Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Suella Braverman and Alison Thewliss

Monday 18th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

OpenDemocracy recently revealed the extent of self-harm and suicide in immigration removal centres—in particular, Harmondsworth and Colnbrook, where 24 self-harm incidents occurred in March, which is more than over the three previous months combined. Emma Ginn, director of Medical Justice, has said:

“We are not confident that the Home Office considers the value of the lives of those in its care in detention as fully human.”

What is the Home Secretary doing to ensure that those in Home Office immigration removal centres do not face such desperate circumstances that they seek to take their own lives?

[Suella Braverman]

As I said, the safety of all of those in our care is a priority for the Home Office, and the standard of habitation—whether that is in our asylum accommodation estate more broadly, or specifically in our immigration removal centres—is one that always, as far as the law requires, meets high standards. Those standards are rigorously scrutinised and monitored, and those who have concerns have avenues to make complaints via the migrant helpline.

Nottingham Incident

Debate between Suella Braverman and Alison Thewliss

Wednesday 14th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement. On behalf of the SNP, may I extend our condolences to the family, friends and loved ones of Barnaby Webber, Grace Kumar and Ian Coates? Our thoughts are also with those injured and the people of Nottingham more widely. I would also like to express our thanks to all the emergency services and those providing ongoing support to those affected at this time. What more is being done to provide reassurance to all parts of the community in Nottingham and to prevent the spreading of speculation, which she mentioned in her statement? I appreciate that things are at a very early stage, but what process will she put in place to ensure that all lessons are learned from this shocking incident so that it cannot happen again?

[Suella Braverman]

Nottinghamshire police, working with local authorities and agencies, are working intensively to ensure not only that the investigation work is carried out effectively, but that those directly affected by this terrible incident are getting all the support they are entitled to.

Illegal Migration

Debate between Suella Braverman and Alison Thewliss

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The Home Secretary comes here with selective statistics that she has put together to suit the press release that she wants to put out, but the reality is that the total asylum backlog has increased by more than 40,000 people since this time last year. There are fewer decision makers in the Home Office now than there were in January. It is all distraction and sleight of hand. There is no evidence that the plans so far have had any impact or that the heavy-handed deterrence, which is based, as her own officials say, on demented assumptions, works. Policies such as the hostile environment, which were started by Labour, have been turbocharged by successive Tory Home Secretaries. The Nationality and Borders Act 2022, the Rwanda plan, deals with Albania and the Illegal Migration Bill are not working because the central fact remains that people are coming here in small boats because they are desperate and they have no other choice.

The latest Office for National Statistics figures for May show that just 54 Afghans were resettled under pathway 1 of the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme since August 2021. There have been 40 under pathway 2 and only 14 under pathway 3. At the same time, 8,429 Afghans arrived in the UK on small boats. They are coming because they cannot get here to safety any other way.

I do agree slightly with what the Home Secretary said in her statement about the accommodation system being unsustainable and unfair. It is also absolutely brutal for asylum seekers, such as those in my constituency, who are being left to wait indefinitely. Yet the Home Secretary proposes to throw yet more money, reportedly £6 billion, at private providers and prison ships instead of tackling the real problem: the outstanding backlog she has created. She gives no thought to the trauma and stress that has caused incidents such as that at the Park Inn in my constituency and led to reported suicides of those stuck waiting under her incompetence.

At Napier Barracks, sharing spaces caused the spread of infectious disease and had a significant impact on mental health, so what safeguarding consultation has the Home Secretary done on the proposal to make total strangers share hotel rooms? How will she ensure that people from rival factions do not get put in a room together, which could be incredibly dangerous? Will she fast-track Afghans, Syrians, Eritreans, Sudanese and Iranians, who have a very high grant rate, and let them work and contribute, as they dearly want to do? Finally, will she accept that all she has done so far is make life significantly worse for some of the most vulnerable and brutalised people in the world?

[Suella Braverman]

I refute the characterisation the hon. Lady puts forward. I am proud of this Government’s track record of welcoming hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people from across the globe over several years, through schemes that have offered them sanctuary. It is a track record of which we can be incredibly proud. The SNP’s criticism is frankly astonishing, talking piously about wanting to provide more sanctuary despite doing virtually nothing to help. As we have said before, there are almost as many contingency hotels in Kensington as there are in the whole of Scotland. The truth is that the SNP is all talk and no action; until it gets real, I really must question its seriousness on this subject.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Suella Braverman and Alison Thewliss

Monday 22nd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

My heart and the hearts of all those on the SNP Benches go out to those affected on the anniversary of the Manchester Arena tragedy, particularly the family and friends of Eilidh Macleod whose memorial trust stands as a legacy to her love of music.

Speeding can affect a person’s eligibility for leave to remain in the UK, so should not the same motoring offence and, indeed, the further breaches of the ministerial code by attempting to get special treatment affect the Home Secretary’s right to remain in her job?

[Suella Braverman]

As I said earlier, in the summer I was speeding. I regret that I was speeding. I accepted the points and I paid the fine. At no point did I seek to avoid the sanction. What I find regrettable, however, is the SNP’s wholesale failure to deliver for asylum seekers, to deliver for justice and to deliver for vulnerable people. Its Members are opposing our Bill to stop the boats, they are opposing support to break the people smuggling gangs and they are opposing a pragmatic approach.

Antisocial Behaviour Action Plan

Debate between Suella Braverman and Alison Thewliss

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Most of this statement does not apply in Scotland because, thankfully, justice is devolved. The Scottish Government take a public health approach to criminality—the violence reduction unit’s approach, which has been emulated by the UK Government. I gently suggest that criminalising young people in this way will not help—[Interruption.] If the antisocial behaviour from the Government Benches could stop, that would be helpful.

The independent Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs recently concluded that the evidence shows that the health and social harms of nitrous oxide were not commensurate with a ban. Why has the Home Secretary overruled her advisers? The Misuse of Drugs Act has completely failed to prevent people from taking heroin, cocaine and cannabis. Why does the Home Secretary believe that it will stop people from taking nitrous oxide?

[Suella Braverman]

The overall legislative framework on illicit drugs continues to strike a balance between controlling harmful substances and enabling appropriate access to those drugs for legitimate medicinal research and, in exceptional cases, for industrial purposes. But with respect, I am not going to take any lectures from someone from the SNP, which has overseen in Scotland a total collapse of confidence in policing and, more devastatingly, a record high in Europe when it comes to the number of drug-related deaths.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Suella Braverman and Alison Thewliss

Monday 20th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Freedom from Torture has talked about the impact on torture survivors of the anti-asylum Bill, calling it

“a betrayal of the commitments made following the Shaw Review”.

Seven babies born to mothers in Home Office accommodation since 2020 have died, so it is no surprise that Women for Refugee Women and the Royal College of Midwives have opposed the Home Office’s plans. Scotland’s Children and Young People’s Commissioner has warned that the plans to detain and remove children breach this Government’s obligations under the UN convention on the rights of the child. There is nothing about protecting asylum seekers’ welfare that the Bill will fix, so does the Home Secretary accept the harm that she is causing?

[Suella Braverman]

We take very seriously our duties to everybody who is within our care. Our measures will always, of course, ensure that proper wellbeing and welfare provision is available to those who are vulnerable, but let me say this: the hon. Lady has absolutely no right to lecture this Government on how to support asylum seekers when her own nation royally fails to take any or sufficient numbers into Scotland.

[Alison Thewliss]

That is simply not correct. The Bill is not about helping asylum seekers; it is about banning asylum seekers. What does it say about the Home Secretary’s morals that she believes that Rwanda would be “a blessing” for asylum seekers, but when they come here she calls them a swarm and an invasion?

[Suella Braverman]

The problem that the hon. Lady is labouring under is that in opposing our plans, she sides with the people-smuggling gangs. She actively encourages, in effect, co-operation with the evil practice of exploitation of vulnerable people coming into this country. Vote for our measures, stop the people-smuggling gangs and stop the boats!

Police Conduct and David Carrick

Debate between Suella Braverman and Alison Thewliss

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement and I put on record the SNP’s tribute to the victims in this case for their bravery in the face of ongoing trauma.

The charges that have been brought against David Carrick are incredibly disturbing—49 charges, including 24 counts of rape against 12 women over two decades, with accounts of domestic violence and coercive control. Through that, the Met has sought to protect its own, which is also incredibly disturbing and has led the former Victims’ Commissioner Dame Vera Baird to question the commitment to culture change at Scotland Yard.

It has been reported that the Met is checking back through 1,633 cases of alleged sexual offences involving 1,071 officers in the past decade. What retrospective action does the Home Secretary expect from that review? It should be a worry to all of us that those officers are still out there in their jobs, and that we may face what David Carrick reportedly told women when he flashed his warrant card: “I’m a police officer, you’re safe with me”—a chilling prospect. How does she intend to ensure that the review is thoroughly carried out? What updates can the House expect?

Lady Elish Angiolini has worked with Police Scotland to improve standards on this, and work is ongoing in Scotland too. How can women and people with vulnerabilities have the confidence that, if something happens to them while they are in London, the Met will respond in a proper way that respects their dignity?

[Suella Braverman]

The hon. Lady asks a series of good questions. To give more detail about the Met Commissioner’s commitments to strengthen the procedures, there is already a strengthening of the vetting of officers; an active review of historical cases is ongoing, where there may be a flag on the system for domestic incidents; and a data washing process is ongoing to ensure that the Met’s data is being very extensively checked against rigorously managed national databases. That is all being led by a new anti-corruption and abuse command unit, which is instilling an institutionally higher standard of managing and overseeing the important issue of vetting.

Migration and Economic Development

Debate between Suella Braverman and Alison Thewliss

Monday 19th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

This is a dark day indeed with this judgment, particularly when the Home Secretary comes to the House to imply that having morals is fanciful. Enver Solomon of the Refugee Council has called the policy

“wrong in principle and unworkable in practice”,

and I am certain that this will go to appeal as charities and those involved in the issue have stated. SNP Members will never get behind this policy—not in our name—and I remind Members that slavery, apartheid and marital rape were all lawful at one time, but none of them were right.

The Court found that the Home Office had failed to consider properly the circumstances of the eight who challenged the policy. How exactly does the Home Secretary intend to approach such cases now, and what will happen to those eight individuals? What happens to those who have already been issued with notices of intent, and what confidence can they have in a system that previously did not properly consider the cases of eight people?

The Home Secretary claims that this will be a deterrent. The Tories also claimed that the hostile environment would be a deterrent and that the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 would be a deterrent. Now they claim the Rwanda policy will be a deterrent. None of them is working because they fail to recognise the desperate circumstances that drive people to come here in the first place. Safe and legal routes will work and prevent people from losing their lives in the channel.

The Home Secretary talked about the trade in human cargo. We all want to tackle the people smugglers who exploit people in the most vulnerable of circumstances. However, what else is the Rwanda policy but state-sponsored people trafficking? How many people are actually going to be removed to Rwanda? It is going to be a tiny proportion, so any deterrent effect that the Government claim is not going to be proper. What is the total cost of this unworkable scheme? How much money has been spent on it already? How much has gone on the legal case? How much of it would have been better spent dealing with the catastrophic backlog of cases that the Tories have created?

[Suella Braverman]

I am afraid that the hon. Lady’s ideological zeal is blinding and preventing her from taking a rational approach. I am proud of the fact that we have welcomed 450,000 people through safe and legal routes to this country since 2015. I do not think that anyone can claim that we are not forward-leaning on all of this. She and her party need to be honest about their position with the British people: they stand for open borders and uncontrolled migration.

Western Jet Foil and Manston Asylum Processing Centres

Debate between Suella Braverman and Alison Thewliss

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend is spot on. We have to tell the truth to the British people. These people are not all refugees fleeing war and persecution, having suffered human rights violations. They are coming here often at their own will, and often having paid tens of thousands of pounds to procure a dangerous and lethal journey illegally across the channel, because they know that our laws are not fit for purpose and they can get away with a spurious claim.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

It has been widely reported that children are being detained at the Manston site. Can the Home Secretary confirm—her Minister could not confirm it last week—how many children are on site right now?

[Suella Braverman]

We do not routinely detain children or unaccompanied asylum-seeking children at Manston, but a number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children were accommodated, not detained, for a brief period this summer while accommodation was identified. Of course, people were evacuated to Manston yesterday, including children.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Suella Braverman and Alison Thewliss

Thursday 6th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

There are no two ways about it, and I am proud to say to my hon. Friend that I really support this Government’s attempts to end this evil trade, as he puts it. It is immoral that the criminal people traffickers are taking advantage of people and putting their lives at risk. The people making these crossings do not have the skills or the equipment to traverse some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world safely, and it is of fundamental importance that the Government disrupt this business model and make it untenable.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Over the Christmas holidays, I read “The Lightless Sky”, the account by Gulwali Passarlay of his journey as a child refugee from Afghanistan to the UK. After reading that book, I would ask the Minister—and I recommend that she reads it, too—whether she accepts that human traffickers only exist because of the absence of the safe and legal routes that this Government continue to deny to those who are in desperate need and fleeing for their lives?

[The Attorney General]

We are subject to international obligations that make it clear that, if people have legitimate claims for asylum, there are safe and legal routes through which they may pursue those. To get on an illegally manned vessel and to try to break through our borders illegitimately is dangerous, immoral and unlawful.