Immigration Bill (Second sitting)

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Can I ask for briefer answers and questions, please, if we are going to satisfy everybody on the list? Thank you.

Lord Green of Deddington: On the first point, you may well be right, but that is more for the Home Office than myself. On your second point, enforcement is essential, and it is not happening. You mentioned this director of enforcement. I think that is probably a good idea, but I would say this. The civil service is not a Meccano set; it is a plant and you cannot keep digging it up to see if it is working or not. I think we need to be careful about reorganising, organising and reorganising. On this occasion, I think there is a case for it.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Lord Green, although I, too, cannot remember the context in which you used the phrase, I would like to support what Mr Newlands was saying. There was a very disparaging tone with regard to “these people”. It certainly jarred with me. On such a sensitive issue as this we all need to be careful about language.

What I did not follow in the logic of your response to an earlier question about the financial support provided to people who have had their applications refused and who have exhausted the appeal process was why there should be an exemption for those with children, or a different style of treatment for those who have children. It seems to me, and I would welcome your views, that if a parent is told that they do not have the right to remain, they are by definition responsible for the welfare of their child. If the child is going to suffer disproportionately because there is a lack of central Government or local government funding, the solution remains in their hands. They have exhausted the appeal process; they have no right to remain. Surely, to safeguard the future and wellbeing of their child or children they should return to their country of origin as quickly as possible. I did not follow the logic that you were deploying as to why there should be two separate streams merely predicated on the fact that people had children.

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[Kelly Tolhurst]

Mr Smith, you mentioned earlier businesses or associations that are part of your organisation, and you said that landlords who wilfully engage in this sort of activity will fall under the radar. Do you agree that the tougher penalties in the Bill target those very people?

[Simon Hoare]

I wondered whether Mr Smith wanted to reflect on his comment that there were not many students in Dudley. That will come as a shock to Dudley College, which has worked closely with the University of Wolverhampton since 1999, offering, among other courses, a PGCE and a Certificate in Education post compulsory education, and has six campuses. That suggests to me that there are quite a lot of students in Dudley.

David Smith: In which case, I immediately withdraw any suggestion that Dudley is not a substantial student town, with my apologies.

[Simon Hoare]

So the corollary is that the baseline with the data that the evaluation mentioned is possibly a little more bona fide than you first indicated.

David Smith: It is still the case that there is a large number of student responses, and I would have liked to see data that drew on groups of people who were absolutely not students. I am prepared to accept that, yes, there may be more students in those areas than I envisaged, but that does not change my primary concern, which is that, from what I can see, having looked at the evaluation briefly, there are a lot of students in the responses. That potentially skews the data and I would like to see a study that was drawn from outside the student population, if possible.

Ms Tolhurst, I am not immediately convinced that increasing penalties in and of itself will smoke out bad landlords. Bad landlords are already subject to a raft of housing legislation with varying penalties. I do not know whether many people saw the story in The Times on Saturday, which was based on freedom of information data that my organisation obtained. They show very poor enforcement by local authorities. I do not know what level of enforcement of this legislation there will be through the Home Office. If it is actively enforced against bad landlords, then, yes, I would agree with you—if.

[The Chair]

That brings us to the end of the time allocated for the Committee to ask questions in this session. On behalf of the Committee, I thank the witnesses for their evidence. Again, if there is anything they feel they need to add to the answers they have given, please write to the Committee Clerks.

Examination of Witnesses

Chief Superintendent David Snelling and Stephen Gabriel gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

That was an interesting and important exchange. I am conscious that Simon has been waiting patiently, and then I will bring in Anne, Craig, Mims and Kelly.

[Simon Hoare]

Q 176 I have two questions that I hope you can deal with reasonably quickly. The first might just be a yes or no answer. Do you understand the rationale and the public demand that sit behind this Bill?

Adrian Matthews: Yes.

Kamena Dorling: If it can be yes or no, then, yes, I understand.

Ilona Pinter: indicated assent.

[Simon Hoare]

Q 177 We heard from Lord Green and I think one or two others that people who are seeking asylum or refuge in this country are usually pretty well linked in terms of communication and understand what is going on through the use of mobile telephones or established relationships with friends or relatives already in the country. So they know broadly what the new “regime” is going to be all about. If that is the case—I will be interested to know whether you dispute that—casting forward to the future again, someone would know that under the criteria they are bogus, for want of a better phrase, and would know that their application could not be successful, because they do not qualify under any criteria. So why would a caring or loving parent want to put their children through the mill of being destitute while they are trying to prove a point that they know is unprovable? I appreciate that it is a different kettle of fish for those who are here now, but as a signal for the future I wondered whether you think that parents, irrespective of where they come from, would be prepared to put their children at risk in order to make their point.

Adrian Matthews: It took me a number of years of studying law to understand the asylum process. I think the assumption that parents are well acquainted with the rules and regulations is very overstated. If you go to the camps in Calais at the moment there is absolutely no information about the British asylum system. Lawyers who have been there have found that people are really misguided and really do not have a sound understanding of what they are coming to when they intend to come to the UK.

Ilona Pinter: I agree. The idea that people know what they are coming to is not realistic. It is certainly not the experience that we have with the families that we work with. Actually, they are incredibly vulnerable and the fact that families would remain here destitute, rather than returning, is a sign of the difficulties that they would face being returned. Again, this is highlighted in the evaluation of the family return process—most of the families cited fear of return as one of the issues. It was shown that financial incentives and reduced re-entry bans were not helpful in persuading families to leave, because they had an overwhelming sense of what the risks would be for them and their children. While I appreciate the public rhetoric around this, the reality is very different for these families. They are willing to survive on so little because of the risks that they face if they return.

[Simon Hoare]

Q 178 Risks in their judgment though?

Ilona Pinter: In their judgment, of course—but in that respect they are doing what they believe is in the best interests of their children, because they believe at the end of the day that remaining in the UK will give their children the best life chances. Whether that is an accurate interpretation is debatable, but that is what they believe, and it is not about—as it is often characterised—trying to frustrate the system. What we see are very desperate families trying to do the best by their children.

Kamena Dorling: I agree entirely. It is not our experience that families and children arrive in the UK with any kind of detailed knowledge of the asylum system, nor with a detailed knowledge of the asylum support system. We certainly do not see people coming here simply for that level of support.

I wanted to add a little bit, because I think it is an important point about the rationale and the public drive behind the Bill. Presumably, in wanting to respond to that, we want changes that will bring in the change that the Bill purports to be introducing. One of the points that we have made is that taking away asylum support from families has demonstrably been shown not to incentivise them to leave the country. You make children destitute and homeless, but you do not achieve your intended aim, which is for more people to leave the UK. If we accept that—and the Home Office has conducted its own evaluations that show that—all we see, really, is punishing children for their parents feeling that it is best for them to remain in the UK. I think that that is problematic. If we have legislation, we want it ideally to achieve its purpose.

Adrian Matthews: I would echo that. I think it is an absolutely legitimate aim of the Government to remove failed asylum seekers if they have been through a fair and proper process. That is it, really; I do not have anything to add to that. It is simply about the method that you use to go about it. I sincerely believe that what is proposed in the Bill is not going to achieve the Government’s aims, and that there are better ways to do it through an established and workable family returns process that has proved that it is capable of increasing the take-up of voluntary departure, which is greatly preferable to enforced removals.

Immigration Bill (First sitting)

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

Q 21 My question is specifically to John Wilkes. It is about the Scottish issue. Obviously, every country has different legislation. You have been through the changes in legislation coming from this House, so I hope that you will be able to advise us about the impact of this legislation, and the challenges that that presents, in terms of Scottish legislation.

John Wilkes: One of the things we said in our evidence was that the Committee should ensure that the Immigration Bill considers whether the legislative consent process needs to be undertaken with the Scottish Parliament under the Sewel convention, which is actually going to be put into statute under clause 2 of the Scotland Bill, which is currently going through the House. We say that because the whole concept behind legislative consent is that whatever this Parliament does should have no unintended consequences on the business of the other Parliament. There are a number of aspects of the Bill, particularly on asylum support, that we feel would have an impact, in the way colleagues have identified, on local authority responsibilities and on duties to children, which are framed in different legislation in Scotland. There is the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 and the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968, which, in Scotland, defines local authorities’ responsibilities in terms of a duty of care to people who have no other resources. We believe that one of the duties of this Bill Committee is to ensure that there are no unintended consequences. What the Home Office often says about immigration legislation is that the intention is around immigration. What Sewel also says is that you have to look at the impact of that legislation, and we think that the impact of this legislation potentially involves legislative consent considerations between the two Parliaments.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Q 22 Mr Kaye, could I take you back to what I thought was the nub of your argument? You said—I think I heard you correctly—that as soon as financial support is removed, people lose contact. Can I put the other side of the coin to you? If somebody’s application is finally refused, do they not, against that backdrop, and irrespective of whether financial support is provided, run and hide, because they do not like the decision, and they do not want to leave the country? I am not persuaded that an element of financial support will, in any way, shape or form, encourage them to stay in a continuous dialogue with the Home Office and agencies while preparations for their removal are made.

Mike Kaye: Refused asylum seekers are not one homogeneous group; there are obviously lots of different people in different circumstances. Some people want to go home, and they take voluntary removal. That can take a long time; their Governments may not co-operate in providing them with documents. Others may be too sick to travel. Others should return home, but may abscond. You do not have to take my word for it; I am giving you evidence from studies that have been done. Where you have families that are supported, they generally do not abscond; they stay in touch with the authorities. If you cut off support, and you have refused asylum to a family or an individual, not only do they have no incentive to stay in touch but it will be very difficult for them to do so once they are destitute. It is the Home Office’s own staff who are saying, “Keep them supported, because then we will know where they are. We can stay in touch with them and encourage them to return home.”

[Simon Hoare]

Q 23 With respect to officials, we only know where people are if they want us to know where they are.

Mike Kaye: Well, I—

[The Chair]

I am sorry. We could go on for an hour about this, but we are really up against the clock, and I have other Members to get in. I would just like the other two witnesses to say whether they agree with the statement that has just been made.

Judith Dennis: Yes. Look at the family returns process data, look at the process, look at the engagement, talk to the family engagement managers and explore how the family returns process works and what is necessary to keep it in place and the families involved.

John Wilkes: I support Judith’s comments.

[The Chair]

Lovely. I think it is Paul Blomfield next—or did you have any more questions, Mr Hoare?

[Simon Hoare]

Q 24 I did have a few more, if time allowed. I shall try to be brief.

These questions are to all three of you, and they probably need yes or no answers. While you are supporting or advising people going through the process, do you take them to end of the telescope they do not want to look from—that is, how will a decision whereby they are not allowed to remain be implemented? Do you do that in advance on a “just in case, let’s keep all the bases squared” basis?

John Wilkes: Yes.

Judith Dennis: You need to keep faith in the system until they have had their final refusal.

[Simon Hoare]

So that is a no. Mr Kaye?

Mike Kaye: Yes, I think 40% of returns are voluntary. That is from Refugee Action, which is working with people to try to get them to go home.

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[Simon Hoare]

Q 44 Given what you have just said about the importance of having the director, and taking on board the resource issue, where would you be expecting him or her to be focusing their energies in the first instance? Which sectors of the economy are most exposed to workers being exploited?

Professor Metcalf: That is an interesting and difficult question.

[Simon Hoare]

I know. That is why I asked it.

Professor Metcalf: There is good behaviour and bad behaviour in most sectors, but we know that hospitality is an area that is very much at risk. A lot of that is ethnic on ethnic. It is Chinese on Chinese, as it were, and Bangladeshi on Bangladeshi—I know that from the minimum wage. The big fiddles are on the hours of work—they grossly understate the hours of work to HMRC to make it look as if they are paying the minimum wage when they are not. Construction is quite a fruitful area. The reconstituted GLA will probably focus on those two sectors. In a sense, that is why I think having the director as the pivotal person for the intelligence—all those agencies know a lot about the sectors they have to get into—will help a lot. But my initial inclination would be to say construction and hospitality.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Q 45 Is a worker who does not have the right to work in this country—for example, a parent who is made destitute by this legislation—and who is being ruthlessly exploited, or physically or sexually abused, more or less likely to seek protection as a result of these provisions?

Professor Metcalf: I do not know all the details of the legislation, other than what I am talking about in terms of enforcement. I would hope that the director makes the enforcement issue more central to the labour market. If we enforce the minimum standards, a person in those circumstances would be more aware of the possibilities—often, particularly if they are migrants, they are not aware of them—and also more likely to go public. I would have thought that that would be quite a major component of the new director’s work. That basically follows up the question from earlier, because if you can stop the exploitation of the migrants, it is also helpful to British residents.

Immigration Bill

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The defences that we have written into the Modern Slavery Act will still apply. Indeed, there are other areas where, if we take action in relation to abuse of certain parts of the system, that defence and that issue of trafficking will continue to apply. I spoke last week of using the so-called Spanish protocol. For example, if someone comes to the United Kingdom from another European Union country and tries to claim asylum, the claim would initially be determined as inadmissible, but if there were evidence that someone had been trafficked, we would look again at the issue. Certainly, we will continue to have defences for those who have been trafficked.

I was talking about the establishment of the new director of labour market enforcement and the consultation document we have issued today. Once we have considered the responses to that consultation, we will strengthen the Bill further.

The Bill will also allow us to make illegal working a criminal offence. That will not only make Britain a less attractive place for people to come and work illegally, but will provide a firmer legal foundation for seizing earnings from illegal working as the proceeds of crime. Most employers obey the law, but we believe that a number of employers are deliberately turning a blind eye and not checking whether their employees have the right to work in the UK. That is not acceptable, so we will introduce tougher sanctions for these employers and make it easier to bring criminal prosecutions against them. We also know that a significant proportion of illegal working happens on licensed premises. Measures in the Bill will ensure that those working illegally or employing illegal workers cannot obtain licences to sell alcohol or run late-night takeaway premises. Immigration officers will also have new powers to close businesses where illegal working continues to take place.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

The creation of the statutory director of labour market enforcement is very welcome, but to whom will he or she be accountable and through what mechanism will he or she report either to Parliament or to the Department?

[Mrs May]

There will be joint accountability to Secretaries of State—to me, as Home Secretary, and to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. That is important, because some of the operation on labour market enforcement takes place in the Home Office through the Gangmasters Licensing Authority and some through bodies in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, so there will be a joint reporting mechanism.

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[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I think that it is universally accepted that the British people want properly controlled immigration. Their objection is to unfair and uncontrolled immigration. This Bill has been dressed up as a powerful response to that demand for effective immigration control, but it is in fact the opposite; it is a sign that the Home Office has given up on doing its job.

Instead of fixing that which is broken—the ports of entry that passengers go through without seeing an immigration officer; the practice, when police officers intercept people who have been smuggled in lorries, of sending them on their way and asking them kindly to present themselves at the Home Office in Croydon; and even appeals where, having refused an application, the Home Office fails to send a representative to defend the decision—the Home Office has instead allowed terrible delays in listing appeals, resulting in people who have no valid claim to remain here staying longer and putting down roots so that they become more difficult to remove.

The Home Office has rejected calls to extend the role and remit of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority so that practical action can be taken to prevent labour exploitation in sectors where we know it exists, such as the hotel trade and construction. Instead, it is delegating the problem to us—to ordinary people and not just employers, who rightly should check the immigration status of people who apply to work for them, in order to protect themselves and their customers. Those employers regularly complain to me that the information on the advice line is at best confusing, and at worst wrong.

We are told that there will be an advice line for some of the new groups who will have to check someone’s immigration status. Banks already have some experience, but landlords will now be expected to refer to an advice line in order to spy on the immigration status of their tenants. In effect, the Bill is setting us all up as snoopers on other people’s immigration status. We know that that is ineffective. Of 75,000 allegations to the Home Office in 2013, there were 4,000 arrests and only 1,000 removals. Even privatised Capita, when given 120,000 records of overstayers, managed to persuade only 1,000 to leave.

I have been advising people about immigration status for over 35 years, but I still need to check with up-to-date experts about what some of my constituents’ entitlements are. The Home Office is not providing the tools that would allow citizens to be sure of the status of someone who might seek services from them. The result is unsurprising, and it is confirmed by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants report on west midlands landlords: people will just stop taking the risk.

Britain, having been a tolerant and welcoming society in which iconic British successes have often been created by refugees and migrants—businesses such as Marks & Spencer and inventions such as the Mini, which was designed here by an Italian—will become a place where people with foreign names and accents face a kind of pass law system in which, in order to play a full part in society, they have to keep proving their status and the fact that they have rights. The MPs who opposed the national ID card system did so on the basis that it was an infringement of civil liberties. The consequence of failing to introduce such a system is that all of us will have to make these checks, and minorities will bear the brunt of infringements of their civil liberties.

[Simon Hoare]

I do not know when the hon. Lady last rented a property or opened a bank account, but when doing so, as British citizens, we are all required to provide information, be it a passport, a utility bill, proof of address or a driving licence, and so on. Surely it is just common sense that when landlords are letting a property these safeguards and checks should be made. They are made on the rest of us, as things stand now.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The point is that if someone has a full British passport, it is very easy to say that they are entitled. The Residential Landlords Association predicts, rightly in my view, that the consequence of this measure will be that people who do not have a British passport, even those who are British—we should remember that some 12 million people in Britain do not carry a passport—will find themselves discriminated against because the landlord thinks that the situation is difficult.

We need to make sure that the only landlords prosecuted are those to whom Ministers have referred, who are sometimes complicit in illegal migration and the exploitation of vulnerable migrant workers. Can the Minister point to a provision saying that only people like the pimps who are exploiting trafficked workers in brothels will be prosecuted but innocent landlords who make a mistake and do not understand the documents will not? I do not believe that this Bill is going to help these women. The clause 8 offence of illegal working will apply to them, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) clearly explained. Will the Minister give specific details about what action he will take to make sure that victims who are coerced by others to work are not criminalised by the offence? Will they have a statutory defence under the Bill? We know that the results of the assessment of landlords experiment will not be available until after this debate, but has he conducted an assessment of the impact of these measures on victims of modern slavery?

This Bill is horribly un-British. It gives immigration officers extreme powers without submitting them to abiding by protections like the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984—protections that police officers have to abide by. It forces people to appeal from overseas, and by doing so ignores the rights of children who will be separated from their parents. The Children’s Commissioner has said that the current arrangements already fail to meet our obligations on children’s rights.

Overseas appeals will not deal with cases such as the one in my constituency of a husband whose documents showed that he lived in Slough while his wife lived in Bradford, so the Home Office said, “This is a marriage of convenience.” In fact, Slough was the only place he could get work, so he was coming down there to work from Monday to Friday and then returning to his family at the weekend. Without an oral hearing, he would not have been able to win his case. He did win it, and the immigration judge praised him for working so hard to support his family. This Bill is going to lead to un-British injustice, and we should reject it.

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[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson). A number of right hon. and hon. Members have made the important point—I am sure that this is neither an intention of the Bill, nor an outcome—about the sensitivity of names with regard to lettings policies. The hon. Member for Belfast East comes from a community where being allocated a house, or indeed given a job, might often have depended upon having a Protestant-sounding or Catholic-sounding name. That is a sensitivity that we should be alert to, as I have little or no doubt Government Front Benchers are.

Let me turn briefly to the reasoned amendment that stands in the name of the Leader of the Opposition and others. I think that this is the first time I have seen a U-turn performed in an amendment. The first two thirds of the amendment are in full praise and support of the Bill, but then it rests its reason why we should not give it a Second Reading on an argument that a report that is to be published

“could cause widespread indirect discrimination”.

I do not think that that is a particularly well argued point from the Opposition. Given the amount of time that they have spent thinking about their position on immigration, I think that we might have expected a little better.

There are some very nasty people out there in our communities, and they have some very nasty views on this sensitive subject, which I have no doubt they will articulate with force and passion from their armchairs and in the saloon bars. But those nasty views are not put forward in this Bill. The Bill does not try to debate—because this is not the kernel of the argument—whether immigration is a good or bad thing, and it does not seek to further or foster racism or discrimination; it seeks purely to find better ways of defining the legal and the illegal. There is no qualitative judgment on an immigrant community the vast majority of whom play a full and active part in British life and are welcomed to our shores.

When my family and I moved house relatively recently, we were assisted by a very hard-working man from Poland. When he discovered what I did for a living, he quaked and said, “You don’t want me here, do you? I’d better go.” I said, “No, not at all.” It is a helpful irony, in many respects, that we are debating this issue on the anniversary of the birth of Lady Thatcher, who did so much to champion the rights of people from the former eastern bloc to come to the west. That free movement of people is something we should celebrate and support. We must understand, however, that it cannot and should not be unfettered. When I stood in the 2010 election—I fought Cardiff South and Penarth, and Cardiff South and Penarth fought back—established members of the immigrant, but very settled, community in Grangetown and Butetown said to me, “For God’s sake, Governments have to get a handle on this because we are starting to feel anxious. We are starting to feel that the Government have lost the plot.” That struck me as a very forceful endorsement of the main thrust of this policy and this Bill.

I am surprised by Labour’s tone with regard to the main thrust of the Bill in trying to clamp down on illegal working and exploitation. This is a matter of human welfare. We have all heard horrible stories of the terrible conditions of people forced to work in this country because they are here illegally and their existence can therefore be abused. It is absolutely right—I hope that it would unify the House—that we should focus on that and try to correct it and remove it from our national life.

I strongly welcome the proposed appeals process, but it will come as no surprise to the Minister that I, and no doubt many in this House, believe that the Home Office needs to up the speed with which it determines these appeals.

I agree with the hon. Member for Belfast East that it is a surprise that a language requirement has not existed in our public sector, and I very much welcome it.

[Anne McLaughlin]

The hon. Gentleman says that a requirement to speak English when working in the front line of public services has not existed until now. Has he ever used a public service and found that the person he is dealing with does not speak English, because I have not?

[Simon Hoare]

It depends at what level. Certainly, within the national health service, you will hear of many patients—constituents in North Dorset have told me this—who often have difficulty communicating because local idioms of language are just missed. To have that core skill—

[Kirsten Oswald]

Thank you very much for giving way. I would just like to be clear that you are not suggesting that only people from North Dorset should be employed in the health services in North Dorset.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman responds, let me say that I have not yet reprimanded any particular Member for doing this, but now that it has happened several times, I must remind the House that when you use the word “you”, it is in the second person and you are referring to the Chair. It is in primary level 3 English lessons. “You” is the person to whom you are talking, and in here you are talking to the Chair. If you wish to refer to an hon. Member, it is “he”, “she”, or “it”.

[Simon Hoare]

Shall we split the difference, Madam Deputy Speaker, and go for “it”?

Given that my part of Dorset has the highest number of retired people in the country, if we pressed everybody of working age into the national health service we would be very understaffed. This issue goes across the country and, indeed, all parts of the United Kingdom.

Provisions relating to private letting and the banks are a key part of the Bill. Yes, some in the affected sectors—plural—may bleat about it, but the Government are placing an important obligation on their shoulders. This is clearly an issue, because previous Governments have tried to address it, but the Government cannot deal with it by themselves; other agencies and people involved in British commercial and public life need to help deal with illegal immigration.

We are fortunate that the two Ministers who will pilot this Bill through the Committee stage—the Minister for Immigration and the Solicitor General—are humane and compassionate individuals. I have no doubt that they would never put their names to something that they thought would result in some of the Armageddon-like scenes suggested by Labour Members. The Bill addresses a pressing problem in a prudent and pragmatic way. It deserves the support of the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The question was rightly answered by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Refugees—an appointment, I remind the House, that the Prime Minister made recently to ensure that there is a very clear focus on the job of making sure that the 20,000 Syrian refugees whom we bring to the United Kingdom are given accommodation and other types of support when they arrive here. As I said, the UK can be justifiably proud of the work that it is doing, and of the people whose lives it is keeping going through the provision of medical supplies, food and water in the refugee camps. Through our scheme we are taking the most vulnerable—not those who have been able to reach the shores of Europe, but those who are not making that journey. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will send a very clear message that it is better for people not to try to make the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean and through other routes into Europe because sadly people are still dying doing so.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

T3. My right hon. Friend will be aware that most goods vehicles coming into the United Kingdom are operated by overseas companies. How can Her Majesty’s Government encourage those firms to operate appropriate levels of security to prevent people using those vehicles to gain illegal entry to our country?

[The Minister for Immigration (James Brokenshire)]

We have strengthened our partnership with the haulage sector and food industry to reduce the challenge of clandestine stowing away. My hon. Friend highlights an important point about the international aspect. We hosted a conference in Brussels setting out and sharing good practice because we need to ensure that there are high standards not only among UK hauliers but among EU hauliers.

Reports into Investigatory Powers

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

It is with some trepidation, as a non-lawyer and a technophobe, that I intrude in this debate.

I have read the Anderson report. There seems to be general support and a very clear argument for merging all the various competing commissioner offices to create the independent surveillance and intelligence commission. That should provide clarity and certainty. I have a concern, however, regarding the creation of the chief commissioner, not by dint of the creation of the position but the definition of qualification that Anderson attaches to the post. He or she

“should be a person of unquestioned professional distinction and independence”,

and yet he or she is to be appointed by the Prime Minister of the day. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, with the best of intention, has had a difficult job finding somebody to chair the inquiry into child sex abuse. It would be a very difficult job if we were to adopt fully the definition of that commissioner, as far as Anderson has it, to find that person. Frankly, I am not entirely sure that he or she exists. Those are my two specific observations on the report.

I have been very encouraged by the debate. I had rather expected it to be a flag-waving exercise of civil libertarians who believe that, somehow or other, prior to the enactment of the Human Rights Act, we lived in a country that could easily have been mistaken for being Nicaragua or pre-apartheid South Africa, where gangs of police roved our streets, taking people off for questioning and so on, with a very corrupt judiciary and the like.

It is worth pointing out, as have other hon. Members, that we have a proud tradition in this country of an independent judiciary and of championing freedom and liberty, which is to be encouraged. Pretending that any changes to, or repeal of, the Human Rights Act will reduce us to a banana republic is, I think, very far from the mark.

One of the more inspired appointments made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was the appointment of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) as the Minister for Security, as he entirely understands the job that needs to be done.

[Mr John Hayes]

indicated assent.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies) clearly said that balances and judgments will always have to be made. As we see the proposals evolve through this Session and as we have our Divisions and debates, I would urge all hon. Members to keep one thing in mind. Yes, we must always maintain the checks and balances to ensure that things have not gone too far out of kilter, but we should always have at the back of our mind this one salient point. If we have another atrocity such as the one we had a few years ago in central London, or indeed in any other towns and cities, we should not have to look into the eyes of grieving relatives and communities and say, “We could have stopped that; we could have broken the chain of terrorism, but we were unable to do it because we were too concerned about the maintenance of the ‘virgo intacta’ of civil liberties.” I hope that is not an unparliamentary term to use, Madam Deputy Speaker.

We are accountable to our electorate; that is our duty. If the first duty of Government is the protection and defence of the realm, the vital role played by the security services within that must be taken into account, as other Members have made abundantly clear. In a changing landscape where technology changes every day and the terrorist or person who wishes our country ill is moving forward faster than we think they are, we must ensure that we are as fleet of foot and that there is scope within the regulations to ensure that we respond to the threats.

Finally, because we are accountable to our electorate, I am not persuaded by the argument put forward in the Anderson report that the final decision should be taken by a judge. I think that power should rest with the Home Secretary, who is, after all, accountable to this House, accountable to Cabinet colleagues and accountable to senior Committees. Yes, there should be judicial review and judicial oversight, but to put the responsibility for taking away democratic accountability in the hands of judges would, I think, be a step too far.

Clandestine Migrants (Harwich)

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

When the right hon. Lady looks back at a previous answer I gave about the work of operation groundbreaker, she will see that prosecutions have been achieved, with a significant number of years’ imprisonment secured against those involved.

As I said in my statement, the National Crime Agency is involved in this area, working with immigration enforcement. The hon. Lady rightly says that this is about going against the trafficking groups—the organised crime groups—and looking overseas to where the facilitation is taking place. This is a pernicious and appalling trade, which is why we are fusing intelligence and working jointly with European partners to go after those responsible for putting people in such dangerous conditions.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend recognise the importance of immigration removal centres? The whole House has recognised that the people involved at Harwich were clearly the victims. As the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) said, it is important that there is somewhere safe and secure for people to be held and looked after, which is why the IRCs are important.

[James Brokenshire]

I recognise and support the need for detention as part of a removals policy, and IRCs play an important role in ensuring that that takes place in a safe manner. Obviously, we are concerned to ensure that detention in an IRC is for the most limited period possible and that appropriate welfare is provided, but it is absolutely right that we have our IRCs to do the job on facilitation and removal.