Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Stephen Kinnock and Wayne David

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

I am going to make some progress.

A range of proposals have been put forward, including by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake), who has a record of huge commitment to addressing these matters. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) also have a long history of working diligently on these issues.

The number of new clauses, including one of my own, that seek to build on and expand access to family reunion visas for refugees clearly reflects the high level of support for such schemes among Members on both sides of the House. In speaking to new clause 24 on behalf of the Opposition, I make it clear that providing better safe routes for unaccompanied children with family in the UK is not just right from a moral point of view; it will also demonstrate to our European neighbours, whose support on issues from returns to tackling people smuggling is so fundamentally important to this country, that we are serious about making progress in negotiations on the range of issues that I outlined in relation to new clause 25.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that so far the Bill comes with no children’s rights impact assessment? We are desperately concerned about the plight of children.

[Stephen Kinnock]

My hon. Friend makes an absolutely valid point about the lack of an impact assessment for children, but there is a broader point about the lack of impact assessment full stop. It is completely and utterly unacceptable that we in this House should now be debating a Bill with no impact assessment having been published in advance. That shows a sort of disrespect to the House that really needs to be put on the record.

I am having to limit my time to discussion of the Opposition Front Benchers’ amendments, so I will not be able to raise my many questions and concerns about some of the provisions on legal proceedings in clauses 37 to 49. Some clearly appear to pose a real threat to due process and to our respect as a country that upholds the rule of law. The entire Bill is shot through with inconsistencies, unresolved questions and bizarre contortions of logic that can only have the effect of worsening the very problems the Government say they are trying to solve.

Just one example of that is highlighted by amendment 41, which I tabled as a means of probing the Government’s thinking on a measure that simply does not appear to have been properly thought through. Clause 45 states that where an appeal against a removal notice is upheld, the duty to remove that person no longer applies—so far, so sensible. The problem is that nothing in the Bill says that any asylum claim made by a person in such a situation would then be considered: those claims would continue to be inadmissible. That means we will end up with situations where there are people who cannot be removed, because a court has ruled that doing so would pose unacceptable risks to their safety, but who also cannot lawfully remain in the UK because of the Government’s refusal to accept their claim for asylum. The law would effectively be saying that a person can neither leave nor remain in this country. If the Minister has an answer to the question of what then happens to a person in that situation, I would love to hear it.

Welsh Affairs

Debate between Stephen Kinnock and Wayne David

Thursday 3rd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wayne David]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. On the community renewal fund, he is right that there was tremendous concern in the Caerphilly borough and in his constituency in the Bridgend area that those valley areas were, for some mystical reason, excluded from the Government’s list of 100 prioritised areas. Thankfully, as far as Wales was concerned, that prioritisation list was pushed to one side and all local authorities bar one received support from the community renewal fund.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is being very generous in giving way. I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) on the huge contribution that he has made to this place and to Welsh politics more broadly.

The mess that my hon. Friend is talking about—the community renewal fund, the lack of information and the governance issues mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore—is symptomatic of a strategy to cut the Welsh Government out of the shared prosperity fund, and that is symptomatic of a broader strategy to completely dismantle devolution in our country. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) agree that it simply does not make sense to cut the Welsh Government out, because we need that strategic overview of what is happening with economic development in Wales? Unfortunately, this is due to a politically motivated aim to dismantle devolution, and the UK Government are using the shared prosperity fund as a vehicle for those purposes.

[Wayne David]

I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend has made, and is making, a huge contribution to this debate through his able chairpersonship of the all-party parliamentary group on the shared prosperity fund.

Wales: Regional Development Funding

Debate between Stephen Kinnock and Wayne David

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Kinnock]

Indeed. That is a quite shocking example of the failure to prioritise what is happening right on our doorstep. It is absolutely vital that we see the funding in Wales that we need if we are to deliver. We all know how much support is required to deal with the huge changes in our economy over recent decades. We currently have a system that, while not perfect, works relatively well: EU funding is targeted at less prosperous areas and delivered by devolved Administrations who know the needs of their areas better than anyone else.

Now, we can debate Brexit until the cows come home—I am sure that we would love to—but I am sure that we can all agree that it is crucial that Wales does not lose a single penny of the funding that we would have received had the British public voted to remain instead of to leave the EU on 23 June 2016. The UK Government have agreed to replace those European funds, yet nearly everything about the shared prosperity fund is still to be worked out. We still do not know how much funding will be available. We need £1.7 billion per year UK-wide to keep up with what the EU is set to contribute from 2020 to 2026.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

There is an active debate ongoing about how the shared prosperity fund ought to be allocated. Some strongly argue that there should be a huge competitive element. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is far better to have a needs-based formula, so that resources are allocated where they are desired, not according to which area can put forward the best bids?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I agree entirely. There are two key points. First, the big advantage of the current system is that it is depoliticised. The European Union works on the basis of data and facts and of a scientific analysis of what is required. There is a huge risk that the shared prosperity fund will be turned into pork barrel politics, where the fund gets used as a slush fund for, dare I say it, a Conservative Government in Westminster. Secondly, competitive bidding does not work. The shared prosperity fund needs to be embedded in an industrial strategy and a regional development strategy that works from a strategic point of view rather than being based on bidding.

The second key question is how this money will be divided across the country. The third question is what activities will be eligible for support. The fourth question is who will take the decisions on how the money is spent. We are still none the wiser on all those key questions.

It really is not just about the money. There is a real fear that this will be not just a financial grab, but a power grab: the Westminster Government will use this opportunity to reduce funding for areas that need it most and claw back powers that sit naturally with the devolved Administrations.

Leaving the EU: No Deal

Debate between Stephen Kinnock and Wayne David

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to follow the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake).

Theresa May’s disastrous handling of the Brexit negotiations is entirely of her own making. It is she who chose to interpret a narrow victory for leave as meaning that the UK must exit the single market and the customs union; it is she who decided to call a general election in the middle of the most important negotiations in our post-war history; and it is she who utterly failed to face down the hard core of English nationalists in her party who want Brexit at any cost. In among all the chaos and incompetence, however, there is one aspect of her strategy that has become crystal clear. She has been talking up the prospect of no deal in order to bounce MPs from both sides of the House into supporting whatever deal she asks us to approve. Her game plan is simple: scare the living daylights out of Parliament by repeating ad nauseam that the choice will be between her deal and no deal at all.

It is vital that Parliament rejects the Prime Minister’s scaremongering and blackmail tactics, because they are built on an empty threat. The fact is that no deal is simply not going to happen for three reasons. First, a no-deal Brexit will unleash unmitigated chaos across government, business and society. As a member of the Exiting the European Union Committee, I have heard extensive evidence from senior civil servants and business leaders about the extent to which our country is ready to absorb the shock of leaving the EU on 29 March 2019 without a deal.

[Wayne David]

Does my hon. Friend agree it is not simply that we would be leaving the European Union and relying on WTO trade rules? It would mean a rupture in the whole corpus of legal arrangements that have been in place for 40 years. Such a scenario is totally unthinkable.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I agree entirely. Let us not forget that this will impact on people’s lives and citizens’ rights—the rights of EU citizens in the UK and British citizens in the European Union. What will happen to the European arrest warrant? What will happen to our entire security apparatus across the EU? It is not just about trade and the WTO; it is much bigger than that.

I have been deeply impressed by the professionalism and dedication of every one of those who have come in to speak to the Select Committee to give evidence. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that they are engaged in a charade. Let us take the state of preparedness at our ports. Jon Thompson, the head of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, told us that his French counterparts have categorically refused to engage in bilateral discussions about how to plan for a no-deal exit, because bilateral contacts are not permitted under the terms of article 50. We can continue, should we wish to do so, to allow in goods from the EU at Dover without checks on 30 March, but we have absolutely no idea what the French are going to do at Calais in the event of no deal.

On our customs processes, Mr Thompson told us that there are 145,000 businesses across the UK who currently import or export their goods solely within the EU. Thanks to our membership of the customs union, not one of those businesses ever has to complete a customs declaration form because all the checks are done at the point of departure—that is, at the relevant factories, warehouses and farms. If we exit without a deal, every one of those businesses that wishes to continue trading with the EU will need to know how to complete a range of complex customs declarations. According to Mr Thompson, however, to date only 2% of the 145,000 have contacted the HMRC to seek guidance on what they should do in the event of no deal.

On health, Sir Chris Wormald, permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care, told us that there is no clarity on reciprocal healthcare arrangements for UK citizens in the EU and EU citizens in the UK. This will end in the event of no deal. A British tourist in Paris needing medical treatment is currently entitled to full access to the French public healthcare system, but as of 30 March 2019 he or she may be required to hold a private insurance policy.

On legislation, Jill Rutter, director of the Institute for Government, told us that, in order to ensure that UK law is operable on 30 March 2019 in the event of no deal, a mountain of primary and secondary legislation would have to be passed. The Government have so far managed to pass six of the 13 currently announced Brexit Bills. Without a deal, they will need the Trade Bill to complete its passage through Parliament, along with other key Bills in areas such as agriculture and fisheries, as well as legislation to secure EU citizens’ rights. And then there is the mountain of secondary legislation, with between 800 and 1,000 statutory instruments having to be passed by 29 March. Even if MPs were to start working on all this primary and secondary legislation now, it would be a herculean task but, as we are not even going to have the vote until the 15 or 16 January, there is no sign at all of this being able to be brought forward. We are in the realm of the impossible.

Leaving the EU: Wales

Debate between Stephen Kinnock and Wayne David

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Kinnock]

That is a major concern. The British Government have been the ringleader of a set of countries trying to roll out the red carpet for China, to allow it to dump untold amounts of its unfairly subsidised steel on the EU and British markets. As we know, the Secretary of State for International Trade has said that he has no plans to support the steel industry with trade defence instruments. When combined with all the other uncertainty that Brexit has caused, that is a major concern for our industry.

Workways+ is a project that helps long-term unemployed people and people with complex needs to develop the skills and qualifications that will help them into paid positions. The Cynnydd Project works to help young people avoid the unemployment trap. BEACON is helping Swansea University to work with industry to pioneer renewable chemicals, fuels and other materials, bringing another key future industry to the area. Those are just three EU-funded projects already under way, and many others are in the pipeline. Each one makes the lives of our constituents better.

In reality, the situation in Port Talbot, Aberavon and across Wales calls for far more investment to accelerate our recovery from decades of under-investment in the face of the impact of globalisation and deindustrialisation. Yet all that funding and all that progress is at risk after the referendum vote to leave the European Union. While the leave campaign made promises that all EU funding would continue to flow to Wales at the same levels, I think we know that those promises are about as valid as what could be printed on the side of a bus.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend will be aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made that promise, but he has also said that he wants to guarantee funding for projects that meet UK priorities. Does that not imply that the Government intend to use this opportunity to insist that money is spent on their priorities, rather than those agreed with partners and the European Union?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank my hon. Friend. One of the huge risks to Wales of Brexit is that we will see a power grab by the Westminster Government. We will start to see the Westminster Government using the opportunity to claw back funding. We know that the £350 million was a lie. The figure was far more like £190 million, but where will that money go? Will it just disappear into the black hole of the Treasury in Westminster, never to be seen again in Wales? That is a huge risk for Wales in light of Brexit.

Now that all the bluff and bluster of the referendum campaign is behind us, it is all about what the Prime Minister’s Government actually do. So far on that score, the signs have not been positive. Despite repeated requests from the First Minister for a commitment to full continued funding, so far the Government have pledged only to continue funding agreed EU-funded projects until 2020.

That is not as powerful a pledge as it may first seem, for a number of reasons. First, it is for only one additional year after we are scheduled to leave the European Union in March 2019. The Government have made zero assurances that funding will be retained after 2020. Secondly, the Chancellor made clear in his statement on 13 August that the pledge applied only to projects signed before this year’s autumn statement. Apparently, any projects signed after that will be assessed by a method that is yet to be revealed to us—a mystery method. Funding is therefore not guaranteed for multi-year projects signed after next month, even if they are in the current EU 2014 to 2020 funding round.

Transforming Rehabilitation Programme

Debate between Stephen Kinnock and Wayne David

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered implementation of the transforming rehabilitation programme.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall. It is now almost 12 months since the formal creation of the 21 community rehabilitation companies and the establishment of the new national probation services. It has since become clear that fundamental flaws in the former Secretary of State’s thinking are beginning to impact on service delivery. The CRCs were initially created to address new work arising from probation supervision being extended to clients leaving prison after serving less than 12 months in custody. The probation service supported extending statutory support to this group with adequate funding. Had a consultation taken place on how that could be best achieved, I have no doubt that genuine alternative methods could have emerged, but it was unfortunately evident from the outset that the Secretary of State’s predecessor was fixed upon the payment-by-results outsourcing model.

Prior to the reorganisation, probation trusts were highly successful, with a good record of reducing reoffending. They had won European-wide awards for public service and all the trusts had been recognised as either good or outstanding by recent inspections. Trusts had established good local partnerships with other agencies, including in the private sector, that had been producing excellent results. In a number of trusts—for example, West Mercia and the Willowdene project—these partnerships have extended into innovative work with the third sector, addressing and supporting the same group of clients whom the transforming rehabilitation reorganisation targeted. Indeed, a major review by the third sector review group indicates that the procurement process was incoherent and meant that third sector providers who were supposed to have opportunities to engage in TR were disfranchised.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

It is not only politicians who have opinions on this subject, but the voluntary organisations themselves. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations sent us a briefing for this debate, which made the point that, despite the warm words of the former Justice Secretary, there is very little voluntary sector involvement.

[Stephen Kinnock]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The purpose of a consultation is to listen to the experts. In this case, the experts have described themselves as being used as “bid candy” to dress up the bids, rather than being involved in a truly engaged fashion. I agree entirely with my hon Friend’s point.

Significant challenges were immediately obvious. First, the marketplace was not interested in taking over the management of high-risk offenders for the limited profits associated with managing that target group. Further, the Ministry of Justice had been heavily criticised by both the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office for its poor management of previous contracts in courts, community payback, electronic monitoring and the quality of some provision in private prisons and detention centres. There was therefore limited political support for privatising the whole lot, hence the “split” solution.

Several probation experts argued that splitting the probation service into two distinct groups was a far riskier solution than selling all the service to private providers. The split in the service creates challenges, some of which, with great patience, effort and commitment from all stakeholders, could be managed, but a world full of good will is not going to address the insurmountable structural flaws arising from the split. These include, but are not limited to: local service delivery and management of clients; bureaucracy and inefficiency, with additional processes generated to manage the allocation of cases and accountability; substandard internal communications, especially those founded upon outdated and unstable technology within the National Offender Management Service; and inefficient management of staff due to internal competition, which undermines morale and professional unity.

However, the greatest flaw was rushing the whole programme through to meet a strict political timetable without any adequate testing or piloting. The MOJ also failed to establish workable, sustainable contracts with the CRCs. These are already the subject of significant challenge from the new CRC owners. Equally, in its haste to successfully establish the CRCs, all efforts and energy were focused on the contracts share sale, and very limited evidence emerged of any serious planning or risk assessment of the future management of the newly nationalised National Probation Service.

With no piloting or credible assessment of what the new work meant or involved, the allocation of budgets and staff was largely guesswork. Initially, NOMS stated that 70% of work was expected to be transferred to the CRCs as only around 30% of total clients would be classified as high risk. This was not a scientific experiment, and it quickly became evident that it did not translate. The staffing split soon became 50/50, with ongoing confusion about where some work should sit. Current staffing levels and reliance on expensive agency staff are simply not sustainable, nor value for money for the taxpayer. A case needs to be made to the Treasury for emergency support for the NPS.