Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Edward Leigh(6 days, 22 hours ago)
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Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Shabana Mahmood)
As the right hon. Gentleman may know, data on immigration status and crime was not recorded under the last Government. We have a new programme that will improve data collection, and we have strong local relationships with police and local authorities to ensure that the full force of the law will apply to anyone breaking our laws.
Sir Edward Leigh
The Home Secretary knows perfectly well how much it worries and infuriates people that people can enter this country illegally and commit crimes, and that there is no proper vetting procedure before they are unloosed on society. To reassure our own citizens, will she ensure that everybody who enters this country illegally is detained and fully vetted, and, as most of their asylum claims are bogus anyway, perhaps deal with their asylum claims while they are in detention and then deport them to protect our own people?
Shabana Mahmood
I recognise the public concern around criminality. That is why this Government are working closely with all our partners to improve data collection and have a risk-based approach so that we can manage those individuals who pose the highest risk on our immigration estate. I gently say that the right hon. Gentleman’s suggestions for how we deal with those who seek to come to our country illegally, primarily through channel crossings, would have had more force if his Government had succeeded in stopping those boats, as they often claimed that they would but utterly failed to do so. This Government are using a number of approaches to try to get to grips with illegal migration and will be bringing forward further changes to the House in due course.
Protest Policing
Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Edward Leigh(2 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I agree with everything the Home Secretary has said, especially as she is one of the best Conservative Home Secretaries we have ever had! Will she forgive me for asking her to stress just one part of her statement? I have noticed an increasing tendency to say that we should ban marches because we find the views of the marchers thoroughly offensive. Frankly, I find most of the marches in London fairly offensive, because most of them are left wing, but I would defend to the death the right of those people to march. Can she emphasise that there is a very high bar, and that marchers will be banned only if they might incite or cause violence?
Shabana Mahmood
I am sorry to disappoint the right hon. Gentleman, but I am Labour all day long. I enjoy swatting Conservatives, Lib Dems, Greens and everybody else at my leisure, and I will continue to do so.
The Father of the House is right about the law. There is a high bar for any banning order to be requested or granted under the framework set out in the Public Order Act. He is absolutely right that it should be a high bar. People are allowed to have their own views, and we should not be seeking to shut down views which, although offensive or provocative, are still within the law. It is important that we always ensure that the law is followed, and any attempts to interfere with freedom of expression or assembly should always meet a high bar. I am very satisfied that, in the specific and unique circumstances set out for the public procession that had been planned, that test has been met. Of course, the other protests can and should go ahead, and the full force of the law will always be applied.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Edward Leigh(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
One of the main reasons behind the false narrative that Britain is broken is people’s sense of despair that neither this Government nor the previous one could deal with illegal migrants. It is simply driving our people mad. Let me give this advice to the Government, if the Home Secretary will forgive me: they are not going to solve this problem by getting rid of the Prime Minister or anything like that; what they need to do is finally deal with the pull factor. The only thing that will work is to arrest, detain and deport anybody who arrives illegally in this country, and to have a temporary derogation from any convention that prevents us from doing so. If they do that, the nation will be so much more confident, the Prime Minister will be more popular and people will not drown any more.
Shabana Mahmood
I gently say to the right hon. Gentleman that I am always willing to listen to advice, wherever it may come from, but I point out that in 14 years under his party in government, we did not see any such action. It is very easy to say from the sidelines, “Just deport everybody.” If it was so easy to derogate from international obligations, I am pretty sure the previous Administration would have done so. The fact that they are only now saying that from the sidelines says a lot about them and their attitude to government.
There is no one silver bullet in dealing with the problems of illegal migration, and that is why I am taking action across every potential forum. We are changing our human rights laws, passing legislation later this year on the application of article 8, dealing with our appeals processes, talking about reform of the European convention on human rights, and getting the number of illegal working raids up. Those are all important steps to try to get the system under control. I am determined that we will deal with the problem of illegal migration, but there is no one silver bullet. That is why I am taking action across all fronts.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Edward Leigh(2 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Of course we are all proud of our historic record in welcoming genuine political refugees who apply in the proper way, but I am sure that the Home Secretary would agree that this humane policy is being entirely negated by illegal boat crossings, which are driving people mad and putting people at risk. Will she do the humane thing and seek an urgent derogation from the refugee convention and the convention on human rights so that we can arrest, detain and deport these people? By the way, if she announced that now, Labour would shoot up five points in the polls and the Prime Minister’s position would be safe. Does she support all that?
Shabana Mahmood
It is important that the changes that are made are about genuinely securing our borders and not about the political fortune of individual parties. Certainly under my watch, this Government and the Home Office will always put the securing of our borders first, regardless of what that might mean for individuals and polling positions. I believe that package of reforms that we set out in the asylum policy statement in November —I know that the right hon. Gentleman took part in that discussion—are the right reforms. I think we can make reforms to our legal system, as well as policy changes, that will secure our borders without requiring a derogation from international law.
Grooming Gangs: Independent Inquiry
Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Edward Leigh(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The Home Secretary knows that I admire her personally. She is a devout Muslim lady, and I share many of her values. I think she is uniquely well placed to comment on this, explain and give us confidence. What is it about these Muslim men that meant that they felt that they could behave in this way, and can she explain that this is—if it is—a very small minority? Can she see what I am trying to get at? She can approach this, and explain this, in a way that some of us cannot, because nobody can ever accuse her of being racist, and nobody can ever accuse her of not wanting to get to the truth.
Shabana Mahmood
It is difficult to find oneself the spokesperson for billions of people around the world, but let me respond to the right hon. Gentleman from my personal perspective, based on my constituency experience, and the experience of my family and friends, and of the community I belong to back home in Birmingham. There is nothing Muslim or Islamic about the acts that these evil men have perpetrated. It is not behaviour that any of us would accept or tolerate. All these things are crimes, and I do not know anybody who does not believe that these people should be locked up for a very, very long time.
I also know about the anxiety and fear that members of the particular faith minority community that I belong to feel when these are the stories in the news. They feel that a collective view is taken of the whole community. That is why I made the point about making sure that we go after the perpetrators of these evil crimes, and not allowing the behaviour of this minority to affect the way that we relate to the rest of the law-abiding citizens of this community in our country. We are very lucky to live in a very diverse country, and we largely do a good job of holding all the different peoples of our country together.
We should always pursue justice without fear or favour, because in the end, that is the only way to maintain confidence in our system of justice and ensure that we do not inadvertently harm community relations, which is what I think has happened because of the actions of those who looked the other way when the crimes were being committed.
Migration: Settlement Pathway
Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Edward Leigh(4 months, 1 week ago)
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Shabana Mahmood
We always keep those thresholds under review, and we will continue to do so in relation to family and to bringing dependants over.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The Home Secretary loves our country and I love her efforts, frankly, because it is not just the fate of this Government that depends on her success, but good community relations, saving dozens of lives at sea and, let us be frank, probably our political fate. Will she undertake to be judged not just by the strength of this announcement and words spoken in the House of Commons but by results, so that we actually make a real contribution towards stopping the boats? Is she prepared to constantly ratchet up the pressure so that if someone is sitting in France, they think, “Is it worth the risk? I’ve got virtually no chance of being allowed to stay in Britain forever. I will have my case reviewed regularly—every two years. I will be sent back to where I came from when it is safe; otherwise, I will go back to a return hub.”? Can we not all agree on that?
Shabana Mahmood
Results are all that matters. It is incumbent on me to think about the way that we have to reform the system, to make a public argument for it, to win that argument, to persuade people and then to get this done. What I care about now is ensuring that we can deliver these proposals, and we will do so. Then I need to ensure that the Home Office is in a position to run a system properly, administratively and fairly in the future. That is what matters. This is a low-trust environment for the public—all of us involved in politics know that. In the end, the public have heard a lot of rhetoric from a lot of people, but this Government intend to get on and deliver and to win the trust of the British people.
Asylum Policy
Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Edward Leigh(4 months, 1 week ago)
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Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
We Conservative Members genuinely wish the Home Secretary well, because otherwise, in her own words, the country will start falling apart. It is a good effort—seven out of 10. She clearly has strong conservative instincts, but does she fear that the misery in many of these countries is such that asylum seekers are not really worried about how long they have to wait for their claim to be processed? Does she fear that unless we arrest, detain and deport people very quickly, this problem will just go on and on? The Home Secretary mentioned return hubs; could she say a bit more about those, and will she have an open mind about schemes such as Rwanda?
Shabana Mahmood
On Rwanda, no. Turning to the substance of what the right hon. Gentleman has said, I do not think he can be right, because claims are down in Europe but up here. I hope that he will approach the debate that we are having with an open mind, ditch the failed policies of his party, and maybe consider more workable solutions proposed by this Government.
Manchester Terrorism Attack
Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Edward Leigh(5 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Of course, we all agree with the Home Secretary, but can we dig a little deeper? There is a reason why the Jewish community is by far our most successful immigrant community, dating from the end of the 19th century. They were determined, and are determined, to integrate into our society in every single way. But let us be realistic: there are some parts of some communities who do not integrate. Will the Government say unequivocally that if someone wants to come and live here, they must think of themselves primarily as British? It does not matter what their colour or faith is—they are British. However strongly they feel about Gaza or anything else, they must approach all issues with our traditional sense of good humour and tolerance.
Shabana Mahmood
I think everyone across the House can agree and unite around the idea that it is important that everybody who comes to this country, makes it their home and chooses to raise their family here commits themselves to being the best of British. That is certainly my own experience as somebody whose parents came to this country in the late ’60s and then in the ’70s. Actually, the vast majority of our minority communities are very proud of being British. Every survey I have ever seen of minority communities that asks them to describe their Britishness finds a huge pride in Britishness and also in our Union Jack—our flag and symbol of our nation.
There are obviously, though, some issues that we have to confront. There is a question to be asked here about this attacker who had all of the benefits. He came here as a small child and became a naturalised British citizen. He was still a minor when he became British, and he committed these attacks in his mid-30s. There is a question to ask about what went wrong in that period of his life, in those formative years, that made him do such an act. I will ensure that those wider lessons are learned, and I will never shy away from honest conversations about either integration or community cohesion in our country. But I also do not want it to be the case that we allow the actions of a minority to make us believe that our majority are not proud of being British, because my own experience and all the data show that the exact opposite is true.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Edward Leigh(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Shabana Mahmood)
SDS40—the standard determinate sentences early release scheme—was an emergency measure that we had to take to avert the complete collapse of the criminal justice system following the shocking inheritance left to us by the previous Government. The emergency measure is not, of course, the solution to the crisis that we inherited. That is why we will build the 14,000 prison places that we need, and have launched the independent review of sentencing.
Sir Edward Leigh
What concerns me is not the past but the future and how to protect the public. Will the Secretary of State assure me that the screening process is sufficiently robust to ensure that violent and dangerous criminals are not released into the community?
Shabana Mahmood
I gently say to the right hon. Gentleman that the past is relevant in so far as it sets the context for the crisis that we have inherited, which needs resolving. Given that we all but ran out of prison places—numbers had fallen to fewer than 100 in the summer—it is important that we recognise that the prison system is and has been on the point of collapse. That is why we had to take emergency measures. We have made exclusions to the SDS40 scheme that should take account of his concerns. It is of course important that offenders are monitored and supervised effectively when they are not in prison, and that is what we are trying to do now. Tech can play a bigger role there, and I have asked the independent review into sentencing to look into that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Edward Leigh(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Shabana Mahmood
As I say, we are on track to remove more foreign offenders this year than in previous years. In fact, over the period when the shadow Justice Secretary was the Immigration Minister in the previous Government, the number returned was around 1,300. We have already returned more than 1,500 foreign offenders, utilising all the prisoner transfer agreements at our disposal. We are actively trying to negotiate more such agreements, so that we can continue to speed up removals from this country.
Sir Edward Leigh
The previous Government negotiated a scheme by which we can deport Albanian prisoners back to Albania. It is an excellent scheme; Albania is a completely safe country, of course. Given that those crossing the channel are committing an illegal offence, is there anything legally to stop us arresting them and putting them on a flight straight to Albania? We do not even need to lock them up in Albania; they can just start their journey all over again—what a good deterrent.
Shabana Mahmood
As the right hon. Gentleman well knows, we have legal obligations to those who arrive in this country that have to play out. However, PTAs relate to those who have committed an offence, have been convicted and are being held in the prison estate. They can therefore be removed from this country under a prisoner transfer agreement. We are working with the Albanians to ensure that the PTA with Albania is as effective as possible.