Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor General]

I am pleased to say that £85 million has just been allocated by this Government to the Crown Prosecution Service. That enormous sum has been very well received. The reality is that FGM is a complex criminal offence. It is difficult to prosecute, but when these matters are made the subject of a complaint, every effort is made to gold-standard the process to make proceeding as easy as possible. I say again that the joint police-CPS taskforce—the stakeholder group—was established in order to make progress across this range of areas, including pre-prosecution.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has spoken a lot about FGM in the UK, but does he agree that a lot of the problems come when children go abroad? At the moment, the Gambian Government are rewriting their constitution and there is a question mark as to whether they will maintain the clause banning all forms of FGM. Will he reach out to his opposite number in Gambia, through the Foreign Office, and support them in drafting a constitution that is appropriate in this area? Will he also support the work that people such as Nimco Ali are doing to ensure that our voice and the voices of women around the world are heard?

[The Solicitor General]

Nimco Ali is doing some great work in this area. We will liaise with the Foreign Office, where appropriate, to offer our views. I can also say that the point my hon. Friend makes has a tendency to raise jurisdictional issues, which is one of the points of complexity that we have in prosecuting these cases. However, every effort is—rightly so—being made to tackle this appalling crime.

Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor General]

I can assure the hon. Lady that she will not be voting for it blindfold. Whatever her final decision might be, she will be in a position, come the vote, to have heard the Attorney General, to have read the Government’s position and to fully understand and appreciate the issues at stake. I know that she will do all that and make her decision.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

Despite the Welsh origins of the Solicitor General, does he agree that there is no wizardry in legal advice, that it is simply the accumulation of the collected knowledge of our culture, history and agreed norms, and that in many ways we can read all that in the press that we are seeing every day? We may seek legal advice in this place, but I have been given tons for free by every lawyer in the country, as far as I can tell. Does he therefore agree that the Attorney General’s advice is relevant, but not essential?

[The Solicitor General]

My hon. Friend puts the context of all this admirably well.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

It was a pleasure to listen to the thoughtful and considered speech of the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint). She made some sensible points about immigration, on which I will focus in my remarks. Many Members have spoken in favour of joining the EEA but, as I said briefly at Prime Minister’s questions, immigration was one of the most important issues that decided the referendum result, so we need to take that into account. Like the right hon. Lady and my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), I want immigration, but I want immigration to be controlled by Parliament. I want us to decide that we want people with the skills and talents that will make a contribution and increase this country’s wealth, and they will be welcomed as a result. Immigrants themselves often want a properly controlled immigration system, because they know that they will be welcomed, they will be supported and they will not be scapegoated, as happens when we lose control of the system. The voters told us that they do not want a system in which we have no control, or very little control, over who comes to our country.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Harper]

I will not give way. You are trying to get everyone in, Mr Speaker, and I will try to help you.

I have listened to a number of contributions. Those who think the European Union will fundamentally renegotiate free movement are living in another world. I worked closely with the former Prime Minister David Cameron when he tried to renegotiate the terms of our membership, and he worked incredibly hard with every single European leader to try to get some movement on free movement, because he knew how important that would be to the case he was going to argue for our staying in the European Union. I have to tell colleagues on both sides of the House that, frankly, those European leaders were not willing to engage seriously with David Cameron on any meaningful reform. If they had, I suspect the country would have made a different decision. Even with our country having made that decision, European leaders are still not prepared to make any meaningful reform. They might talk about little tiny tweaks here or there that will not make any significant difference, but meaningful reform is not going to happen.

We should not think the EEA is a solution, and we should control our immigration policy. We can then have a generous policy, and we can argue for what we think is the right shape for our immigration policy. That is why I oppose Lords amendment 51 on joining the EEA, and why I support the sensible approach that the Government have set out.