Speaker’s Statement: New Zealand Terror Attacks

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Friday 15th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Thank you.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the House sit in private.

Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 163), and negatived.

Royal Assent

[Mr Speaker]

Before we proceed with the first piece of business, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that Her Majesty has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Supply and Appropriation (Anticipation and Adjustments) Act 2019

Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Act 2019

Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019

Stalking Protection Act 2019

Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Act 2019

Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) Act 2019.

Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Friday 15th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.

[Mr Speaker]

Said with alacrity and buoyancy. With this it will be convenient to take Lords amendments 2 to 6.

[Tim Loughton]

First, I echo the comments made by you, Mr Speaker, and all other Members on the senseless and brutal murder in New Zealand. New Zealand might be one of the furthest countries from the United Kingdom, but at times like this we stand shoulder to shoulder with our close cousins in all communities in New Zealand and express our sincere condolences and sympathy after this terrible tragedy.

Said with alacrity indeed, Mr Speaker, because today is quite an exciting day. In fact, it is so exciting that I got halfway to my office in the Commons this morning before I realised that I had non-matching jacket and trousers on and had to return. I have quite a nice tie on, and I am taking it personally that I was not singled out for such an accolade, too.

[Mr Speaker]

It is an admirable tie.

[Tim Loughton]

Thank you so much, Mr Speaker. Having made the journey back home, I eventually got to my office to realise that I had left my mobile phone in my jacket that I had taken off, so things can only get better today.

We have before us technical amendments. The Bill has had a long journey. It had its First Reading on 19 July 2017—those heady days when we had a relatively stable Government and could get legislation through the House. Today is a culmination of that, with ping-pong, which I hope will be solely ping and leave no pong.

Members will remember that when my Bill left the Commons last year, it contained my last-minute amendment obliging the Government to bring in the legislation on civil partnerships within six months of the Bill achieving Royal Assent. Curiously, although the Government at that time were not supportive of it, when it came to the possibility of a vote, a rather curious new parliamentary term was coined by the Immigration Minister, who said that the Government were not “actively” opposing my amendment. Hopefully that has now transmogrified into the Government supporting it.

While the wording of clause 2 has changed since the Bill left this House, I want to assure Members that the intention of the clause—to create equality between same and opposite-sex couples in their ability to form a civil relationship—remains. I amended my Bill on Report, before it left this House, to give the Government the ability to extend civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples, rather than just review the possibility of an extension. The Government, although slightly belatedly, came to support the principle of opposite-sex civil partnerships, perhaps spurred on by the Supreme Court judgment in a case last June. I accept that there were technical deficiencies in the drafting of my original amendment.

Since then, I have worked with the Government and the noble Baroness Hodgson of Abinger, to whom I pay great tribute. She guided the Bill through the Lords as a private Member’s Bill virgin, as she described herself, but did so skilfully and with great deftness, steering it on an even course so that it is back here with us today. Baroness Hodgson was able to correct those deficiencies and improve the drafting of the Bill. She then tabled and successfully moved the revised clause 2 and related changes in Committee in the other place, despite some rather indulgent attempts by certain peers in the other place to add their own agendas to the Bill, which were, alas, defective and would have had the result of scuppering the whole Bill. I pay tribute to the way that Baroness Hodgson steered those through potentially choppy waters to avoid the Bill being holed below the water line.

Lords amendments 1 and 2 replace my earlier version of clause 2. The new clause now requires the Secretary of State to amend by regulations the eligibility criteria of the Civil Partnership Act 2004 so that two people who are not of the same sex may form a civil partnership. The Bill requires that these changes be made so as to come in no later than 31 December. That will mean, as we have agreed with Ministers in the other place, that the legislation needs to be in place by 2 December, because notification of a clear 28 days is required before a ceremony can actually take place. There was an undertaking that civil partnerships would be available before the end of 2019, and I look forward to a series of invitations to civil partnership ceremonies on new year’s eve.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Many congratulations to my hon. Friend on steering this Bill through so successfully and on getting his timing absolutely right so that it could incorporate the decision of the Supreme Court. May I ask him whether he is concerned about the fact that subsection (1) of the new clause says:

“The Secretary of State may, by regulations”

thereby indicating a certain discretion, but subsection (2) says that if he exercises that discretion under subsection (1) then he “must” do so before 31 December? Is my hon. Friend suspicious that the contrast between “may” and “must” in subsections (1) and (2) could be used by the Government to undermine what he has just asserted?

[Tim Loughton]

I know my hon. Friend is always vigilant, rather than suspicious. Having sat through many Committees over many years in this House arguing the toss over whether the word “may” should be replaced by the word “must”, I have to say that I am not concerned about the wording of the Bill. I have had many conversations with the Ministers responsible, and the Government are absolutely committed to delivering on the undertakings in this Bill. It had to be put together in such a way to give some leeway to Ministers to be able to produce the right legislation at the right time. That involved a degree of discretion, which I know my hon. Friend and others in both Houses were concerned about. A number of undertakings were therefore added to the Bill and were given orally, not least a sunset clause, so that this clause, which I know my hon. Friend has had concerns about in the past, could not be used for other purposes as something of a Trojan horse. I entirely appreciate his observation, but I do not share his concern that this will not actually be produced. I think it will be produced in a fairly short space of time. Goodness knows, we tried for long enough to get mothers’ names on marriage certificates.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Fairly shortly after being elected, I was approached by several opposite-sex couples who are determined to have a civil partnerships, and tens of thousands of people around the country would like to have such a civil partnership. Does the hon. Gentleman share my confidence that, were the Government to try to renege on it at this very late stage, such demand would be enough of an incentive to make sure the Secretary of State actually followed through on this?

[Tim Loughton]

As I will come on to say shortly, there have been some ups and downs with getting this Bill through. Back in October, on the civil partnerships clauses, the Prime Minister herself, in an article in the London Evening Standard, made it clear that Government policy was now firmly in favour of extending civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples. That was a clear undertaking, which was almost unanimously supported by Members of this House and very largely supported by Members of the other House. We have factored in the legislation in such a way that it can be brought in this year, which is really important and means it will also comply with the Supreme Court judgment. If there are people who have not entered into a civil partnership—presuming there are those who want it, and I know there are—before the end of this year, I shall be more than a little peeved, but I shall also be greatly surprised. That is not a problem I anticipate.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I think this is an excellent Bill in principle, but I want to clarify one specific point. Subsection (2) of the new clause says:

“The Secretary of State must exercise that power so that such regulations are in force no later than 31 December 2019.”

Presumably, that does not stop them coming in earlier. Has my hon. Friend any expectation that they will do so?

[Tim Loughton]

That is a very good point. I appreciate my hon. Friend’s support in saying that the Bill is very good in principle, but I also think it is very good in practice. If he remembers, the amendment that I added on Report said that the Government needed to implement this legislation within six months of Royal Assent. That was actually quite a tall order and, for all sorts of reasons, the Government were not as prepared as they might have been for this change in the law, which the Prime Minister finally gave her complete assent to in October. I was therefore content to let the six months slip, but the principle that it needs to happen by the end of the year is very important. As I will mention in a minute, a number of consultation exercises still need to take place to make sure that we get this absolutely right. Let us remember that this legislation does not give rise to the specific changes in the law; it enables the Secretary of State to bring in the changes that will enable opposite-sex couples to enter into a civil partnership. An awful lot of detail still needs to go with that, although I am glad to say that a lot of work has now been done by civil servants.

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Tim Loughton]

Everybody wants to chip in, and of course I will give way to my right hon. Friend.

[Sir Greg Knight]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has the second best tie in the House, for giving way to the person wearing the best tie. Subsection (6) of the new clause imposes a duty to consult. Who does he expect to be consulted, and is he in any way concerned that this consultation process may lead to a further delay?

[Tim Loughton]

I am going to come on to the consultation, but, absolutely, that cannot lead to further delay because we now have a timeline in the Bill. There is some detail still to agree—I absolutely appreciate that—but that should not prevent this new legislation from coming in before the end of this year. Again, my right hon. Friend is right to be slightly suspicious, and I am very grateful to him for taking the time to be here today. I am not sure how much longer he is staying, but I hope he does not get a ticket on his car—if he is parked on a line or somewhere on private property.

Subsection (3) of the new clause enables the Secretary of State to make other provisions by regulations if this is appropriate in view of the extension of eligibility. The current civil partnership regime is bespoke to same-sex couples, and this subsection enables the Secretary of State to ensure that a coherent scheme can be introduced for opposite-sex couples. Subsection (4) sets out some of the areas in which regulations will be needed, including matters such as parenthood and parental responsibility, the financial consequences of civil partnership and the recognition of equivalent opposite-sex civil partnerships entered into overseas.

Subsection (5) enables the Secretary of State to make regulations relating to the conversion of a marriage into a civil partnership and vice versa. At present, same-sex couples are able to convert a civil partnership into a marriage, and in implementing an opposite-sex civil partnership regime, the Government will need to consider what conversion rights should be given to opposite-sex couples. That is actually an important point about the practicalities of how this will be brought in. If hon. Members remember, the original Civil Partnership Act came in back in 2004-05 and then there was the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, but there was a delay between same-sex marriage becoming available and conversions from same-sex civil partnerships becoming available. Interestingly, however, according to the last figure I saw, only about 15% of same-sex civil partnerships chose to convert into a same-sex marriage after that became available.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing forward this very important Bill, which I fully support. I am very impressed by his prescience in introducing this Bill a year before the Supreme Court decided that this was a very good idea. He mentioned the power in subsection (3) of the new clause to make “any other provision”. Will he detail what kind of provision that might be in that particular part of the clause?

[Tim Loughton]

Is my hon. Friend talking about civil partnerships?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Yes.

[Tim Loughton]

As I have mentioned, how one converts is one of them. My hon. Friend may be aware that the Scottish Parliament has been slightly ahead of us in that it has been making preparations to bring in opposite-sex civil partnerships, and it has launched a consultation. That is one reason why I have said that the Government here could actually get on with this rather more speedily, because they could take what Scotland has already done. However, there were some gaps in the Scottish consultation, including the whole thorny subject of conversions. That is why we need to make sure that we cover all those areas. As I know, because they have contacted me, a small number of people, who got married because that was all that was available, would be more comfortable with a civil partnership. On such details, it is perfectly reasonable to get some form of consensus. By and large, the principles in the Bill seek to emulate and reflect the Civil Partnership Act 2004 for same-sex couples.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Greg Knight]

My hon. Friend is generous in giving way. Subsection (4)(c) of the new clause refers to the financial consequences of a civil partnership. Has he received any assurance from the Government that such an arrangement will have no adverse financial consequences?

[Tim Loughton]

There are some financial consequences—mostly about private pensions—just as there were when civil partnerships were introduced for same-sex couples. That was accounted for in the Government’s previous consultations—my right hon. Friend may remember that there was a consultation on extending civil partnerships before the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, and again afterwards as a result of an amendment I tabled. The Government are aware of the financial consequences, which are not huge and are relatively insignificant, and they have consulted on them. He need not worry that this Bill will be costly—indeed, I assure him that parts of it will save money.

Subsection (7) allows the Secretary of State to make regulations that protect the ability to act in accordance with religious belief. That could include, for example, ensuring that religious organisations are able to decide whether to host opposite-sex civil partnerships on religious premises, which should remain a decision for an individual religious organisation—I am not proposing any changes there. Subsection (8) enables the regulations made under the new clause to amend, repeal or revoke primary legislation, and amendments to clause 5 will ensure that those regulations are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure—I know that right hon. and hon. Members will be concerned about that. That will ensure that the regulations receive proper parliamentary scrutiny and are debated in this House and the other place.

Amendments 3, 4 and 5 make the necessary changes to the supplementary provisions for making regulations in clause 5, and amendment 6 changes the long title of the Bill to reflect the fact that clause 2 no longer relates to the publication of a report on civil partnerships, and instead relates to the extension of civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples—that is how it was when the Bill first started out, before the Government wanted me to change it. We are back where we were originally, but there has been a lot of good fun in the process.

Other clauses in the Bill that attracted widespread support across the House and beyond are completely intact, helped by various assurances given in the Lords by Baroness Hodgson and Baroness Williams, particularly about the consultation on moves to extend the power of coroners to investigate stillbirths. Other parts of the Bill add mothers’ names to marriage certificates—that has not been available in England since 1834—enable coroners to investigate stillbirths where appropriate, and oblige the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to review how we might register stillbirths before 24 weeks, which are technically referred to as late-term miscarriages. A working party has already started work on that. It has slightly ground to a halt since last autumn, but it will be obliged to report under provisions in the Bill. A lot of work still needs to be done on that difficult subject, about which hon. Members heard many emotional testimonies during the passage of the Bill.

Perhaps I may crave the House’s indulgence before I conclude my remarks, because this will hopefully be the final hurdle for a Bill that started in this House on 19 July 2017, but had its genesis in amendments that I proposed to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill in 2013. This Bill has kept me awake for much of the past 20 months or so, and I wish to say some thank yous.

Even if I say so myself, this Bill is quite a remarkable achievement—[Interruption.] I am going to say so myself, and I really do not care: it is a remarkable achievement, and will be law in a few weeks’ time. As I said at the outset of my remarks, this is the most greedy and ambitious private Member’s Bill that I have seen in my 22 years in this House. It proposes not one but no fewer than four main changes to the law. It involves legislation involving not just one Department but four, and the engagement of not one but four Secretaries of State, three of whom unhelpfully got reshuffled when the Bill was approaching Second Reading, which meant that I had to start my difficult negotiations all over again in January 2018.

This is not a handout Bill, and it would not be happening had not various people supported putting all these clauses together. As I said, I made it so complicated because in my 22 years in this House of applying for the private Member’s ballot each year—other than when I was a Minister—and failing to be picked, this was the first time my name came up, and no doubt it will be the last. I went for broke, and I think we have come up trumps.

We started in the Commons on 2 February 2018, not knowing whether the Bill would receive its Second Reading, and we had to make a number of last-minute compromises. We had a lot of help from Baroness Hodgson and Baroness Williams, and other organisations that have fought tirelessly for this Bill, such as the Equal Civil Partnerships campaign—its members are looking down from the Gallery very sedately and excitedly, ahead of the celebration that we will have later on—as well as other organisations, such as the Campaign for Safer Births, and I particularly pay tribute to Nicky Lyon, Michelle Hemmington and Georgie Vestey. A few other institutions were not quite as supportive, but we got the Bill through anyway and I will not name them.

[James Cartlidge]

I was pleased to speak on Second Reading, but I think one question was not covered—forgive me if it was. It will be interesting to see what happens to civil partnerships before we break up the fundamental partnership that we are currently debating, but what is the impact on nationality rights for those in civil partnerships compared with those in a traditional marriage? Is it the same, because that issue will be important in the coming months for those in a civil partnership with an EU citizen?

[Tim Loughton]

As I think I said rather unfairly to one of our colleagues who made a not-dissimilar slightly technical point on Report, nobody likes a smart-arse. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend and I are very good friends, Mr Speaker, and I am grateful to him because he raises a good point. I have had a number of emails from people who live abroad or who have had ceremonies in other jurisdictions, and part of the consultation and final details that need to be added to the Bill are on such matters. The principle is to replicate absolutely the rights and opportunities that are available for same-sex couples. If the Bill does not try to achieve complete equality, or as close to it as is physically possible, it will not have achieved what it tries to achieve. This is all about equalities and equal opportunities.

[Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con)]

Having heard my hon. Friend’s observations on my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), I am loth to ask a question, but I wonder if he will reflect on the Lords debate on civil partnerships between siblings, and say how he feels about that.

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend, who attended previous debates as assiduously as my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), raises a good point. I think it is the noble Lord Lexden who has a private Member’s Bill in the Lords, and, in the past, other Members in this House have tried to change legislation so that a formal civil partnership would be available to sibling couples, typically two sisters who have lived together in a jointly owned property over many, many years. When one dies, the other is faced with a large inheritance tax bill and all sorts of other things that are clearly disadvantageous. I have a great deal of sympathy with that, but my response—Baroness Hodgson spoke to Lord Lexden and others about this—is, first, that the Bill is not the place to address that situation, because it is essentially a financial matter.

The Bill is about families and partnerships; that situation is about fair financial treatment between blood relatives who are committed to each other. If it were to be addressed in a finance Bill or a similar measure, I would have some sympathy for it. I think it should be judged on that basis. I am talking about couples who come together and may have children. I know there are some special circumstances, for example where a couple of sisters may be looking after a niece or nephew of a deceased sibling. It is complicated, but essentially it is a matter of financial unfairness and I would like to see it dealt with in financial legislation.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

On that specific point about financial matters, does my hon. Friend therefore think that that should also apply to pensions and the passing on of pension rights?

[Tim Loughton]

Again, that is a good point. As the law is framed at the moment, they would not qualify. Some generous schemes might recognise that there was a dependent relationship, but those issues need to be looked at in greater detail, with the wisdom and scrutiny of officials and Ministers from the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions. I would certainly suggest that the Government, or any other Member whose name comes up in the private Member’s Bill ballot, look at the issue separately. Private Members’ Bills cannot be used for financial matters, so there might be a problem there, and that is why this Bill would not be the most appropriate vehicle to deal with it.

Hundreds and hundreds of mothers and fathers of potential civil partners have written to me and other hon. Members in support of the Bill on its long journey. There have been some heart-rending accounts, particularly from those who have suffered the trauma of stillbirth. I have to say that at times the progress of the Bill has been in spite of the Government, rather than with their support, although I think they have come to realise that the Bill always was the best and the speediest vehicle to deliver civil partnerships and marriage certification with mothers included, especially after many abortive attempts.

If I could just single out one Minister it would be the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar). He wanted to be here today. He has a lot of skin in the game with many of the issues in the Bill that he has championed in this House. He has gone above and beyond. He stepped in to bash heads together in Departments to find a way through and he has done a lot of work within his own Department on preparing for the power to go to coroners to investigate stillbirths. When the Bill becomes law, I think there will be a short space of time before it is put into effect. I pay particular tribute to him and give him my thanks for all the help he has given in some uncertain waters that we have charted on the Bill’s journey.

Lastly, I would like to thank the officials. A number of officials have also suffered sleepless nights. They have pulled their hair out and sent me emails at some very antisocial hours as they battled to ensure we got this through the Lords in particular. It is invidious to single them out, but if I could just mention Ben Burgess in the House of Lords, whose quiet but skilful diplomacy in convincing certain Members of their lordships’ House that less is more kept the Bill on an even keel. I would also like to mention the redoubtable Linda Edwards from the Home Office, whose combination of energy, cajoling, diplomacy and forthrightness has been the absolute making of the Bill. I am convinced that without her guiding it through as the lead official in her role in the Home Office, we would not be where we are today. I pay tribute to them.

It has been a long journey. I first raised this issue in 2013 via an amendment on civil partnerships during the passage of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill. It would have prevented an awful lot of angst if at that stage the Government had agreed to full equality by agreeing to amendments, which were supported by many Members on both sides of the House, to bring about equal civil partnerships for opposite-sex couples. The genesis of the Bill is even longer than Brexit, but unlike with Brexit today we will have closure and a reason to celebrate.

[Mr Speaker]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman—in fact, now probably right hon. Gentleman.

[Tim Loughton]

I very much doubt it.

[Mr Speaker]

Well, if he isn’t, he jolly well ought to be. I feel sure that it is only a matter of time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O’Brien]

That is probably the strongest argument for it, but my hon. Friend has already said that his constituent was going to get married in the absence of this measure. I am nervous about the argument, “I would prefer something else because I feel that marriage is sexist.”

[Tim Loughton]

I completely respect my hon. Friend’s view, but the reality is that there are 3.2 million opposite-sex cohabiting couples who have no protections within the law, and half of them have children. One of my local registrars is running a waiting list for people waiting for this legislation. There is a lot of demand for it, and it can only bring about greater family stability, greater commitment and greater benefits in safe, healthy, loving upbringings for those children. That is why this is really important.

[Neil O’Brien]

We will find out in due course when we pass this Bill whether that is the case. My fear is that the dissolution rate may be higher if people believe that civil partnerships are a softer institution.

[Tim Loughton]

I assure my hon. Friend that where there are different options—in France for example—the divorce rate among those who are conventionally married is rather greater than it is for those who have entered an opposite-sex civil partnership, so the data does not support that assertion.

[Neil O’Brien]

At the moment, the dissolution rate for civil partnerships in the UK is higher than for marriages. Of course my hon. Friend is correct that it is not a good example, because there are a lot of other pressures on gay people. We will not know, in the unique circumstances of the UK, who is right until we do it, and I hope he is right.

I have said my bit on this subject, and today we will be passing some measures that I hugely welcome, that put right some of the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull and that give comfort to grieving families, who are much larger in number than is often realised in this country.

--- Later in debate ---

There are other Bills to consider today, so I will briefly discuss the registration of stillbirths, which was addressed at length in my private Member’s Bill on parental bereavement. I have a number of constituents, including the one I mentioned earlier, who had a baby at 23 weeks and six days. If those babies had not survived for two days, the parents would never have been able to register the birth. It is right that the law is changed.

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is not correct. If a child is born before 24 weeks with signs of life, the birth will be registered. If a child is born before 24 weeks with no signs of life—what we would define as a stillbirth—the birth will not be registered. That is the actual position.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My hon. Friend has cleared up that point. Nevertheless, this is an important part of the Bill.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak in this debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. I congratulate my hon. Friend yet again on introducing this Bill, which I fully support.

Knife Crime

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I think we all recognise that the demands on policing have changed and intensified in recent years, not just in the realm of serious violence but, for example, in the investigation of historical sexual abuse. There has been a rise in the recognition of modern slavery cases, and in the reporting of domestic abuse cases. That is happening because we are trying to help people to understand when they have been victims of crime, and it has added to the existing pressures on the police. That is precisely why the Home Secretary has said that police funding is his priority for the next spending review, and it is why we have increased the funding to police forces for next year by nearly £1 billion with the help of police and crime commissioners.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

The Minister has already mentioned the link with exclusions and the report by the former children’s Minister, Ed Timpson, which I gather has been completed. When will it be published, and when will the lessons be learned? What lessons have been taken away from the “Positive for Youth” report, published in 2011 by the then children’s Minister, about better engagement with young people?

[Victoria Atkins]

We expect to publish the Timpson report shortly. There are lessons to be learned on youth engagement. When I talk to youth workers and former gang members, I find it is about listening to people with lived experience; it is about former gang leaders and former gang members explaining to young people who may be at risk or already ensnared in criminal gangs, listening to them and advising them about their life chances. That has huge benefit.

Yet again, I ask role models in the sporting world and the music world to help us to send out the message that carrying a knife is not right.

Macpherson Report: 20th Anniversary

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris]

I absolutely agree. I said the phrase was synonymous with the Macpherson report because that report is what made the phrase a part of public life, and people do get very sensitive about it and I think sometimes hide behind those sensitivities as a reason not to act on the things my right hon. Friend talks about.

There is evidence to suggest that we have not made enough progress so far. Police Sergeant Tola Munro, president of the National Black Police Association, told the press that there had been “some progress” but added that

“if I was marking policing I would give us a C at the moment…We within the NBPA would argue that we would consider at least some forces are institutionally racist”.

Baroness Lawrence highlighted the education system as somewhere where black people continually do not have the same outcomes as their white counterparts, and Bevan Powell, one of the founding members of the NBPA, said:

“While I believe a lot has changed, I think, to a certain extent, a lot has gone backwards. I think that is due to leadership; it is because the police and the Government have taken their eye off the ball on race.”

Clearly there is much to do.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman, as a fellow member of the Home Affairs Committee, for securing this debate. On leadership, I am sure he will agree that in order for the police force to command the respect of the population, it needs to reflect that population as much as possible, and the leadership of the organisation also needs to reflect the population as a whole. While, as I am sure the Minister will tell us and as the Committee has heard, there has been some progress in the number of BME officers in the police force, the number of BME officers in high positions is still woefully low and not reflective of that number. The retention rates for those officers are also woefully low, and that is where we need to do an awful lot better.

[Alex Norris]

I appreciate that intervention, and it is a prescient one as I am about to move on to BAME officers in the police.

Macpherson highlighted the importance of police forces representing the communities they serve, as the hon. Gentleman said, and of recruitment and progression being prioritised. Today, the proportion of officers from BAME backgrounds is still half what it would be if it reflected the general population, so progress has been exceptionally slow. We should be glad that there is a 4% year-on-year increase in the latest data, but it is still very slow and we need to do better. Of course, as the hon. Gentleman said, those officers are also still disproportionately concentrated at lower ranks, and based on current rates of progression it will be 2052 before the police service represents the population it serves. In pulling this speech together I was shocked to learn that 13 of the 43 forces in England and Wales do not have a single black woman police officer, and across the force in total the number of black female officers has increased by 34 in the last 10 years—not 34%, but 34 individuals. That is astounding.

Even when those recruits have entered the service, Detective Sergeant Janet Hills, the chair of the Metropolitan Black Police Association, says that all the good work that is being done to recruit more BAME officers is being undone by

“a culture that is still not embracing diversity, race and difference, which then has people either dismissed or deciding to leave voluntarily”,

and adds that people are being recruited but are not staying because they are not being progressed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee for that intervention. She and I and many others were keen for this debate to take place now, around the anniversary of the inquiry, rather than around Stephen Lawrence Day, because the family are very clear about what they want the day to be, and about the positives to be gained from it. I am glad that we are able to honour it in that way, and I will certainly be participating fully and supporting the family in their really important goal.

I shall quote something that Bevan Powell said to us, and this is certainly something for the Chair of the Committee to consider. He stated:

“The only time the police seem to respond to the recommendations and the associated issues that came out of Macpherson is when there is a Home Affairs Committee or a public inquiry of some sort. That cannot be the case.”

Our Committee’s recent report, “Policing for the Future”, criticised the extent to which the Home Office had stepped away from policing policy, with the Department being widely criticised by policing stakeholders and the National Audit Office for its lack of leadership. I am glad to see the Policing Minister in his place. I know that he is a man motivated by a strong sense of duty and decency and a believer in the importance of public service. In that spirit, I say to him that we are crying out for someone on the Government Front Bench to grab hold of the lessons learned from the Macpherson inquiry and to finish the job, audit progress, reconvene a steering group and drive this forward. I really would not worry about the partisan risk in doing that. Frankly, there will be enough blame to go around: we will all have our share.

[Tim Loughton]

I want to take up the hon. Gentleman’s point about young people. A report produced a few years ago by the all-party parliamentary group for children on the relationship between young people and the police made some recommendations which, to give them their due, the Government took up and changed the law. The shocking finding from that report was the lack of confidence in the police among young people, particularly those from BME communities. There always used to be confidence in the police among young people—we all remember the friendly bobby coming to our school—but if we can no longer instil that confidence in people at a young age, that does not bode well for adults having confidence in the police. We need to do so much better in that regard, and it should not just be down to all-party groups and our Select Committee to bring about that change.

[Alex Norris]

I appreciate that intervention from the hon. Gentleman. That lack of confidence has been seen across the piece. All young people have less confidence in the police than we do, on average, and that is a toxic situation. It means that reporting is not as strong as it could be, that people are not as willing as they should be to say when they are scared for their own safety, and that they are less likely to think of the police as a profession that is for them. The situation is toxic across the piece.

During our careers, a lot of us will have had a “never again” moment. Perhaps it has involved sitting with a bereaved parent talking about the loss of their child. That happened to me in my first couple of months as a councillor in 2011. I sat there feeling impotent, and I wished I could take the pain away, but I could not. At that time, I thought “never again”, but that feeling dissipates over time. I have to tell colleagues and friends today that this is what “never again” is. It is grasping the moment and using our privileged position to say, “Here are 70 ways in which we were told that things would be better, but we have not finished the job yet. We must stand up and use our privileged position to do those things.” It is time for that now: not just words, but actions.

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), and I was delighted to sponsor the debate, along with him, coming to the Chamber tonight. It is important that the Backbench Business Committee found the time for it to take place here on the day after the anniversary of the Macpherson report. This will be a useful examination of where we are as a Parliament, both looking back and looking forward. A number of the things I will say this evening are things that I said in the Select Committee when we held our first evidence session on this issue. I think that they are worth repeating in the Chamber tonight.

When we questioned Baroness Lawrence, I said that I had still been at school when Stephen Lawrence was murdered. I cannot for the life of me remember his actual murder, and I do not remember seeing the news in the days and weeks after it, but I almost feel as though I have grown up with the Stephen Lawrence murder and the different investigations and trials—failed and successful—that have taken place. Sadly, this has been a part of British life, and it was part of my childhood as I grew up. This shows the importance of one man’s tragic death and what it meant to his family, and why, decades later, we are still speaking about Stephen Lawrence’s death and also his legacy, which I shall come on to in a moment.

In the Select Committee, I also mentioned a fascinating documentary that many people have seen, “The Murder that Changed a Nation”. It was compelling viewing for many reasons. It showed how, had it not been for a number of critical interventions, we might not have been standing here in Parliament tonight talking about a crime that had been solved or about the positive aspects of Stephen Lawrence’s legacy. We may still have been discussing much of the tragedy.

What would have happened had it not been for a very determined family? Baroness Lawrence and Neville Lawrence fought day in, day out to get justice for their son, but they should not have had to. They should have been grieving like any other parents would have been in those tragic circumstances, but they were not given the opportunity to grieve, because they had to fight for justice for their son. They did not just have to fight for a few days or weeks; they have fought for decades and continue to fight. That is simply not good enough.

Another aspect that occurred just by chance was the discussion, meeting and publicity with Nelson Mandela. Had that not happened—had Nelson Mandela not met the family and said what he did—perhaps the case would not have got the publicity it clearly deserved. I am glad the Policing Minister is here to respond to tonight’s debate, because although we must never forget that there is rightly much criticism of policing in the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, were it not for the dedicated service of Clive Driscoll, a police officer, we may never have got the justice that Stephen rightly deserved. This police officer was told, “Take these files about the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. Your job is to shred them, to destroy them, to get rid of them.” As he was going to go about his duty, he looked at these files and his suspicions grew stronger and stronger. That officer was very alarmed at what he saw and read, and he knew that it was possible to get from these files justice and ultimately the convictions we have seen of the two men found guilty of Stephen Lawrence’s murder. But for that police officer, and others who were determined that the previous failings of the police, which are well-known, would be overcome at some stage, we may not have been in that place.

I have spoken for a few minutes about coincidences, but for which we may not have got to the stage we are at now. The final one is Neville Lawrence’s relationship with the editor of the Daily Mail and, thus, its headline in February 1997. How can it be that a country such as the United Kingdom, even in the late 1990s, relied on a frank and startling front page of a newspaper that only really came about because the editor—had it been anyone else at the newspaper this would not have happened—knew Neville Lawrence, had listened to him and had been shocked at what he heard? This editor decided that despite the legal representations made to the newspaper saying, “You cannot print a front page like that”, he would go ahead and do it.

As I was preparing for this debate, I thought again about how they are just four examples of things that could have easily gone the other way. We may have had a family who were so steeped in mourning that they could not have pursued this with as much vigour as the Lawrence family did. We may have had a police officer who did shred those files. We may never had the meeting between Nelson Mandela and the family. And we may never had that front-page article. Where would we have been as a country if those four incidents had not happened? I shudder to think where we would have been.

Let us now look at where we are. I was privileged to serve on the Select Committee with other Members who are here this evening and to hear evidence from Baroness Lawrence. Right at the beginning of her evidence session, she said that it seems as though

“nothing seems to have moved.”

We looked at the 70 recommendations from the Macpherson inquiry and judged whether they had been met, partially met or not met, and whether they had been met within any specific timescale. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response to this, because Baroness Lawrence was very critical and very clear in her view that they had not been met; this has fallen by the wayside.

I then looked back at the previous Home Affairs Committee report on this, “The Macpherson Report—Ten Years On”, which was published on 14 July 2009. It said that

“67 of Macpherson’s 70 recommendations have been implemented fully or in part.”

How could one Committee think that, whereas at the very start of our inquiry, looking at the same report 20 years on, we are finding confusion and uncertainty on how to judge whether these recommendations have been enacted, followed and met, fully or in part? We as a Parliament and the public need to know how we assess the progress of these reports. It is right that the Macpherson inquiry went into great detail, took a considerable amount of evidence and came up with a stark report with recommendations that were going to root out the problems seen in the Stephen Lawrence murder and thereafter. How can parliamentarians and our constituents have faith that these reports do not just sit on a shelf, and do not get produced to great fanfare and nothing further? It would seem that 10 years on from the inquiry the Home Affairs Committee thought things were good, so I am worried that a further 10 years on we are getting clear evidence from one of the people most involved in this incident that things have not moved on. Baroness Lawrence is saying that it seems that nothing has moved on.

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is making a fascinating speech and I congratulate him on that. Is a measure of whether things have been moving on, be it over 10 years, 20 years or whatever, not the confidence that certain communities have in their police force? One particularly depressing factor is that although confidence in the local police has risen among most communities, those from the black Caribbean community remain stubbornly at the bottom in terms of those who have least confidence in their police; the comparable numbers over the past 10 years have moved very little. If we cannot convince those members of our community that things have improved, clearly we need to listen to the reasons why they do not think they have improved and do something rather more about it than we have.

[Douglas Ross]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, who serves diligently on the Home Affairs Committee and has heard the evidence that agrees with the point he is making. As well as hearing from Baroness Lawrence, we heard from a number of black, Asian and minority ethnic officers about the problems they face. His point about how people in the BAME communities respond to the police was reflected in some of that evidence, in that the police force they look to for support does not reflect them. That is a problem.

I want briefly to turn to recruitment and retention, which the hon. Member for Nottingham North and my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) mentioned. Although we are rightly focusing on the 41 forces in England and Wales this evening, I represent a Scottish constituency, and if I may I would like to look at Police Scotland, because it is interesting to see how things work in the round. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; my wife is a serving police officer. I welcome the increase of over 10% in Scotland’s police recruits from minority ethnic backgrounds in 2017, but if we look at recruitment on its own, we will not understand the full picture. Equally important is the retention of police officers and staff, as well as promotion.

It is unfortunate that none of Police Scotland’s executive team come from a black and ethnic minority background. We have had Police Scotland for almost five years, and it would be good to see promotion throughout the ranks. I am not saying that that will not happen—this is not a criticism, just an observation that it would be good to see that—but we had witnesses coming along to our Select Committee who had put themselves forward as candidates to be sergeants or inspectors and who said that they felt that on paper they were as good as anyone else, but who were not promoted. It is all well and good saying that we have x number of people from BAME backgrounds in a police force, but if they believe that their future progression in that force will not be as bright, fast or positive as that of others, then we have a problem. If our sergeants and inspectors leading policing teams are not reflective of the communities that they are serving, then we have a problem.

In a written submission to the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Sub-Committee on Policing, the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights raises the problem of retention not just of officers, but of BAME staff once recruited, stating:

“There is no point in bettering recruitment if…officers and staff continue to leave Police Scotland in high proportions.”

We need more information, whether from exit interviews or better data, to understand why people leave the force. It is all well and good recruiting people to become police officers, whether in the Met, across England and Wales or in Police Scotland, but if, once they get there, they decide for whatever reason that they have to leave and do not feel at home in any of these police forces, we need to know why.

This may or may not be a controversial point, but we also need to do more than simply training officers.

UK Nationals returning from Syria

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Monday 18th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My right hon. Friend has raised an important issue, within which there are two separate issues. One is removing someone’s British passport, which is not necessarily the same as removing their citizenship. It is possible—I have done this on a number of occasions, as have my predecessors—to remove someone’s passport using the royal prerogative if that is deemed in the public interest. Separate to that but related, is, under some circumstances, depriving someone of their British citizenship—I mentioned this earlier at the Dispatch Box. In all cases, none of that can be done—of course it cannot—in an arbitrary way. There is a due process to be followed, but if either of those things are necessary to protect the public, that is exactly what I would do.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I am sure that it is the view of most people—it is certainly the view of the majority of my constituents who have written to me—that when someone has made their bed, they lie in it, but clearly the course of law must prevail here. My concern is with the children. Since 2013, more than 150 cases of children subject to threats of radicalisation have been heard in the family courts. That figure will rise and our courts are little provisioned to deal with them. What conversations is the Secretary of State having with the family courts and children’s services to make sure that suitable and timely interventions are being, and can be, made with similar such children in future?

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend rightly highlights the work we do with partners across Government and public agencies through the Prevent programme. That work is all about safeguarding—in many cases, young people and children of all ages—and working with authorities, including social services, local councils, schools and others, to safeguard those children. In terms of deradicalisation, it is one of the most important things we do, and we take it very seriously, which is why I welcome the commitment we made earlier this year to undertake an independent review of the programme to see how we can improve it even further.

Future Immigration

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

Under the EU settlement scheme, there will be a requirement for plenty of time—two years—to be provided for individuals to register, however long they have been here. Even if they have been here for only a day, their rights will be guaranteed. My understanding is that once they have registered they will lose their rights if they leave for more than five years, but within that period there is no change.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

This White Paper has been even more delayed than a Southern railway train, but at least it has arrived. I welcome many of the Home Secretary’s comments, but can he explain why, in view of the move to a skills-based system and shortage occupation measures, we still need a net migration target below 100,000 or any other figure, given that nothing can be done about one side of the equation in any case? Can he also confirm that he would prefer to remove students from that net migration figure altogether, given his welcome comments about students coming to this country to invent, innovate and employ?

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend asked me very recently whether we would publish the White Paper before the meaningful vote, and we have. I think I told him that we would try our best.

My hon. Friend asked about targets. There are no targets in the White Paper; the system is designed to help to bring down net migration overall, but it sets no targets. As for the question of students, we continue to look at it, and I have asked the Migration Advisory Committee to do some more work.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I point the hon. Gentleman to the assessment of the security arrangements in the deal that we published in quite some detail last week. I accept that, with this deal, security arrangements will inevitably be different because we will be a third country outside the EU, but I think we can safely say that it is the most comprehensive security agreement that the EU has with any third country.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

The Home Secretary has spent some time giving evidence to the Select Committee on Home Affairs recently on the subject of database access. Yesterday, the Prime Minister was questioned by a fellow member of the Committee, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), on the question of whether Schengen Information System II is included in the agreement. The Prime Minister stated that it is referred to in the political declaration, but paragraph 86 of the declaration only refers to passenger name record data and Prüm, not to SIS II, which is a vital database. Will the Home Secretary now put the House straight as to the exact situation with those databases?

[Sajid Javid]

I will happily do so, although I do not have the exact paragraph before me. In terms of the SIS II database, the document refers to the wanted and missing persons database. It also refers to another database—on European criminal records—in a similar vein. The declaration says that we will consider co-operation on those databases, but it does not guarantee that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Abbott]

I do not think it is entirely true to say that those countries do not share those concerns. I think we would have to look to our very different national stories to understand that concern.

Migration is at the heart of this Brexit debate, and I am glad to have the opportunity to address it this afternoon. Before I turn to immigration, however, I want to speak about the other theme to today’s debate: security. Ministers have been trying to drum up support for the Prime Minister’s deal by saying that the alternative is no deal, which would be disastrous for security. But the Prime Minister’s deal would be almost as bad. At best, we can say that it is a blindfold Brexit on security. At worst, it may be leading us off a cliff on security matters.

Ministers insist that the deal that is being put before this House will offer us better arrangements than any other third country. I put it to Ministers that that is not the point. The point is not whether there are better arrangements in other third countries. The point is whether these arrangements will give us the same assurances on security and fighting crime that we currently have. If we go through the deal, we can see that there appears to be a trade-off on security, because in order to achieve a seamless transition on a range of security, policing and justice matters and have the current level of co-operation, it would require a new security treaty between the UK and the EU, yet there is no expressed aim in the exit document to move towards a security treaty.

Ministers cannot say that they are unaware of the need for a new security treaty. In Brussels, the stakeholders and commissioners who are concerned about these matters have been talking for two years about the importance of moving forward with a security treaty. Without a security treaty, we may run the risk of losing a number of tools that are vital to cross-border security, policing and justice, while other tools will be hampered or severely compromised.

[Tim Loughton]

The right hon. Lady appears to be putting all the blame for this on the United Kingdom. Is she not aware that when Rob Wainwright, the very distinguished British former head of Europol, appeared in front of the Home Affairs Committee, he said that all the current arrangements and data sharing from which we and our European allies benefit could be continued, and that that is what their security forces want? Those things are not being continued purely because of politics.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

It is great to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) and his siren warnings about what could happen over the coming weeks and months if we do not listen. I understand that people are talking to the DUP; it is about time that people started listening to the DUP. There is a huge difference.

I am not one of the MPs who has stood up and waxed lyrical on this issue over the past two years, as some Members in this Chamber have done. Barely a debate has gone by without certain Members sharing what they believe is right. I have heard a lot of talk today about honesty, transparency and treating people like adults. That is a good idea, because in 2016 we had a people’s vote. For anybody even to suggest that another referendum would be the people’s vote because the last one was not is totally and wholly fraudulent. It is ridiculous.

A people’s vote was held in 2016. We MPs in this Parliament allowed it to be held, and it was held. Surprise, surprise: it was not what people in the main thought was going to happen. I remember watching the result. There was no exit poll. The pound was up, shares were up, and Nigel Farage conceded defeat. Then, of course, the results started to come in. People who lived in the bubble of London could be forgiven for thinking that remain was going to win, but what happened was that there were swathes of people in the north-east, the north-west, and the south-west who felt as if nobody was listening to them—that they were the invisible people. Thanks to David Cameron, though, they were given a voice, they used that voice, and the voice said leave. Now, all of a sudden, those people are facing this Parliament, which is saying, “Not only don’t we see you; we have now decided not to listen to you.” That is wholly dangerous indeed.

When we agree to a referendum, we really do need to respect the result. In 1997, when I was a shadow Minister, Wales had a referendum on devolution. The result was 50.3% in favour and 49.7% against, on a 50.1% turnout. What did we do? We conceded. The difference between yes and no was under 7,000, but we conceded that that was what should happen, and devolution was given to the people of Wales. It would have been wholly wrong had we not done that.

[Tim Loughton]

Does my hon. Friend not agree that one of the reasons why people voted to leave is that, when a country has a referendum and comes up with a result that the EU does not like, it is the practice of the EU to pat it on the head patronisingly and to tell it to go away and come up with a different result—one that the EU agrees with. Is that not what certain people are now telling us that we should be doing, which is why we wanted to get out of the EU in the first place?

[Mr Evans]

It is worse than that. Again, it is this idea of let us go for honesty and treat people like adults. I am talking about the people’s vote—because we did not have one last time when 35 million people voted. What should be the options? “Oh”, says my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), “there should be three options.” The first is vote for the Government’s deal, which hardly anyone I speak to thinks is any good; then there is the cliff edge, which most people believe can be avoided and is an option that people really do not want; or there is stay in the European Union, which people rejected in 2016. That is not fair. Let us be honest: we are told that, in this Parliament, we cannot reach a decision with which everyone will agree. We must accept that, during the referendum, the vast majority of Members of Parliament voted and campaigned for remain. We are in a remain Parliament, which happens to reside in a leave country. It is wholly dangerous for us to turn to the people now and say, “You let us down. You got it wrong.” What else is said about people who voted leave? It is that they are a bit thick and that they did not know what they were voting for. We have also had intimations that perhaps they were racist. Well, no, they were not. They were not racist. Immigration was only part of it. It was all about the sovereignty of making decisions in this Parliament, with immigration being part of that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I approach this debate with a sense of disappointment, the same disappointment that I felt when I decided to campaign for, and vote for, Brexit. I did so not because I had an ideological phobia of the EU, but because I believed that the EU was going backwards, that the UK’s interests were diverging from it, and that without reform it was doomed to steady but terminal decline. That reform was not forthcoming. However, I do not want to repeat what was said in the debates in the run-up to the referendum, as, I fear, many Members have in recent weeks and, indeed, today. This debate is about the deal that is now before us. The country voted to leave on 23 June 2016, as did my constituency. The Government pledged to implement “what you decide” in their little booklet costing £9.3 million. At the time of the 2017 election the two main parties secured 82% of the vote, and both pledged to implement the referendum result. The people have given us no alternative instruction since then, and manifestos have not been rewritten.

The campaign to sideline the referendum result has been marked by two, I think, disingenuous approaches. The first is that it has all become a bit too complicated, so should we not just call the whole thing off? The second is a constant embellishment of the horrors of post-Brexit economic forecasts, which have dually encouraged remain voters to believe that the result could be reversed and encouraged EU negotiators to believe the same, which makes any terms for our departure doubly unpalatable.

I have discussed my view with my constituents, and more than 1,000 have written to me urging me to vote against this deal. In contrast, only a few dozen have urged me to support it. Today I should be welcoming a meaningful vote for a proposal that delivers the Brexit for which I campaigned and for which my constituents and the country voted, but alas, I cannot do that, because this proposal does not deliver Brexit. Its unprecedented terms have the potential to undermine our sovereignty and the Union of the United Kingdom like nothing before, and I am deeply worried for the future of Brexit after the shambolic way in which the whole issue has been handled by the Government in recent days.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

I have a simple question for my hon. Friend, and for others who have difficulty in voting for the deal. If we do not vote for it, what will happen to the rights of United Kingdom nationals living in the EU27 after 29 March?

[Tim Loughton]

That is up to the Government to negotiate. They have failed to produce the immigration White Paper for which we have been waiting for some time, and they really need get on with answering questions like my hon. Friend’s and providing some certainty.

Many Members have used metaphors for our present predicament. Let me add another to the mix. It is like buying a house that you have only seen from the outside. You hand over the full asking price at the outset, upfront. You sign all the legal transaction documents without even agreeing on the fixtures, fittings and completion date, or indeed knowing whether the immigration status of your family allows you to live there. Only after that do you commission a survey, the results of which you do not share with your family despite eventually finding out that the neighbours have an unlimited right of way across your garden and unfettered access to your garden pond—and you have no indication of when you will be able to move in. Who in their right mind would agree to such a deal on buying a house, let alone on such an important issue as the future constitutional basis of our whole country?

My hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), in an excellent speech—he is welcome to the Back Benches if he is going to make more speeches like that—described this as a deal in name only, and said that it was another case of difficult decisions being kicked into the long grass. Above all, what we need now, and have needed for some time, is certainty: certainty for our citizens, certainty for our businesses and investors, certainty for our fishermen, our farmers and many more. Yet the political agreement that accompanies this document—which sounds good—is littered with conditional phrases such as “agree to develop”, “intend to consider”, “will explore the possibility”, and “best endeavours”. That is not concrete enough for me to feel that I can sign up to it. My biggest fear is that this deal only extends the uncertainty—now confirmed by the Attorney General’s advice—over how long we will continue to be rule takers for our tariffs, our regulations, our alignment requirements, our competition laws and our trade deals, and the uncertainty over the integrity of our whole United Kingdom and our sovereignty.

As for Northern Ireland, the EU has spent the last two years declining to agree a practical arrangement for the border, despite facing the real and present danger of that ending in a no-deal Brexit that would see no handover of £39 billion, and the serious disorder that a no deal could bring in the short term at least. What I do not understand is why on earth the Prime Minister thinks the EU will agree to a solution to this, I think, much overhyped and largely fabricated problem of Northern Ireland in the next two years when the cheque will have been signed and a legally binding framework deal agreed. What leverage will we have left to secure mutually beneficial terms in all the outstanding issues to be resolved to avoid an interminable backstop—and there are many issues still to be resolved? It is unthinkable that we should sign a deal that compromises our sovereignty and the ability of this House and this Government, answerable to our peoples, indefinitely to set our own laws.

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does he agree that the perverseness of this is that it is putting us in a worse position than the status quo?

[Tim Loughton]

I am afraid that my right hon. Friend is right. There are some advantages to the position we are in now that we sign away in this never-ending backstop, transition, waiting-room phase that we are going to be stuck in. For all those reasons, I cannot support a deal that has an open-ended backstop at its heart. We need a clean, global Brexit on terms on which both partners can confidently plot their future beyond 2020 to our mutual benefit—no more kicking into the long grass; no more avoiding taking difficult decisions. It does not make that decision any easier by having endless transitions and further discussions and negotiations lasting years and years. We have to grasp the reality.

Where is a crack team of the best brains across the UK and EU working on credible, practical, technology-based solutions for the Northern Ireland-Irish border, for example? Surely that should have been our biggest priority for some time if the backstop hinged on it, but I do not think I am alone in looking in vain for any sense of urgency here.

Those who have come up with no practical solutions for a workable Brexit deal, despite having stood on a Conservative or Labour manifesto at the last election that pledged to deliver Brexit, should stop kidding themselves and stop conning the British public that everything will be magically resolved by a second referendum. If it were to come up with a different result from the first referendum, why should 17.4 million people who voted in good faith, many for the first time ever, accept the result? If it were to come up with the same result, how much more time will be wasted, how many more resources will be wasted and how many further damaging delays will be caused? And given the huge divisions resulting from the first referendum, how does repeating that bruising experience do anything to help to bring the country back together again? Surely our current travails would be exacerbated even further, if that were possible.

So for me there is only one alternative—to resoundingly reject this framework deal in the House when we vote next Tuesday. It will send out a strong message to the EU that, while there is much in the agreement we can sign up to, and much that can be negotiated in subsequent negotiations, an unbridled, non-time-limited backstop makes it completely unworkable. If the EU is serious about achieving a mutually beneficial relationship, it must acknowledge that, re-engage accordingly and come up with more realistic terms that this House then can show a lead in agreeing to in determining our future and bringing back some degree of the certainty that everyone is screaming out for.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

The Government recognise that there is additional pressure on the police and we recognise the need to increase their capacity. Additional money has been put into Cornwall police this year, which I hope my hon. Friend welcomes. I am sure he will look forward, like the rest of the House, to the details of the police funding settlement, which is imminent.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Like Bedfordshire, Oldham and other force areas, Sussex has faced severe pressures in funding its police numbers, so our police and crime commissioner bravely urged a high increase in the police precept in order to recruit 200 additional officers each year for the next four years. That amount has been wiped out by the reassessment of the pension requirement over the next few years, such that we will not be able to recruit any more without digging into reduced funds. How are we going to get extra police officers?

[Mr Hurd]

I join my hon. Friend in saluting the leadership of Katy Bourne, who, like most PCCs, is either protecting or increasing the number of police officers as a result of the settlement we took through Parliament this year. We have debated the issue of the increase in pension costs. The Treasury has made it clear that it is going to contribute to part of the cost. The rest of the solution will be evident in the police funding settlement.

Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill

Tim Loughton Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 26th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

May I pay tribute to the Minister who has just spoken, the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mrs Wheeler)? Her speech was a masterpiece of clarity, conciseness and succinctness on a Friday morning on which there is important business to proceed with.

We had a very thorough and constructive Committee stage. I thank all the Members who took part in it, as well as the Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins). She is not in the Chamber today, but she has been part of the Bill process. I welcome the Minister for Immigration, my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), who I hope will deftly manage the Bill without incident on its passage through these important stages. I am sure she will want to carry on the continuity of support that the Government have given, because there is very widespread support from both sides of the House for all four major parts of this Bill. Virtually all of them are now Government policy, so there is no reason why they should not want it to proceed. I anticipate that today should be a breeze, and that we can get on to the Third Reading of my Bill and swiftly go on to the Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Bill, which so many of us support. We offer our good wishes to the Bill’s promoter, the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson), who cannot be in the Chamber today.

Since the Committee sitting on 18 July, there has been a crucial change regarding the extension of civil partnerships, which is why the new clause and the amendment are necessary. That change is of course the announcement by the Prime Minister through the medium of the media—namely, the Evening Standard, on 2 October —when the Government confirmed that, for the first time ever, gay and straight people will have the same choices in life, which will be achieved by new laws to extend civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples. There are now some 3.3 million such couples cohabiting in the United Kingdom. That was welcome news, and I was expecting a call beforehand from the Government to discuss how we could collaborate on my Bill to bring about that Government policy in the speediest and most effective way.

The change was of course spurred on by the ruling of the Supreme Court on 27 June, in the case of Steinfeld and Keidan, which revealed that the Government were in breach of the European convention on human rights. That followed a nearly four-year battle by Rebecca and Charles, which was almost as long as my own campaign in Parliament on this subject. I have proposed amendments going back as far as the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, I had a subsequent private Member’s Bill and of course there is the ballot Bill that we are debating today.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tim Loughton]

Of course I will give way—not too often.

[Sandy Martin]

May I offer the hon. Gentleman my congratulations on achieving this step forward? As he will remember, I intervened on him on Second Reading about the necessity of treating everyone equally according to the law. Obviously, everyone could be treated equally badly; I am glad that everyone is now going to be treated equally well.

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Gentleman quite rightly spoke very eloquently and with his own personal experience in support of this part of the Bill on Second Reading, for which I was very grateful, and that was very effective.

As I say, I was not warned about this advance in Government policy by the Prime Minister, and I have not really been briefed since about exactly what it amounts to. At the moment, I have no idea whether the Government will now accept this new clause, will vote against it, or will allow debate to go on—perhaps beyond 2.30 pm today. Frankly, if there are objections from the Government, I hope they will be based on fact, not conjecture or some of the scare stories about what my new clause might actually achieve. However, I have been involved in some very helpful discussions with the lead officials in the Government Equalities Office on civil partnerships legislation, and of course the continued support of the excellent lead official from the Home Office on this Bill, Linda Edwards.

The problem the new clause addresses is that at no point have the Government indicated a timeline or a method for bringing the extension of civil partnerships into effect. Delay and obfuscation was a major criticism in the ruling by the Supreme Court earlier in the year. More than three months after the Supreme Court ruling, the Government have simply indicated that they will address the inequality by extending civil partnerships, rather than abolishing them. Abolishing them was never a practical option, but that confirmation is very welcome.

Four months on, the Government have not indicated a timeline, despite the urgency factor pressed by the judges. If we read the Supreme Court ruling, we can see that it absolutely highlights the fact that the Government could have acted before now. On several occasions, it refers to this private Member’s Bill and my previous one as a way of rectifying this matter. It actually criticises my private Member’s Bill for not being tougher in proceeding with a change in the law on a timeline, rather than just agreeing to have a report, which I had to do to get the Bill through Second Reading and into Committee.

My Bill, with the addition of this new clause, is actually very helpful to the Government on a number of fronts. It confirms in law that civil partnerships will be equalised and that the breach with the convention will be rectified. It gives a clear cut-off date for the Government to get on and do it, and it would be effective before the end of next year. If this change goes through, a couple who have been looking to have a civil partnership rather than a marriage—for all the reasons we have debated at length—could make plans from the end of next year to make that a reality. Many people have waited years, and the Government have been on notice about this for years. This is now the time to end the delay.

Crucially, the new clause makes no prescription about the method, wording and reach of the legislative change that is required; that is entirely up to the Government. I know there are some technical matters still to be settled, and I do not want to dictate to them how we achieve that. That is why this is a very flexible amendment to what is a very flexible Bill.

I am afraid that the Government have had plenty of time. Back in the Second Reading debate on 2 February, the then Minister stated at the Dispatch Box about this Bill:

“There is a sense of urgency—very much so.”—[Official Report, 2 February 2018; Vol. 635, c. 1122.]

Yet, since that time, the Government have not been able to report on the progress of the review work that was announced then, and they did not do so in Committee in July either. Indeed, I gather that the Government Equalities Office was given the go-ahead to undertake much of the review work only in the past few weeks.

I remind the House that that is on the back of two full-blown reviews in the past few years of the whole subject of extending civil partnerships. This must be the most over-reviewed piece of legislation that this House has seen for some time. Why has it all moved so slowly, not least since the Supreme Court ruling that made it inevitable that the law would have to change—and change quickly? I pay tribute to the Equal Civil Partnerships campaign and to the now well over 130,000 people who have signed its petition for a change in the law. They are understandably growing impatient, and despite the Government’s announcement, they are sceptical in thinking that the legislative changes will be kicked into the long grass.

I gather that the Government plan to bring forward primary legislation in the next Session. That has been indicated in a written ministerial statement released only this morning—at the last moment. I am always rather sceptical of ministerial statements from the Dispatch Box or in written form at the eleventh hour. However, even if there is primary legislation in the next Session, it might be 2021 before a couple could actually take advantage of a civil partnership, and that is only if it is in the Queen’s Speech and survives the vagaries of the parliamentary timetable, which is likely to be under huge pressure during the next Session from potential emergency Brexit-related legislation.

I am afraid, however, that is just not good enough for me, for campaign supporters—including those with life-limiting conditions who are desperate to formulate a relationship while they can—or indeed for the Supreme Court. My Bill is the cleanest and quickest way to change the law, to satisfy the Supreme Court and, most importantly, to address a significant pent-up demand from couples who have waited for this change and the chance of equality for a long time. I cannot understand why the Government have not more proactively used my Bill as a vehicle for achieving that right from the start.

Ministers have put it around that the new clause is flawed and unworkable, but neither is true. I have discussed its wording and terms at length with Clerks of the House and lead officials from the Government Equalities Office, and because of flexibility in the wording of the Bill and new clause, the timetable can be achieved by using a truncated six-week review process. Indeed, the Scottish Parliament is currently undertaking its own review into the extension of civil partnerships, and I am sure that it would not mind if we just nicked that. A ready-made “one we made earlier” is on the table, and with a little tweaking it could go into the consultation process in a matter of weeks. A statutory instrument could then be designed in the new year, to be drafted by parliamentary counsel and put before Parliament ahead of the summer recess. I know that will be tight and demand a lot from officials—frankly, those officials would be better placed if they had been allowed to get on with the work when the writing was on the wall some time ago. However, it can be achieved in a way that enables the law to allow opposite-sex couples to enter a civil partnership before the end of 2019. That is what the new clause would do. The statutory instrument route gives greater flexibility on a subject which, frankly, we have debated almost to death. It is less vulnerable to the vagaries of the parliamentary timetable than primary legislation.

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

Has my hon. Friend considered civil partnerships when the relationship is platonic, such as between siblings who live together, and how to protect their future?

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point that has been raised several times. Indeed, an amendment to the Civil Partnership Act 2004 has been tabled in the other place to that effect. I have some sympathy with those changes, but for me they are largely a matter of taxation and an issue for the Treasury, because they mainly concern inheritance tax and other tax matters. My Bill is a social family Bill, and one reason for it is an attempt to cement family units and create greater stability for children—recognising a partnership in law, with all the protections that goes with that, is a good fillip for family stability. The point raised by my hon. Friend is a separate and largely financial issue, and I would be sympathetic to separate legislation that will not mess up my Bill but will address that point elsewhere.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

My hon. Friend knows that I support him in his endeavours. Given his response to our hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup), perhaps the Government should indicate that they will consider taxation relationships between people who have a relationship but not a partnership. That may involve siblings, or someone who has stayed at home to look after an elderly parent, but the current taxation arrangements are desperately unfair. However, my hon. Friend is right to say that that issue should not necessarily complicate the Bill.

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is right. This Bill is about civil partnerships, which are a different sort of relationship. I know the issue is fraught with all sorts of nuances, but my original point stands.

Just this week, the Government announced that primary legislation could be introduced to prescribe food labelling in the light of the recent death of a customer of Pret a Manger and that those measures could be in place by next summer. No Supreme Court ruling hangs over that problem with the law, so why cannot we achieve today the change under discussion with the new clause to my Bill? If the Government allowed the amended Bill to proceed, they would send a strong and reassuring message about their real intent and put their money where their mouth is.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Tim Loughton]

I will give way for the very last time, and then I will conclude my remarks.

[Kevin Foster]

Like my hon. Friend, I am keen for the provisions in the Bill to be introduced. Will he outline briefly why his new clause only covers provisions on civil partnerships when, for example, we have been waiting to get mothers’ names on marriage certificates for many years?

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend pre-empts my closing remarks. If there is a problem getting this Bill through the House, it must be one of the most complicated private Member’s Bills there has ever been, which is my fault. It so happens, however, that all four tenets of the Bill are now Government policy, so there should not be a problem. We still have some way to go before, hopefully, the Bill passes to another place and becomes subject to the vagaries there. If we do not get there, there is the important issue of adding mothers’ names to wedding certificates—that has been an anomaly since the reign of Queen Victoria and should have been addressed ages ago. Now at last we can do it.

The Bill contains important provisions on allowing coroners to look into certain stillbirths, and again, huge cross-party support for that has been aired on many occasions. There are also other important matters regarding how we view stillbirths before the 24-week gestation period. This Bill is not just about civil partnerships; it is about a whole load of other things for which there is widespread support. I hope that the Government will see that the new clause is well intended and will hold the feet of officials to the fire as they work long hours to get this legislation through. It is achievable. I have tabled new clause 1 in the spirit of being helpful to the Government in achieving equality. Consequential amendment 1 has now become redundant, because it is now Government policy to allow civil partnerships, and the new clause will ensure that we get on with it.

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

When warned that I might be speaking early, Madam Deputy Speaker, I had not expected it to be this early.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) has raised important points, and I am grateful to him for having promoted this Bill in its entirety and for his enormous and, as he pointed out, long-standing campaigning work in support of civil partnerships.

As most hon. Members will know, when the Bill was first introduced back in February, the Government had not yet taken a final decision on the future of civil partnerships. We were clear that the current situation, in which same-sex couples can marry or enter a civil partnership but opposite-sex couples can only marry, needed to be addressed. Indeed, earlier this year, we published a Command Paper that set out how we would proceed with our deliberations to ensure that we chose the right course of action. Events over the past few months have moved on substantially, not least thanks to the efforts of my hon. Friend in promoting this Bill, and I am pleased that the Prime Minister recently announced our intention to make civil partnerships available to both opposite-sex and same-sex couples. We intend to introduce specific legislation to do just that, and I know that in conversation with my hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities made those intentions clear.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Nokes]

There are a number of important points I would like to make with particular reference to the amendment and some of the challenges we think it poses. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will be patient and allow me to get to them.

There are a number of reasons why we are concerned about my hon. Friend’s amendment and a number of reasons why the Bill may not be the most appropriate legislative vehicle in which to equalise access to civil partnerships between same-sex and opposite-sex couples. As I have said, the Bill contains a number of important measures that we certainly do not wish to jeopardise by allowing the substantive amendment on civil partnerships at this late stage in the Bill’s progress through Parliament. I think that these substantive changes deserve to have been debated more thoroughly at earlier stages of the Bill’s progress, rather than just in the limited time available to us today.

I also need to make the point that, while we are happy to have announced our intention to extend civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples, there are still quite a number of significant issues that need to be resolved before we can move on to implement opposite-sex civil partnerships. Some of these are entirely practical. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) from a sedentary position is yelling, “Such as”. If he will give me a chance, I will get to them. For instance, we need to check all the existing legislative provisions that cross-refer to the civil partnership regime to make sure that they still work as intended for opposite-sex couples as well as same-sex couples. These existing provisions are spread across a wide range of current legislation, from arrangements for adoption through to pension entitlements, so this is not an insignificant body of work. Any existing provisions that are not appropriate to extended civil partnerships will need to be changed. There are also a number of sensitive policy issues that will need to be resolved, such as whether convergence from a marriage to a civil partnership should be allowed and whether the terms for the dissolution of an opposite-sex civil partnership should mirror those for same-sex couples or be the same as for opposite-sex marriages.

We also need to resolve a number of cross-border and devolution issues, such as how we should provide for recognition of similar relationships entered into in other countries and how our own relationships should be treated in other parts of the United Kingdom, which have their own legislation on civil partnerships.

I am disappointed that the amendment tabled today seeks to replace the provisions in clause 2, particularly the requirement for Government to consult and report to Parliament on the way in which they intend to equalise civil partnerships between same-sex and other couples. We particularly supported this original requirement, as we see consultation prior to the implementation of the extension of civil partnerships as key in both helping us to set out the Government’s views on the issues I have just mentioned, as well as getting a broader view of the implications of the various options.

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend will acknowledge, of course, that the requirement for review and consultation is not a statutory requirement. It did not need to be in the Bill, but it was the only way of getting it through. And of course the Government, by their own admission, have started that review and consultation, albeit at a late stage. Taking the clause out of the Bill does not mean that it stops it, so it is actually not required.

[Caroline Nokes]

This is a subject on which we conduct long conversations, reviews and consultation across the Government, and the fact that the review has started does not mean that it should stop, but we do want to conclude it. It is important to us to have those views.

The Government are keen to progress the review and to do so as quickly as possible. The planned consultation is not some sort of prevarication; it is a necessary step to help us to ensure that when we introduce legislation it is fit for purpose and does not slow down its parliamentary passage. Officials are already starting to identify all the matters on which we want to consult. I hope that we will soon be in a position to say more about our proposed timing for that consultation, but we wish to conduct it as soon as possible. I stress that the consultation will be about how we make the provisions to ensure that civil partnerships work as intended for opposite-sex couples, not about whether we intend to extend them in that way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time. I said at the beginning of my previous remarks that this morning would be a breeze. There have been a few headwinds, but so far, so good. I hope we can continue in that spirit of agreement and consensus across the House regarding all four measures in the Bill, which are much needed and much supported. My Bill has been referred to as the hatch, match and dispatch Bill because it covers so many junctures in people’s lives. I like to view it rather more as a Bill to address anomalies and iniquities in the law that, in many cases, should have been dealt with a long time ago.

I want to apologise in advance to officials, because if the Bill now goes through as amended, as I hope will be the case, they will have a lot of work to do in a relatively short space of time, but we now have a timeline, and that work should be a welcome distraction for them from Brexit, so there are upsides as well as downsides.

There are four aspects of the Bill, as I have mentioned. Clause 1, which is about marriage registration, seems to have excited the most vociferous support this morning. I am sure that the Minister will actively support it, rather than not actively support it—she appeared to say earlier that she did not like new clause 1 but would not actively oppose it, although passively she would have done. But we have moved on to Third Reading now—we are on the final bend.

I pay tribute to the Bishop of St Albans for the Bill that he has steered through the Lords, ably supported by my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman), whose name is attached to it on today’s Order Paper, albeit somewhat later on. She has been a champion for this issue over many years, as have other Members who have attached their names to various private Members’ Bills to try to address this anomaly. It is absurd that mothers have been able to put their signatures on marriage certificates in Scotland since 1855—and indeed in Northern Ireland—and in respect of civil partnerships in England and Wales since 2004, but that not since Victorian times has a mother’s name been recognised on a marriage certificate.

On Second Reading, I produced my own marriage certificate. My dear late mother’s name is absent from it, and to add insult to injury, my father’s name is on it twice, because he signed not only as witness but as the vicar who married us, adding double insult to injury. There are countless cases of people saying, “I never knew my father because he assaulted my mother and did a runner on us before I ever knew him, yet his name has to go on my marriage certificate, and the name of my mother, who has done all the heavy lifting, suffered all the abuse, and brought up, nurtured and loved me as a daughter, does not appear.” That is not right. I hope that the Bill will at last address that anomaly and that mothers can then proudly put their names on the marriage register in the new electronic form, which will bring it up to date for the future.

I am not going to go into the second aspect of the Bill, which is civil partnerships, at length again. We have been debating the matter since the 2013 same-sex marriage Bill. If my amendment had been agreed at that time, we would not still be having this discussion now. There have been many opportunities to address this unintended inequality.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Since the Government are in the mood to apologise for all sorts of historical events, does my hon. Friend think they should apologise for getting the law completely wrong?

[Tim Loughton]

I am in a generous frame of mind this morning, and rather than their saying sorry, we should be saying hurrah that we are now doing something about it—[Hon. Members: “Hurrah!”] I do not know how Hansard will treat that.

The third aspect of the Bill relates to the production of a report on the registration of pregnancy loss. Again, clause 3 has already achieved its objective, partly in the light of our Second Reading debate, which we had back on 2 February, when we were all moved by the extraordinarily touching personal testimony of the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) about her own experiences—I wonder whether she will draw her attention away from her mobile phone, because I know she would like to listen to this tribute and not be distracted. As a result of the strength of feeling in the speeches and the subsequent response from our constituents, the then Health Secretary—he is now Foreign Secretary—said, “Well, actually I think we just need to get on with changing the law.” A group was set up with a mandate to see how we could change the law to acknowledge in some way those births that are stillborn but happen, by whatever quirk, to fall below the 24-week gestation line and are therefore not recognised in the eyes of the state. The situation has brought huge distress to parents who are already in distress at the trauma of losing a child. The fact that they happened to lose that child at 23 weeks and six days means that, in the eyes of the state, that child never existed and is classed as any other baby loss. In saying that, I in no way diminish the trauma of all baby loss, but there are so many examples of this.

My constituent Hayley Petts first brought this matter to me, and she served on the working group with the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West. The group has been discussing many aspects of how the law can be changed and has also thrown up a lot of problems about how we go about changing the law. Should we have a universal certificate for all baby loss, for example? Should the scheme be voluntary or mandatory? Should it be subject to medical verification, as is the case under the Australian scheme, and should it be retrospective? There is then the whole thorny issue of how we avoid getting into the minefield that is abortion and other forms of termination. The Bill has done its job before it has become an Act because such work is going on under the aegis of the Department of Health and Social Care, and I hope we will have some results in due course.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing his Bill to Third Reading. On clause 4, does he agree that when parents lose a child—a healthy full-term baby—as my constituents Jack and Sarah Hawkins did, they should not have to fight to get answers? A coronial inquest might provide them with independent, public, open and honest answers so that they can concentrate on grieving, rather than having to fight to get to the truth of what happened.

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady because she pre-empts my clause 4 moment. The fourth, and very important, component of this Bill, which is addressed in clause 4, is coroners’ investigations. She participated in earlier debates and worked very helpfully with me and others to move this important issue up the agenda. I am grateful for her contribution.

Clause 4 will allow part 1 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 to be amended. That is not easy, and the matter is slightly complicated by the fact that it falls under the jurisdiction of both the Ministry of Justice, which is responsible for coroners, and the Department of Health and Social Care, which is responsible for healthcare in relation to baby loss. I must pay tribute to some very helpful and proactive support for this measure by MOJ officials. I had a very helpful meeting with the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), who I am glad to see is present on the Front Bench. He was a great champion of many of the Bill’s provisions when he was just a commoner on the Back Benches and added his name to many of the measures I have been trying to get through today.

The Minister has confirmed that an immense amount of work has gone on at the Ministry of Justice. There are issues still to be resolved, such as whether coroners should have the power to investigate all stillbirth loss or should concentrate, which I think is practically the better approach, on full-term baby loss, when there are the fewest excuses or reasons for stillbirths to happen. Also, should this be mandatory or effectively subject to parental veto? There are serious problems with that, as there are some cases in which a stillbirth may have been connected to domestic violence and some sort of cover-up may be wanted, so I think we are coming to the view that the scheme should be mandatory. Should there be specialist coroners or should all coroners have the ability to investigate? Of course, there are also capacity constraints. The fact that a lot of work has been going on in the Department in the last few months shows that this can be done.

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing this important Bill, which is, in effect, enabling legislation in this regard. It is worth reiterating something he has already mentioned, so will he join me in thanking the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar)? It is one thing to have enabling legislation, but given the complex nature of what my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) is trying to introduce, a Minister who is so supportive is worth their weight in gold?

[Tim Loughton]

Give my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince) a job—I am sure that will happen shortly. We should be paying tribute to him, too, because although many other Members have been part of this crusade, including my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), who is sitting next to him, he has probably done more than anyone to put stillbirth absolutely on the parliamentary and national radar.

It is because of the Minister’s empathy, understanding and preparedness to work with parliamentarians that we are in a position in which, if this enabling legislation is enacted, we can have practical measures in fairly short order, perhaps even ahead of the first civil partnership for opposite-sex couples happening in this country before the end of 2019. This enabling clause gives a good deal of discretion to the Minister, and there is no other Minister I have greater faith in to make sure that something actually happens. Now that we have praised him to the rafters, we will expect a very early announcement on when the change will happen.

This is a complicated Bill, as I have said, and that is my own fault, but it contains four really important measures that have widespread support across the whole House and across the country.

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tim Loughton]

If my hon. Friend wants to ruin my peroration, I will allow him to do so.

[Luke Graham]

I apologise to my hon. Friend and thank him for giving way. I am in full support of the Bill, but I have one technical question that I hope he will be able to answer. Clause 6 clarifies that clause 5 applies to Scotland, England and other parts of the United Kingdom. Clause 5(1)(a) states that

“the Marriage of British Subjects (Facilities) Acts 1915 and 1916…no longer apply in England and Wales”.

Under clause 6, that will also apply to Scotland. As I am sure the House will know, those Acts make reference to the recognition of marriage certificates in the United Kingdom and those of British dominions, basically giving British citizens getting married in the dominions and those getting married here in the United Kingdom almost equal recognition. I am all for increasing rights, but I just want to make sure that that provision will not reduce any of our constituents’ rights in their future marriage choices.

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that very pithy intervention. He makes some good points, and no doubt some other smartarse in the House of Lords will want to bring them up as well. With the greatest respect, I am sure that he can speak further to those points on Third Reading—as long as he does not go on for too long. To coin a phrase from Front Benchers, I would be happy to write to him and give him more details. I shall now somehow try to return to my peroration.

As I was saying before I was so helpfully interrupted, the Bill is long overdue. It sets out a practical route and a timeline—certainly in the case of civil partnerships—for these iniquities and inequalities to be resolved. I know that it has widespread support in this House, and I am grateful to all those who have made it possible to get this far. I will be particularly grateful to the Immigration Minister if she ensures that the Bill gets through its Third Reading so that we can have further discussions in the other place. I very much hope that it will be granted its Third Reading without a vote today.

British Citizenship Fees: Children

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention—I shall be very happy to champion the cause of British citizenship for the next few years at least. He makes the absolutely valid point that, on the basis of international comparisons, the amount that we charge children is exorbitant. It does not compare well at all.

The Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens has done fantastic work in challenging the Home Office fees on behalf of kids and even in helping to secure financial support from generous donors willing to help kids to achieve citizenship through donations, although it is outrageous that kids should have to look to charity to secure their citizenship. That organisation is fantastically well placed to speak about the impact on British kids of being denied formal British citizenship. The kids grow up blissfully unaware that they are not, unlike their peers, British citizens. They do not realise that until they cannot join their peers on a school trip abroad or they apply for university and suddenly are faced with paying overseas fees. Without British citizenship—they are just like the Windrush generation in a sense—these children are made subject to immigration control and potentially the hostile or compliant environment, which means that they run the risk of being refused access to healthcare, employment, education, social assistance and housing. There is even the possibility of being detained, removed from and excluded from their own country altogether. In fact, that was mentioned in the most recent report by Stephen Shaw.

The PRCBC has provided a number of case studies—I suspect that hon. Members have access to them—highlighting individual stories. I will mention just one. May was brought to the UK when she was two months old and she has never left the country. She was first taken into care when aged five. A full care order was made later. She should have been registered as a British citizen under section 3 of the British Nationality Act while she was in care, but she was not, and she lost the opportunity when she turned 18. May gave birth to Heather and was later granted indefinite leave to remain, but Heather was not born British, because at the time of her birth her mother was neither British nor settled. Heather now has an entitlement to register as British under section 1 of the 1981 Act because of the settled status that her mother subsequently acquired, but her mother simply cannot afford the £1,012 fee to register her daughter as British. Heather was born and brought up in Britain. She knows no other country. She is to all intents and purposes British. She is entitled to British citizenship—she should not be required to pay more than £1,000 to access that entitlement—and cannot access it.

Tens of thousands of British-born children face similar issues. Surely that is contrary to the Government’s duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and to the requirement that children’s best interests be a primary consideration in all actions concerning them.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I congratulate my fellow member of the Select Committee on Home Affairs on bringing up this very important issue. Is he aware of two things? First, the very expensive fees for all sorts of visa and citizenship arrangements in this country are having repercussions. For example, I have just had to pay out £465 for my daughter to study for a few months in Brazil—that form of visa is most expensive for UK citizens. Secondly, does he agree that, far from the Home Office making a substantial profit out of vulnerable children, there should be no fee at all in the case of children in the care system?