Assisted Dying

Simon Jupp Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Latham.

Five hundred and eighty-one people in my constituency have signed this petition—make that 582, as I want to put on the record for the first time my support for the principle of assisted dying. I recognise the arguments on both sides, but my personal view is deeply held. It was strengthened recently when I strolled around Sidmouth, where I live.

An older gentleman was tending to his garden, when he decided to strike up a conversation. He explained that the garden was his wife’s pride and joy. She was now in a local care home, so it was his turn to do some pruning. At this point, I could see that he wanted to cry. In a very British way, he apologised, but went on to explain why he felt so emotional. His dear wife, the love of his life, is terminally ill, has no quality of life and lives in constant pain. She cannot leave her bed. He visits her every day, and every single day she tells him that she does not want to be here any more. It was clearly breaking his heart. The gentleman suddenly straightened up, looked me square in the eye and asked me if I supported assisted dying. The look of relief when I said yes was palpable. We shared an emotional moment together. I will never forget that conversation.

As I continued my stroll, one thought rang constantly in my head: “My view shouldn’t matter.” Assisted dying, with appropriate safeguards, should be the law now. Who is any of us to deny people that ultimate freedom, that choice to end the pain? The blanket ban on assisted dying forces people to suffer against their wishes. The only legal solution involves going abroad at enormous expense, which is out of reach for most people. Dignity in dying should not be available just to the privileged few.

Assisted dying does not replace palliative care and end-of-life services, as we have heard today. Someone approaching the end of their life or living with serious illness should be provided with the care and treatment they need to maximise their quality of life and minimise any suffering or distress. In my view, assisted dying should be an additional choice that terminally ill, mentally competent adults with six months or less to live should be able to make because they want more control over the manner and timing of their death.

Currently, there are terminally ill people in constant pain who are living against their wishes. That is cruel. If I was terminally ill, was in unbearable agony and had no quality of life, I would want a choice. Whatever happens next truly frightens me, but I want there to be that freedom: a decision in my hands, and no one else’s. Suffering should not be inevitable. I hope to one day vote in favour of a policy that ends a cruel reality for far too many people.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Jupp Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

13. What recent progress his Department has made on reducing neighbourhood crime.

[Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)]

16. What recent progress his Department has made on reducing neighbourhood crime.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Cleverly)]

This Government recognise the impact of neighbourhood crime. It is the crime that most affects people’s confidence—the confidence of individuals, businesses and communities. The strategic response to this is evidence-based and targeted, and getting policing right in this area is incredibly important for maintaining community confidence.

[James Cleverly]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting that point. I am proud of the fact that, since 2010, neighbourhood crime is down by 51% because of the kind of interventions that she highlighted. I reassure her that we will continue to look at what works, to fund and support, and to make every effort to drive down neighbourhood crime even further.

[Simon Jupp]

Police numbers across Devon and Cornwall are at record levels and deserve our praise. In a recent survey, my constituents in East Devon said that tackling neighbourhood crime is an absolute priority, as ranging from burglaries to thefts from vehicles. Will my right hon. Friend outline what progress this Conservative Government have made on cracking down on neighbourhood crime?

[James Cleverly]

I am very pleased that my hon. Friend’s local community is feeling the positive impact of the decisions we have made. Since coming into Government, we have seen serious violence reduced by 26%, and neighbourhood crime down by 27% since the start of this Parliament. We have seen a 36% reduction in domestic burglary, an 18% reduction in vehicle-related theft and a 61% decrease in robbery. We have reduced homicide by 15%, have taken action on drugs and are committed to—

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Jupp Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)]

1. What steps he is taking to help reduce levels of organised crime.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

11. What steps he is taking to help reduce levels of organised crime.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Cleverly)]

We will continue to break the business model of organised crime gangs to keep the people of this country safe. We are disrupting their activities both domestically in the UK and internationally, including disrupting the work of the gangs behind the illegal small-boat crossings, and it is why the Criminal Justice Bill creates new powers to target organised criminal gangs. We will also publish a new serious and organised crime strategy soon.

[Simon Jupp]

Criminal gangs do not care about the people they are smuggling into our country and they must be stopped. We must stop the boats in ways that are consistent with our international obligations and end the dangerous journeys that risk human life. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we must focus on breaking the business model of these criminal gangs?

[James Cleverly]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The people who are being smuggled are seen as just products; they are expendable in the eyes of the people smugglers, and we must and will do everything we can to break their business model. I commend the work of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration, who has recently been to Bulgaria, where in close co-operation with our international partners there we have seized boats and engines. We are breaking the business model, and we will continue to drive down those illegal small-boat crossings until we have stopped the boats.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Jupp Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

My right hon. Friend puts it very well. Let me put on record my thanks and appreciation to him for all that he has done to try to fix this incredibly difficult problem. He is absolutely right: the Labour party complains and sits on the sidelines, criticising, opposing and voting against every measure that we put forward. I urge Labour to back our Bill, back control over our borders, and back the British people.

[Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)]

East Devon’s farmers rely on a skilled domestic and foreign workforce to put their fantastic produce on our tables all year round. What reassurances can my right hon. Friend give that he will work with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to ensure that the seasonal agricultural worker scheme will be extended beyond 2024?

[Robert Jenrick]

We review the seasonal agricultural worker scheme every year, working closely with DEFRA. We have extended it for this year, as my hon. Friend knows, and increased the numbers permitted under that scheme. That is quite right, but it is important to balance that against the need to ensure that British workers find their way into the workplace and are trained, and the need to invest in British farming, so that we do not need to reach in the first instance for foreign labour.

National Security Bill (Third sitting)

Simon Jupp Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 12th July 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Holly Lynch]

As the Minister just outlined, the clause creates an offence in relation to obtaining or disclosing trade secrets. The former deputy National Security Adviser, Paddy McGuinness, set the scene for this new offence when he gave evidence last week. On the trade secrets element, he said that it does “a very significant thing”, and continued:

“This kind of legislation and the type of work that Sir Alex and his successors in MI5, MI6 and GCHQ are doing has Darwinian effect, so I have no doubt that as companies have got better at certain kinds of protection advised by the interaction with the CPNI and the National Cyber Security Centre, so the opponents have got better at it. And we will have to go on doing it.”

He said:

“It does not feel as though we have quite the same volume of opencast mining of our intellectual property and economic value that we had, as was described previously by General Keith Alexander, the head of the National Security Agency in the US. He described the enormous volume—trillions of value—taken out of our economies. There still is a very high level, though, so there is more work to do on this, and it is a significant challenge to the corporate sector to do the right thing in this space, because of the difficulty that it represents.”

He also said:

“The Bill provides a really solid basis for that discussion, because of the criminalisation of the trades secrets aspect.”––[Official Report, National Security Public Bill Committee, 7 July 2022; c. 25, Q50.]

All that provides an incredibly sobering outlook on the scale of the challenge that we face as a country.

Let me work through some of the detail further. We have some queries about this clause, as we did for clause 1. The seriousness of the clause is underlined by the fact that it creates an offence for which, if someone was found guilty of committing it, they would find themselves with a jail term not exceeding 14 years imprisonment, or a fine, or both. The Minister did not give us that extra bit of detail about the sentencing guidelines in the discussion about clause 1. I wonder if he might be able to return to that point in the discussion on clause 2.

Further to that, I confess that on my first reading and several subsequent readings of the clause, and having listened carefully to the Minister explain the detail of who can be prosecuted and where, it seems to suggest that this offence could be committed only by a UK national. I asked a former member of the intelligence community to have a look at it, and they felt that subsections (4) to (7) on who can commit the offence only seem to refer to a UK person, a United Kingdom national or a British citizen. Only on seeking a legal opinion was it judged that it could be interpreted to apply to non-UK nationals, but only if their criminal activity takes place in the UK. It does not apply where this activity is wholly outside the UK. That same legal opinion queried what it means to be “wholly” outside the UK, as that is unclear in this online age. It is also unclear why obtaining UK-related trade secrets unlawfully is not criminalised for non-UK nationals operating entirely from abroad, as is the nature of a lot of this type of activity.

We are not naive to the additional barriers to bringing someone to justice in these circumstances, yet such activity is no less wrongful because of nationality or where the criminal act takes place. With that in mind, I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm, first, for absolute clarity, that this crime can be committed by non-UK nationals when acting in the UK and we could prosecute them using this clause on that basis. Secondly, why does the clause not extend to criminalising non-UK nationals when they commit this offence in the theft of UK intellectual property and trade secrets outside the UK? Will the Minister clarify those points?

Again, we have the principle of “ought reasonably to know”, which warrants further consideration and clarity. On the “ought reasonably to know” threshold, I have it on good authority from former members of the intelligence community that the duping of individuals by nation states into doing the bidding of that nation state is not uncommon tradecraft. Are we satisfied that we have the right balance in that regard? Any clarity that the Minister can provide on the sentencing guidelines would be enormously welcome.

[Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Gray. Would you mind awfully if Members were to take their jackets off?

[The Chair]

I will not be taking my jacket off, but hon. Gentlemen and hon. Ladies may take their jackets off if they wish, as it is very hot.

Policing in Devon and Cornwall

Simon Jupp Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Double]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. I suspect that not for the first time this evening another Member will make a point that I will go on to make, but I join him in acknowledging the very proactive but sensible way Devon and Cornwall police have approached the pandemic. They have indeed policed with consent, and even though they, I believe, have issued the fourth-highest number of fixed penalty notices in the country—I believe we are currently up to just under 1,000—it has been done in a very sensible way.

The police have continued, I believe, to enjoy the overwhelming support and respect of the people of Devon and Cornwall in the way they have gone about policing this pandemic. I want to say a big thank you to them, and I pay tribute to them. I also want to place on record my great thanks to both our police and crime commissioner, Alison Hernandez, and our chief constable, Shaun Sawyer, for the clear leadership they have provided during these past few months, as it has really helped the police on the ground to carry out their work so effectively. In my own constituency, I want to thank the inspectors in Newquay, Guy Blackford, and in St Austell, Ed Gard and the Cornwall commander, our very own IDS—Ian Drummond-Smith—for the way that they have provided the pragmatic and sensible approach that we have needed. I just want to say thank you to them all.

The image of Devon and Cornwall for most people is that of a picturesque, rural and coastal part of the world where people love to visit for their holidays. Policing in Devon and Cornwall is just as challenging as it is anywhere else in the country—in some ways, it is more so because of its very unique situation. Let me give colleagues an idea: the Devon and Cornwall police force area is the largest in England, covering more than 4,000 square miles. Our emergency services deal with more than a million calls per year, and their work is cut out because we have more than 13,600 miles of road, the highest in the country, 85% of which are rural. As we all know, rural roads are, in fact, the most dangerous and often the most challenging to police. The force area also has the longest coastline in the country. Cornwall itself has 675 miles of beautiful cliffs, beaches and coves. Devon is not quite so great or quite so beautiful, but, equally, that in itself presents a number of incredible challenges to our police force.

[Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)]

I cannot possibly let that stand. Does my hon. Friend agree that the state-of-the-art new police headquarters, based in my constituency of East Devon, is a prime example of the investment that our police need in Devon and Cornwall?

[Steve Double]

Absolutely. Those improvements are very welcome. They represent, I believe, some of the investment that is going into the area, but, as I will go on to say, it cannot end there. We do need continued investment.

Another factor that is often overlooked when we consider all our public services, but particularly with regard to policing, is the fact that we are a peninsula and therefore not able to share resources with nearby forces or other county areas. That often means that our police are isolated from other assets. I believe that one statistic is that only 10% are within seven miles of another police asset, which in itself presents a number of very great challenges to the way the police operate.