SPAC Nation

Siobhain McDonagh Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this important and alarming issue this evening, and I am grateful to colleagues who have stayed late to be present during this debate. SPAC Nation is an organisation that has been in the news recently, and I start by expressing my gratitude to Nadine White and Emma Youle at HuffPost, who carried out some extraordinary investigative journalism to bring the matter to light, to Greg McKenzie and the excellent BBC “Panorama” team for their work, and to many others working in the media and in the press.

When I first became aware of SPAC Nation I thought, as many have done, that it was just another church. I started to think differently when one of their leaders stood as the Conservative candidate in a Croydon council by-election. There is nothing wrong with a church leader standing for election, of course, but it was odd to find hundreds of young members of this so-called church shouting abuse at other parties’ canvassers, shouting obscenities at the council leader, and intimidating voters on their own doorsteps, including by videoing them. When I tweeted my concerns about this unchurch- like behaviour, I was inundated with emails and phone calls from young people and their parents, making alarming allegations about SPAC Nation. I took a full two days to phone them all back, and from that I was able to piece together what was really going on inside this organisation.

I am convinced that SPAC Nation is a cult. It advertises events targeted mainly at young black people in poorer parts of London. It offers free food or free bowling sessions to attract young people to come along. The young leaders vet the young people who turn up and then target those who appear to be most susceptible. They befriend these particular young people and invite them to further functions and events, including dinners. One of the organisation’s leaders will start phoning them, sometimes several times a day. They are then given lifts by that individual to meetings. Then, what appears to be brainwashing starts. They are told that if their life is unsuccessful, if their family is poor, that is because they are not giving enough money to God. They call it seed: “If you give seed to God—as much as you can lay your hands on—you will become rich.” This is the message they try to pump into these young people’s heads.

The organisation’s leaders display extraordinary wealth. They drive cars worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. They wear Rolex watches and expensive designer suits, and they live in multimillion-pound properties. All of this is way beyond the experience of the young people they are targeting. They tell these vulnerable young people that they became rich by giving seed to God and tell them that they can have the same, but first they have to give, and by any means possible.

Some young people are encouraged to break their links with their families and move into properties rented by the organisation’s leaders. They call them “trap houses”, the term used for drug dens in the United States. A woman leader of this organisation running one of these trap houses where vulnerable young girls were placed has 27 convictions for serious fraud. No vulnerable child should be allowed anywhere near her. Once in these houses, the control and coercion becomes far more insidious. One young victim told me they had prayer sessions, which she described as brainwashing, for up to eight hours a day, but the emphasis was not on God or spirituality; it was on wealth and money and the need to give seed to God in order to get rich.

Once the organisation has control of a young person’s mind, it pressures them into making fraudulent personal loan applications so that they can hand the money to the organisation’s leaders. They are pressured into setting up fake businesses so that they can apply fraudulently for business loans. The so-called pastors show the young recruits how to fill in the application forms with false information. In some cases they fill in the forms for the young person simply to sign. In at least one case, an application was made in a young person’s name without their knowledge or awareness.

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

On SPAC Nation and the financial implications of some of its dealings, my hon. Friend will be aware of the case of the late Mrs Osinlaru, who seems to have obtained a £150,000 secured loan on her house. Tragically she passed away, leaving her two young adult daughters and 13-year-old son in the house, unaware of this control over it. The house was later repossessed and a bailiff’s warrant secured, but that was stopped only because of the presence of the young 13-year-old son. That family risk losing their home and becoming homeless because of a loan they did not know about, and their mum has passed away. I have written to the church and it has admitted that it was involved in securing, or helping to secure, that loan. Does that give my hon. Friend further cause for concern?

[Mr Reed]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising yet another alarming case of what appears to be a form of fraud and deception perpetrated on a family who had just lost their mother. It seems to have been deliberately intended to disinherit her children.

There are many ways in which the leaders of this organisation appear to be perpetrating fraud in order to enrich themselves. I have spoken to young people who, sickeningly, were taken to private clinics to sell their blood, with a so-called pastor pretending to be their parent in order to sign consent forms. I have spoken to young people who were coached to commit benefit fraud. I have met students—I have also spoken to their parents—who were coerced into handing over their entire student loans before being taken to banks to raise further money through personal loans, so they lost their ability to continue in education and ended up in serious debt.

Tragically, where criminal exploitation is taking place, there is often also sexual exploitation. One young woman told me that she was just 16 when she moved into a trap house and, in her words,

“everyone was having sex with everyone else, it was disgusting”.

I asked her to clarify whether she meant older pastors having sex with younger girls, and she said yes.

When that young woman complained to her pastor, she was taken to the organisation’s leader, who told her that if she complained to the police, it would rebound on her, because he was powerful and had friends in high places. He made that claim look real to these vulnerable young people by inviting politicians and senior police officers to his church services. He even met the Prime Minister in No. 10 Downing Street. I believe all those people thought they were engaging with a church that helped vulnerable young people, but in reality they were being used to intimidate young victims and prevent them from speaking out.

SPAC Nation is not an organisation that is getting young people out of crime, as it claims; it is an organisation that is criminalising young people for its own ends. It operates right across London and has already expanded into other cities, including Birmingham and Leicester.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Whately]

I am sorry but I cannot give a different answer from this Dispatch Box. None of us would want to say anything this evening that might perhaps prevent an effective investigation taking place, or that might prejudice the outcome in any way that might be unhelpful. Given how serious these allegations are, let us make sure that they can be effectively investigated and pursued.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I thank the Minister for giving way. She is being very generous. The Charity Commission can often move very slowly, and given the seriousness of the allegations, would it not be possible to suspend charitable status while the investigations are going ahead? Considering other charities that deal with young people from memory, I am aware that this has happened in the past.

[Helen Whately]

I am very happy to write to the hon. Lady with a full response to that question, but let me reiterate that I know that the Charity Commission is, as I said before, investigating the matter and that, because it does not look into criminal activity, the police are reviewing these allegations. Those two things are happening.

Before we finish, I want to put the record straight on one matter. I do understand that the pastor to whom the hon. Gentleman referred went to No. 10 Downing Street, but I have been told that he did not meet the Prime Minister. I think that it is appropriate to say that. My understanding is that he attended a roundtable event along with 25 other Church leaders to discuss youth violence, and it was in that context that he was in No. 10 Downing Street.

Just before I conclude, I want to make an important point and say how mindful I am, given the context of this debate, of the important role that religion, faith and worship play in our society and what a significant and important contribution that many religious charities make to our communities. They are often the first in and last out of marginal communities, providing invaluable help and support for those most in need. That includes many black majority Churches up and down the country that support their local communities, contributing positively to wider society. That is a very important point to put on the record.

As I have said, I will write to the hon. Gentleman. He has the offer of a meeting with the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department to discuss these wider issues in principle. May I thank him for calling this debate and for highlighting these very serious allegations? His concerns have been fully heard by me, by the other Ministers here and by many thousands via the media coverage that this has received. The crucial next step is for the Charity Commission and the police to investigate the allegations and to take appropriate action.

Question put and agreed to.