the UK Government carried out any assessment of how this might, for instance, impact the work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which helps to assist the 1.4 million refugees in Palestine by delivering education, healthcare, and relief assistance? As we work towards peace in the region and a two-state solution, I urge the Government to take an approach that actively supports humanitarian and civil society efforts within Israel and Palestine to support peace. I hope that the Minister will consider this proposal, and I hope that the Government will address the concerns I have raised, and centre peace building and dialogue at the heart of their approach to this conflict.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sarah Olney Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Chris Philp)
It is my lucky day today, Mr Speaker. It is, of course, open to EU citizens with indefinite leave to remain to apply for EU settled status. Some of them choose to do so because the rules are slightly better for EUSS in terms of the ability to leave the country for a particular period and the family reunion rules. There is no obligation on people with ILR to apply for EUSS, but it is a choice that each individual may or may not choose to make according to their own personal wishes and circumstances.
Sarah Olney [V]
I am grateful to the Minister for his answer, and I would like to offer my condolences to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster).
Many constituents of mine who have previously been granted indefinite leave to remain have received letters suggesting that they should apply for EU settled status instead. This has created a great deal of consternation and a fear that their indefinite leave to remain status may not be valid in the future. Can the Minister tell me why those letters were sent? It is not clear to people whether or not they should be applying for EU settled status. Could he give a clear answer to my constituents on this matter?
Chris Philp
My understanding is that those people with ILR who are also eligible for EUSS can continue to enjoy ILR whether or not they apply for EUSS. Letters were sent out to people who might be eligible for EUSS, but I believe those letters did make it clear that someone who received those letters who was already naturalised as a British citizen or indeed had ILR needed to take no further action. If the hon. Lady thinks those letters were unclear, I will be happy to look into it further, but I understand that they were worded in such way as made it clear that no further action was taken in the circumstances she describes.