Disturbances (London)

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The House is indeed united in saying that we should praise the work of the police and condemn the acts of violence by the perpetrators of criminal acts on Saturday.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Can my right hon. Friend confirm whether the people who were charged today will be remanded in custody, so that we can be certain that they will not be planning future demonstrations?

[Mrs May]

I am not able to give my hon. Friend confirmation one way or another in relation to all 149 individuals—[Interruption.] The shadow Leader of the House is saying, “Can’t she just do it? Can’t she just say it?” Actually, it is not the Home Secretary’s decision whether to remand people in custody. This is the Opposition’s problem with these matters; they do not recognise the difference between political responsibility, operational responsibility and judicial responsibility.

Oral Answers to Questions

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2011 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

1. What steps she plans to take to decouple temporary residence from permanent settlement in the immigration system.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

The Government have pledged to break the link between temporary migration and permanent settlement. Settling in Britain should be a privilege to be earned, not an automatic add-on to a temporary way in. We have already announced that we will introduce a new permanent limit on non-EU economic migrants, with a reduction in the number of visas in the next financial year from 28,000 to 21,700, a fall of over 20%. The Government will consult later this year on breaking the link between work and settlement.

[Dr Coffey]

My constituents are largely concerned not about people who work here temporarily, but about people who work here for a short time and then can settle permanently. Is there not a case for a review of the criteria for permanent settlement, to try to avoid this kind of practice?

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her supplementary question. We will review the entire question of permanent settlement including the criteria for it as part of our review of the whole immigration system. We will make announcements on that shortly, but I can tell my hon. Friend that we have already tightened the settlement criteria in April, by introducing, for example, a new criminality threshold so all applicants must be clear of unspent convictions when applying, a new income requirement for skilled and highly skilled migrants applying for settlement, and reform of the English language requirements.

Oral Answers to Questions

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question, because it allows me to underline the importance that the Government place on scientific advice and the important role that the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs plays in the formulation of our drugs policies. I can make it absolutely clear that our proposals are intended to add greater flexibility to the provision of advice given to government, in order to ensure that we are able to get more effective policies, given the changing nature of the drugs threat. The proposals were drawn up in conjunction with the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, and I should add that they have the support of the Government’s chief scientific officer, Professor John Beddington.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Can the Home Secretary update us on how many more countries she has been able to make arrangements with so that foreign prisoners who have served their sentences can return to their home countries?

[Damian Green]

We are constantly in negotiation with all foreign countries where a significant number of prisoners are involved, and we now have charters going back regularly to Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Jamaica. We are continuing with and trying to expand this campaign, because it is extremely important that when foreign prisoners have finished their sentence, they return to their own countries and do not hang around in this country, as sadly they have been doing.

Controlling Migration

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am very happy to give my hon. Friend that commitment on any future new member states entering the European Union. I am fascinated that the shadow Home Secretary stood up in response to my statement and claimed that the previous Government had introduced all these transitional controls, yet now we hear that he says they made a mistake in not doing this properly.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, which will go a long way towards assuaging the concerns of my constituents. They are not so worried about business people being here for two or three years; they are worried about the permanent settlement that automatically seems to be granted when someone has lived here for four years. Can she give further assurances about the criminality aspect, because that is another great concern in my constituency?

[Mrs May]

We are indeed looking at the criminality criteria for entering in order to tighten them up; we want to look at people’s records when considering who can enter the UK. We think that that is an important element that we should be looking at, and I know that the issue has concerned a number of people.

Missing Persons

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin. Let me begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) on securing this Adjournment debate on the important subject of missing persons. I should also congratulate her on her appointment as chair of the all-party group on runaway and missing children and adults. I know that she takes a close personal interest in this significant issue, and I very much welcome her contribution and the way in which she approached and highlighted it.

When we talk about missing persons, I am struck by the broader context. In many ways, that context was reflected in today’s contributions. The debate may be linked, for example, to child sexual exploitation and honour-based violence. I very much appreciate that wider context and why we need to focus on dealing with this issue in a serious and measured way. I therefore thank the hon. Lady for securing the debate. I also thank her and other hon. Members for their contributions. They have taken a measured and considered approach to the issue.

Sadly, missing persons constitute an area of public protection that has, in many ways, not always been regarded as the priority that it should be; in some contexts, it has been regarded as more of a niche subject. However, as my initial comments highlighted, the Government take the issue very seriously, and the same is true of our responsibility to ensure that the response to missing persons is as effective as possible.

The hon. Lady’s remarks were very interesting. Listening to the debate, I was further convinced that greater co-operation and collaboration between all the agencies involved will place us on a more solid platform and help to deliver improved services not only for those who go missing, but for the families and friends who are left behind. The hon. Lady spoke powerfully of the impact that someone’s disappearance has on family and friends, who wonder what has happened to their loved one.

The previous Government looked at the issue, and that resulted in the missing persons task force, which the hon. Lady mentioned. The task force studied the landscape, exposed some of the shortcomings and made 22 recommendations in the appendix to its report, which it published earlier this year. One of my earliest tasks as Home Office Minister with responsibility for missing persons was to examine the task force report with a view to understanding where we are on the missing persons problem and to consider what could be done to improve the response. I was pleased to agree early action to ensure dissemination of existing good practice to police forces, to improve information sharing and to ensure police compliance on the code of practice.

We are in the process of taking that work forward. On good practice, I was pleased to see an ACPO toolkit launched on the police online knowledge area system just over a month ago. POLKA is a useful resource for police forces engaged in missing persons investigations. It includes toolkits governing good practice in identifying found people and a forensic examination toolkit. There are plans imminently to go live with a similar toolkit for forces on parental and familial child abductions. It is however clear to me that more can and should be done to improve the response and equally that real improvements can be achieved if existing structures, agencies and resources work better and more effectively together to ensure that those who go missing and their families are properly supported. I have asked my officials to conduct a review of the full set of task force recommendations by the end of the year to consider what, if any, further action we can take on this important issue, considering the changing landscape, and the way in which certain issues have moved on since the publication of the report.

More generally, it is my firm belief that in the meantime, there is some tangible work that can be done now to create the conditions needed for the kind of close engagement we think necessary.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

A lady called Mrs Nicki Durbin, of Hollesley in my constituency, wrote to me about the importance of the issue, in connection with her son, Luke Durbin, who disappeared four years ago. I hear what the Minister says about guidelines, and similar things, but how, in the present stricken times, will he prioritise ensuring that the issue of missing persons does not drop off our police forces’ priority list?

[James Brokenshire]

I think that I can give my hon. Friend that assurance on the basis of the action that I have already taken, including the focus being brought to bear by examining the task force recommendations and ensuring that the issue is seen as important for Government. Work has already started, for example, to develop the role of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre in relation to missing and abducted children. The centre has already brought its expertise to bear in the relevant area this year through, among other things, a cold case review and work to incorporate missing children elements into existing public and child safety training programmes. I believe that CEOP will bring a great deal of expertise in child protection to the table. I want it to build on its extensive experience of responding to incidents in which children and young people have been vulnerable to abuse.

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for bringing to the attention of the House the issue of the future of the statutory and voluntary agencies. Missing children aside, I note from the debate the understandable concern and anxiety among some hon. Members about the future of the National Policing Improvement Agency Missing Persons Bureau. However, let me be clear that no decisions have yet been made on the future of the bureau, either about funding or where functions may sit in the future.

Hon. Members will of course be aware that we launched a policing consultation in the summer, which, among other things, sought views on our plan to create a national crime agency. The consultation has now closed and we will be publishing a summary of the responses and the Government’s position soon. As part of that, work is continuing to determine the exact nature of the role of the NCA and indeed where the respective activities might sit within the new landscape—including those of CEOP and the Missing Persons Bureau, although at this stage no final decisions have been taken.

I note, too, the concerns raised about central Government funding to the Missing People charity. I understand the difficulties that it will cause, but I cannot today make commitments to resources, which as we all know are currently scarce; but I can give a commitment to listen to concerns and look for any opportunities to support the charity in other ways. I met representatives of Missing People in the summer and look forward to meeting them again to discuss the matter further.