Assisted Dying

Siobhan Baillie Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

I feel a heaviness of heart about this debate, in part because of my faith and in part because of the weight of seriousness of the issue and of ensuring that I represent the constituents who have contacted me in droves about it. I have not had a surgery in some time when someone has not come in about it. In a public question-and-answer session, a gentleman broke down in tears thinking about the death of his wife, and the memory of a lady carefully walking me through her experience of the death of her sister, culminating in a trip to Dignitas, and her description of that place, has never left me.

I have to say that, over many years of being the Member of Parliament for Stroud, constituents’ experiences have steadily changed my views. Arguments about choice, compassion and the ability to plan are very powerful to me, although my constituents know that I am careful in how I vote and I would need to see the legislation in front of me before making a final decision.

Constituents on the opposite side of the debate have also contacted me in a very powerful and thoughtful way. I refer to the article by Josh Glancy in The Sunday Times this weekend which sets out a number of the arguments that my constituents have also made. I will use my brief time to give the Chamber some examples of the very thoughtful correspondence I have had. A gentleman wrote to me:

“This is extremely personal to me and my wife…who has an incurable blood cancer…at the age of just 55. Neither of us want her to suffer the gradual progression through incapacity, pain and death without her being able to choose her time of death with dignity, whereas at present the only choice might be to travel abroad and seek an exit prematurely”.

Another gentleman, in a lengthy and thoughtful correspondence, talked passionately about his mother, a working-class Liverpool woman who became a curator at Historic Royal Palaces. I liked the fact that he said:

“You would have loved her.”

He said that the weeks of her illness were rather life-affirming. His mum considered taking her own life, as her best friend had done following a terminal diagnosis, but she did not and,

“later told us she was glad she hadn’t, because she would’ve missed out on the experience of so much love and goodwill from friends, family and carers.”

Yet she went on to plead for death in the final weeks. It took 16 weeks for her to die, effectively from starvation. I mention this gentleman because he said:

“When my Mum was dying”—

This is hard; we all get such emails—

“I promised myself that at the very least, I would write this letter, so that my bitter disagreement with the law…would be known. Thank you for taking the time to read it.”

I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir David Davis) that we need days of debate on this, with everybody involved. It has to be very well thought through.

Oral Answers to Questions

Siobhan Baillie Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

A fantastic question, well worth asking. The contract that all Ministers have is with the British people, to work hard on their behalf and to focus relentlessly on their priorities. That is something that every Government Minister takes seriously, and something totally lacking in the narrative coming from the Opposition Benches, including the Liberal Democrat Benches.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

The award-winning Cotswold Canals Trust volunteers have had enough of antisocial behaviour such as graffiti, dog mess and worrying drug paraphernalia everywhere. It is ruining their hard work on the canal network and is putting them at risk. Part of our successful approach to trying to tackle it is getting CCTV down the canals. Will my right hon. Friend let us know what is happening with the safer streets funding? Police and crime commissioner Chris Nelson and I have made an application, and we are waiting to hear about it.

[Chris Philp]

A round of safer streets funding was distributed for the current financial year, and we will make an announcement shortly about the following financial year. More money will be available, and it will be up to police and crime commissioners to decide how they spend that money. We will also confirm shortly the roll-out of antisocial behaviour hotspot patrols across the entire country—across all 43 police forces in England and Wales. Where those have been trialled so far—in Essex, Staffordshire, Lancashire and elsewhere—we have seen 30% decreases in ASB. Pretty soon, that will be available in Gloucestershire as well.

Illegal Migration

Siobhan Baillie Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I share my hon. Friend’s sentiment and conviction. Of course we should be a decent, generous and compassionate country to those coming here from places of peril, but we also have to prioritise the interests of British taxpayers. We should not be elevating the interests of illegal migrants over those of the communities we are sent here to serve. Those who are granted asylum have access to the benefits system and they can work. We should all encourage them to do so and to integrate into British society.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend and the Prime Minister for listening to my Stroud constituents’ concerns about illegal migration and speeding up processing, and for taking seriously my calls to close a migrant hotel in my patch. I caution Labour Front Benchers against playing political games over which hotels are closing, because not only do they have no plan themselves, but they do not know what many of our constituents have been through, because Members of Parliament, local police and local residents have worked hard to keep incidents out of the newspapers, so that they do not escalate. Will my right hon. Friend please clarify when we will receive more information about the closures, and confirm that, in the event of a closure in my patch, there will be close working with Gloucestershire County Council, which has been very solid on this?

[Robert Jenrick]

I thank my hon. Friend for her good work representing her constituents on this issue in her characteristically sensible and calm manner. I am pleased that we have come to a good outcome in her case. The Home Office will write today or in the coming days to all the local authorities and MPs with hotels in the first 50. In the weeks ahead, we will consider further tranches as we make further progress on stopping the boats. We will put in place the processes and personnel required to support local authorities as we decant individuals from those locations.

Illegal Migration Bill

Siobhan Baillie Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

The public expect action on small boats and illegal migration. The main issues raised with me are illegality, asylum seeker hotels, and safe and legal routes. I will come on to those points in a moment.

It is clearly extremely dangerous and not sustainable to have 45,000 people arriving across the channel in small boats, many of whom are paying people smugglers. It is not sustainable for our own communities, housing and services. Many councils, including Labour councils, say that they absolutely cannot cope and are not able to take additional people at the moment. The Stroud public also know that this is an international issue, something that is often lost in the debate online. It is an international issue and it has a very serious national security bent, too. I find that, away from social media, all the yelling and the noise of shouting down anything—literally anything—that the Government try to do on this issue, people really understand that the Government have to do absolutely everything they possibly can. Given that we are legislators, it is not a surprise that we are going to try to legislate.

On hotel accommodation, my constituents know that I have worked really hard and been very careful not to use my social media or my platform to draw attention to hotels or to asylum seekers in our county of Gloucestershire. Given the attacks on various hotels and places around the country, I do not think it is fair or responsible to communities to do that. Instead, I have spoken to people directly. I have held meetings and I have had police down to particular parts of my constituency. I have spoken before about my disappointment and anger that hotels have been placed in inappropriate areas that we know will cause difficulties. The hotels have to close and I want to hear more from the Minister for Immigration, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) about when that will happen.

On safe and legal routes, like many of my constituents I of course want to see safe and legal routes that are controlled. Unfortunately, that term has become quite nebulous. We have to nail down what it means. The reality is that the safe and legal route policy should work transparently alongside the Bill. It is good that it is referenced, but we need to have that transparency. I want to know whether my right hon. Friend will consider creating a super clear, simple, and safe legal route policy. I look to the recent leader in The Spectator, which talked about the simple policy of a safe route being created for each illegal migrant who is returned. That is gloriously simple and I think it would deal with a lot of the concerns of the public. I think it would also pull the pants down from the Opposition.

Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Bill

Siobhan Baillie Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend brings her extensive legal learning and experience to bear on this issue and makes two important points. First, we should consider, before Report, the interactions with other aspects of the law. That is certainly important and one of the key conclusions of this Committee. Secondly, we should reflect on the fact that, even as drafted, the Bill significantly moves the dial on the ability of prosecuting authorities to secure convictions for behaviour that would constitute the proposed specific offence of public sex-based harassment.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Greg Clark]

I am conscious that you have indulged me, Sir Gary, in giving me a second chance to speak so that I can respond briefly to the debate. I do not want to try your patience excessively, but I will of course give way to my hon. Friend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Siobhan Baillie]

My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury is right, but there is a huge frustration that the laws we have in place are not resulting in convictions. The examples we have been giving in relation to touching should already be an offence, but it is important that, when we interrogate this legislation with examples, we do not use examples of touching to see where we will get to with it. It is for the Home Office and all of us on the Committee to come up with the examples we can interrogate. Otherwise, we will fall foul of the ministerial team because we will always be referred to the existing legislation, even though that is a frustration for us all.

[Greg Clark]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that wise and helpful steer for the work that the Committee has clearly agreed to do, with the Minister’s consent. I hope that those Members who have contributed to the debate will work together to address the points that have been made so that, when we come to Report and Third Reading, we might find a way to address them.

I thank you, Sir Gary, for your chairmanship. I put on the record my thanks to the Minister and her officials in the Home Office and to the excellent Clerks team in the House for their guidance through what is clearly an important but also very technical change to the law we are proposing. We are very grateful for that. I end by acknowledging the presence earlier of one Committee member: the Mother of the House, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham, who is currently chairing a Committee of her own but has indicated her strong support. We are very grateful for her appearance.

On that basis, and with gratitude for the indication from the hon. Member for Walthamstow that she will not press her amendment on the basis that we can consider its implications, I commend to the Committee my new clause and my amendments.

Amendment 1 agreed to.

Police Conduct and David Carrick

Siobhan Baillie Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I cannot comment on the individual case, but late last year Baroness Casey’s review concluded on an interim basis that it is taking too long to resolve misconduct conduct cases within policing. Officers and staff do not believe that action will be taken when concerns around conduct are raised. Those are just a sample of some of the serious concerns that she identified when it comes to the process in place for monitoring and disciplining police officers for unacceptable behaviour. I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for his service in the police force. Whatever needs to be changed, we will do it.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

Women in Stroud and around the country have woken up with their trust and belief in our police service badly shaken yet again. From speaking to local women, I know that issues in the Met undermine their confidence in Stroud police. They can see that Gloucestershire constabulary is working hard to protect them and that it is open to change. However, when we know that women are routinely not reporting violence, abuse and harassment in part because of a lack of faith in the police, and with each force doing something completely different, what is my right hon. and learned Friend doing to ensure that all forces get their act together and show the country that they are speaking to each other and that national change will be made on this issue?

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the issue of women’s confidence in policing. Tangible steps and measures have already been taken, after legislating in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, to address concerns surrounding data extraction from victims’ devices during investigations. We are well on the way to ensuring that victims are not without a phone for more than 24 hours. That has been a real deterrent to women coming forward with complaints about rape and other serious sexual offences. We have led with the groundbreaking Operation Soteria programme, a radical transformation in the way the police investigate rape and serious sexual offences. We are also protecting the wellbeing of victims during trials by offering pre-recorded evidence for rape victims. Those are just a few of the measures we are taking to send the message to women and girls, “Come forward if you are a victim. If you do, the police will be there to support you.”

Spiking Incidents: Prevention

Siobhan Baillie Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I rise in support of my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), and I congratulate him on securing this important debate and on his recognition in the recent new year’s honours.

I mainly wanted to join this debate about spiking, date rape and all that comes with it because I and many in my constituency of Stroud are working really hard to tackle violence against women and girls. Our local police, Stroud Women’s Refuge, the Nelson Trust, campaign groups such as This Ends Now, Safe Space, businesses and local schools are all urging for societal and legislative change to protect women and girls and change behaviours, so I know they will expect me to be active on this issue.

According to YouGov, one in nine women claims that they have been a victim of spiking and 6% of men have also been targeted, so it is right that this issue receives some serious attention in this place. The date rape cases are probably quite familiar to most of the public—as covered in the soaps, Rohypnol and GHB are commonly used and are undetectable in drinks—but other drugs are now being used, with people becoming more and more creative in their use of spiking to commit assault. People have long been aware of how to deal with drink spiking. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester, the advice goes out to young women that if they go to a nightclub, they should put their hands over their glasses and not leave their drinks, but it is nigh on impossible for them to protect themselves from somebody brushing up against them with a needle. The police are left literally trying to find a needle in a haystack.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester has previously spoken movingly about his constituent Maisy Farmer. It is anybody’s worst nightmare to not know what happened to them the night before, but then they have to go through the absolute hell of worrying about whether they have contracted HIV or hepatitis and waiting for the results. That is a double horror.

We are dealing with faceless criminals, and the police are really stuck with what to do. We need to raise awareness about reporting incidents, going and getting help, and being tested very quickly, but we also need to help our nightclub staff, police and medics, because it is clear to me that they are asking for support. A legislative change would raise the bar and completely change the game on these offences.

I pay tribute to the Gloucestershire police and crime commissioner, Chris Nelson, who quickly gripped this issue. He was the first in the UK to launch an operation to tackle spiking in the nightclub economy. In Stroud, we are reopening our nightclub after a very long period because of the pandemic, and I will be working with the police to ensure that the police and crime commissioner’s work is known well throughout our towns.

I welcome the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester on this issue, and I will continue to watch closely and to see how we can find more ways to protect men and women in Stroud, Gloucestershire and beyond. I love the fact that we have raised it to an issue of national security by accident and that we have such an eminent Minister in our midst, but this is very serious and I am pleased to see so many Members present. Well done to my hon. Friend for bringing it forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Siobhan Baillie Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

The Government approach illegal drugs—or drugs of any kind—under advice from the Advisory Council on the Abuse of Drugs. If the hon. Member has detailed points that he would like to submit in relation to this, he can write to me and I would be happy to look into it.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

I want to give credit to the Marling School students who got me in to talk about migration. Those smart, constructive young people really understand the complexities and I know that they will welcome the recent announcements, but they also expect me to keep pushing for improvement. I am concerned that MPs, councils and councillors are still some of the last people to find out when asylum seekers are placed in hotels in their constituencies. How is the Home Office working with the companies that have been contracted to source and organise hotels in rural areas, and is there day-to-day oversight?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend and I have worked together with respect to some accommodation in her constituency. We have now implemented far better engagement criteria with the Home Office, which will ensure that there should always be engagement with the Member of Parliament and the local authority in advance of placing asylum seekers in a particular place. But it is important to stress once again the immense pressure that our system is now under as a result of the number of people crossing the channel illegally, hence our need to take bold measures such as our Rwanda partnership.

Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Bill

Siobhan Baillie Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 9th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

I have spoken before about the serious and outrageous behaviour that girls from Stroud High School in my constituency reported to me. Those girls, in their distinctive school uniform, deal with completely unwanted public sexual harassment from men. There are random comments sometimes, and the comments are sometimes sexualised and are sometimes just really weird. I listened to their experiences. They took the initiative of creating a survey, so they went around their school—these are really smart kids—and they discovered, to their horror, that girls as young as nine had experienced public sexual harassment.

We have all experienced that and we have spoken about that in the Chamber. It ranges from being shouted at to comments by those who think they are being funny, to people being flashed at and far more serious incidents. We saw from the Everyone’s Invited campaign that this is prevalent among schoolgirls and schoolchildren. I started to investigate this, listening even more closely to my excellent colleagues and looking at the fantastic work that went on prior to my joining this House, and it became really obvious that things needed to change.

In Stroud, sadly, we have had a series of rapes and sexual assaults, which is totally devastating for the victims and their families. It has also completely rocked our community. This is a safe, beautiful Cotswolds town, which is similar to what my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) said about his area and the need for strong police and strong communities. We now have women who are worried about going out. We have women who are worried about going for a run during the day down our championed canal routes, because one of the attacks was in broad daylight. The Bill is not about rape—I get that—but about public sexual harassment. None the less, from speaking to the women and girls in my constituency and from listening to the experienced hon. and right hon. Members in this place, I know that, although the harassment on the streets and the trolling that is happening online daily, even hourly, to women and girls may be down to keyboard warriors being idiots, it is also fuelling physical abuse in the real world.

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend is making the important and powerful point that we must never ever forget that there is, uncomfortable though we may find it, a pyramid of offending. Although not every flasher becomes a rapist, every rapist has started somewhere, and public sexual harassment can be the somewhere. Does she agree that that is one of the many reasons why we have to make sure that it is stamped out at source?

[Siobhan Baillie]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. That is why I get so frustrated when people dismiss this as unnecessary, going too far, or too heavy-handed. It is a very short hop, skip and jump from someone shouting obscenities or being rude to a woman on the street to being rude in their own home, if that is their mentality. We have to make that connection and we have to keep making it strongly.

When we had those rare horrendous incidents in Stroud, the advice that was immediately given was for women. They were told, “Change your behaviour. Change your clothes.” It was exactly as the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) said. It was also, “Don’t wear your headphones. Think a little bit more about where you’re going to walk”. Where do I want to walk in a beautiful Cotswolds market town? I want to walk everywhere. I do not want my thought processes to be about whether I will get attacked on any given day.

But Stroud fought back. This is a very spirited place, very politically bouncy, as anyone who follows politics will know, and my inbox is very bouncy, too. Anybody who thought that they would get away with attacking women and girls or being rude to them on the streets in my area was very, very wrong. We have all banded together to make changes, which is why I am so much in support of what my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells is doing. Our voices are being reinforced, although it is not just about our voices: in all of our constituencies, we have Government support for a very important Bill.

I have led a successful campaign, which the Government have now supported, to change the law and reduce anonymous online abuse, which, as I said, is completely connected to the real world. Hundreds of people in Stroud have marched, on a number of occasions now, specifically on these issues. Our police and crime commissioner, Chris Nelson, and our police have joined those marches. That is a really important step. Our PCC has made tackling violence against women and girls a focus of his work. The hon. Member for Walthamstow was talking about police forces that were ahead of the curve; Gloucestershire is one of them and I am very proud of it for that, although the police have a lot more work to do. We held a public meeting about these issues, and even though we have been reporting hate crimes and public harassment for much longer than other forces, women were standing up saying that they still did not feel comfortable going to the police. There is an awful lot of work to do, and I know that the Gloucestershire constabulary understand that.

Two fabulous constituents, Nikki Owen and Sydney-Anne McAllister—I met Sydney quite recently—have launched a pressure group called This Ends Now. They want to change the law and the media, and they are challenging both to do better, particularly on language. Where there is a rape, it should be reported in the media as a rape, not as a sexual assault, and it should not be played down in any way, shape or form. I believe that committed women in my patch will be pleased to see what we are trying to do today.

I encourage all Members of the House to look up the work of the Holly Gazzard Trust, which was set up by a family who were devastated by the loss of their daughter. They have gone on to campaign on domestic abuse and to really change the lives of many other families, and they are front and centre in supporting and fighting for women and girls in Gloucestershire.

We also have Chrissie Lowery, who is winning awards all over the place. Following the rapes and other incidents I have mentioned, and the rise of concern among our school girls about public sexual harassment, she took up the baton and created the Safe Space campaign, which Stagecoach, the police and lots of local businesses are now on board with. After an incident in a very dark, dingy, scary tunnel, Chrissie took the initiative of getting some amazing artists together, and we painted the tunnel, which sounds very simple. My daughter and I went down, and we put butterflies on the wall of this horrendously dark tunnel; it is now a beautiful open space that people are comfortable going down during the day, and we are looking at having lighting and CCTV at night. These efforts are small acts of kindness, but they will all join up to make a difference.

Gloucestershire police have created something called the Flare app, which is being rolled out to other forces. It allows people to put in the details of places they are worried about in the Stroud district and creates a heat map, so the police know to go to specific points of concern and the council can come in and do work on things such as CCTV. It is really innovative, and we can probably do more with it, but 3,000 people have downloaded it, so it is going pretty well for a new piece of kit.

Given that my community and constituents have done so much legwork—there are more examples, but I will not go on and on—it is right that we in this place constantly review the law. Following the advice from bodies such as the Law Commission—where very learned people have spent a lot of time investigating this issue—my right hon. Friend’s Bill assists us in doing that. We are creating a new law that deals with intentionally harassing or seeking to cause alarm, which is a gap in the legislation that we have in this place, so I welcome the Bill.

However, it is right that there is a balance in what we are trying to do and in what happens should somebody be pulled up for sexual harassment, so I welcome the explanation of what will and will not result in imprisonment. The headlines and challenges that we have seen—that someone will be sent to prison because they wolf-whistled—are immediately dismissive. It is therefore right that we are clear about what the Bill does and does not do and about how we have sought to strike a balance. The test is the intention to cause distress. Where somebody is being a plonker, that is a very different test—we could deal with plonkers in other ways. This intention to cause distress is a serious test, which will hopefully lead to prosecutions in the right places and then to deterrence, so that we can start to change society and culture.

[Stella Creasy]

Does the hon. Lady also recognise the point I made earlier about adding the concept of “foreseeable”? The risk with intent is the young man who says, “I didn't realise that this would be harassment,” when everybody else would. When we look at intent, we have to be clear that it is foreseeable that some behaviour could cause distress; otherwise, we create a big loophole, and we will not make the progress we want to make.

[Siobhan Baillie]

I heard what the hon. Lady said earlier. It is not something that I have looked at, but I understand that there are already examples in legislation and I heard the challenge to the Minister to look carefully at this. It is important. We cannot create legislation in the knowledge that people are going to get let off the hook or that they will learn how to respond when pulled up by the police. That is why we have to be clear about the balance and about what the Bill does and does not do. We have to think through a range of different examples and about the responses that will be given by the perpetrators, so that the legislation is tight.

As the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), made clear, we have to avoid demonising all men and boys. They are not all bad. They are not all plonkers. We know that men and boys are very much part of the solution. Early education in our schools is absolutely vital, but we cannot get away from the fact that the incidents are generally perpetrated by men. It is right to continue that debate and to also be really careful with our language about men and boys.

To conclude, the reality is that only 26% of those who experience public sexual harassment report the incident to the police, no matter how scared, harassed or intimidated they have been by it. We have also heard examples such as that robustly and passionately given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North of the girl in the supermarket. That was a really visual story of the nonsense that girls and women have to go through every single day when they are not asking for it or wearing anything provocative but just trying to do their job. With such examples in our minds and this happening every single day of the week, of the month, of the year, we have to make changes.

I am relieved and really grateful that the next time I am in Stroud with Stroud High School girls or with the campaign group This Ends Now and other teams, or the next time I am on a march or dealing with these issues in front of a group of people in our town hall, I will be able to point to the Government backing this Bill as yet another example of the Government wanting to protect women and girls and being prepared to create the legislation to do so and bring our laws up to date.

Ukraine: Urgent Refugee Applications

Siobhan Baillie Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

I certainly would not dismiss the support that is being provided by the Polish, Hungarian, Romanian and Moldovan authorities. They are doing an amazing job of welcoming those who are coming straight over the border. We have on a number of occasions touched on why we believe it is right that we do basic security checks before people travel to the United Kingdom, but many of our other normal requirements are being waived. I do not think that some of the solutions potentially put forward around doing security checks here in the UK would necessarily reflect a warm-hearted approach.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

As it is International Women’s Day, we are looking at the experiences of women around the world. I have been asked whether it is difficult being a pregnant MP; the answer is no. I will tell the House what is difficult: being a pregnant woman in Ukraine and children being in a basement where they are being attacked. Stroud people want to understand what the chuff is going on. I know that the Minister cares and that the Home Office cares, but the picture is still confused and causing anxiety. Will my hon. Friend confirm that he will look at all biometric options to speed up the process? In particular, will he ensure that when websites and things say that people will get information back after 24 hours, the Home Office provides that information or changes the expectation and deals with it properly?

[Kevin Foster]

As I say, we are certainly keen to look at the position in respect of biometrics for under-18s. That would make a significant difference, particularly for family applications. Some final security advice on that is being considered but we are keen to move forward shortly. We are looking at some of the electronic means—as I say, for those who are not familiar with the BNO visa, if someone has a HKSAR passport that is biometrically enabled, they can apply from home without a visit to a visa application centre. We are looking at a range of options that could speed things up and remove the need to go to a VAC.