Immigration and Home Affairs

Debate between Siobhain McDonagh and Bell Ribeiro-Addy

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)]

Rail in public ownership, stronger workers’ rights, a publicly owned energy supplier, a ban on no-fault evictions and an end to the non-dom tax status—these are some of the key foundations to recovery that we can celebrate in this King’s Speech, after 14 years of austerity, privatisation and squeezed living standards, but I want to touch on a few things that were not included.

I was pleased to support the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson). Removing the two-child benefit cap is the most cost-effective and immediate way for our Government to lift 300,000 children out of poverty. The notion that in the sixth-largest economy in the world we cannot find the money has to be wrong. While the taskforce is good, we must make moves as soon as possible to make this is a reality. If there were a national emergency, we would find the money. If the levels of child poverty at the moment are not a national emergency, I do not know what is.

I was also pleased to support the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) to end the supply of arms to Israel and uphold international law. The Government have called for a ceasefire and we need to back that up with action.

I will focus the majority of my remarks on the dreadful legislative legacy on civil liberties left behind by the previous Government. If we take simply the broad heading of our liberties, the previous Government curbed the right to protest, to free assembly, to freedom of speech, to organise in trade unions and to freedom from covert operations by the state. The right to vote has been supressed. Religious freedom was attacked through the demonisation of Muslims and Muslim communities. We cannot possibly pose as champions of freedom and democracy while these stains remain on our statute book.

In addition, we should note that the previous Government did nothing to correct the gross imbalance that now exists between employers and trade unions with regard to workers’ rights. They promised to block the gross abuse that led to the scandal at P&O but did absolutely nothing. They also toyed with the idea of regularising the legislative mess around a woman’s right to choose, and so address issues of women’s sexual and reproductive health, and expanding access to safe and legal abortions throughout the country. We cannot repeat these serial failures to act. This is about what it means to live in a free society.

Furthermore, there is a slew of secondary legislation, rules and guidance that infringe or suppress the rights of citizens. There are too many to mention, but I am thinking about the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021, the Overseas Operations Act 2021, the Elections Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023. A running theme throughout those Acts is, in effect, to place officers of the state above the law—whether they be police officers, members of the armed services, members of the security services or others—as long as they were acting under the direction of a more senior officer.

These laws severely curtail the fundamental rights of citizens. Under these Acts, it is officers of the state who decide what is lawful, not the courts. I remind hon. and right hon. Members that placing agents of the state above the law is almost the very definition of a police state. It is authoritarian and anti-democratic. It is not the legal basis of a free and democratic society. The same is true of any claim that is made that officers of the state determine the law. They do not; their duty is to uphold it. Over time, I would confidently expect each and every one of these pieces of legislation to face legal challenges, including, if necessary, in the European Court, because they are so flawed and draconian.

If our democracy is going to work for everyone, it has to include everyone. Our party has already made important commitments to extend the franchise to young people by bringing in automatic voter registration. Scrapping the exclusory voter ID laws that the Tories introduced is another urgent priority to strengthen engagement in the democratic process. A survey by More in Common estimates that more than 400,000 people were prevented from voting in the general election due to these undemocratic rules. The same research shows that people of colour were 2.5 times more likely to be turned away. Let us be clear about this: any law that disproportionately stops black and brown people from participating in our democracy is racist. The voter ID laws were introduced on the pretence of tackling voter fraud, yet between 2017 and 2022 there were just 18 convictions. Compare that with the 400,000 people blocked from voting at the ballot box.

There are so many things that we want to see. I want to congratulate the Prime Minister on his announcement that there will be an early repeal of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023. This, too, is an anti-democratic, authoritarian measure that places members of the armed forces above the law. The Prime Minister’s announcement on this should be a model for the rest of the legislation that I have mentioned.

It is also very important to look at some of the actions that the previous Government took. They rushed legislation through in a very hurried way. In fact, they gave us a model for doing things in the future. I wish to point out that the people of this country voted against that Government, so let us repeal all of their awful legislation both quickly and decisively.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Siobhain McDonagh)]

I call Frank McNally to make his maiden speech.