Oral Answers to Questions
Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts(9 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Laura Farris)
The Home Office explored whether a name-change ban should be extended to murderers and determined that the operational need did not exist. Anyone convicted of murder automatically receives a life sentence. If they are released from prison, they are managed by probation for the remainder of their life and they remain under an obligation to notify probation within 72 hours of any change of their name. Should they fail to do so, they face immediate recall to prison and up to an extra five years behind bars. So far, we feel that that is working adequately.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
Chris Philp
Perhaps I have not said often enough in this Chamber that we now have record numbers of police officers across England and Wales, including in the Metropolitan police area, which has the highest number of police officers per capita of any police force in the country. Despite that, I was disappointed to see in the recent figures published that, while across the rest of the country excluding London knife crime went down, on Sadiq Khan’s watch in London it went up.
Oral Answers to Questions
Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts(1 year ago)
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James Cleverly
My right hon. Friend asks an incredibly important question. I have made it very clear to the police forces of the UK that when members of a minority group in this country tell us that they are living in fear, we must take action. I am pleased that the policing response this weekend was more robust than on previous weekends—the police are clearly listening to the conversations we are having with them and I commend them for doing so. I have spoken with representatives of the Community Security Trust and the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and I will be having a meeting with the Chief Rabbi to make it absolutely clear that the Jewish community in the UK has the right to feel safe and this Government will take action to ensure it is safe.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)
I am pleased to report to the hon. Lady that that part of our Visas and Immigration service is now operating within its service standard, so there is a good service being offered to members of the public, but if she has any specific cases, she can bring them to my attention.
Oral Answers to Questions
Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Chris Philp
We want to see tougher action on things such as antisocial behaviour and public drug use; we should have zero tolerance for any of those things. As part of the ASB strategy we are launching instant justice, whereby people who perpetrate acts of antisocial behaviour will rapidly—ideally within 48 hours—be made to do clean-ups and those kinds of things in their local area, to pay back visibly, publicly, rapidly and with enforcement. We are trialling that in 10 police force areas, starting this month, and it will be rolled out to every police force in the country, with funding, by April next year. I completely agree with everything my hon. Friend said.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
The Minister may not be aware that I was chair of the cross-party Youth Violence Commission. We published an interim report in 2018 and a final one in 2020. Our first recommendation was for the Government to adopt a public health approach to tackling violence through regional violence reduction units and long-term strategies. What action is the Minister taking to ensure that violence reduction units have the long-term funding that they need to achieve the best possible outcomes?
Oral Answers to Questions
Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
I know how strongly my hon. Friend feels about this issue. I will of course look into those contracts, but the enduring solution to this issue is to stop the boats in the first place. That is why we brought forward the Illegal Migration Bill.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Miss Sarah Dines)
I thank the hon. Member for her question. Full details should be coming to us to look into that. However, the Government take hate crime of any sort extremely seriously, which is why we have done basic policing and increased the number of police officers to more than ever before—over 200,000.
Illegal Migration Bill
Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Suella Braverman
We are spending £3 billion a year on supporting the asylum backlog and £6 million a day on hotel accommodation, which is valuable taxpayers’ money that should not be diverted to those purposes. We need to stop the boats, bear down on the backlog and save the British taxpayer valuable money.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
My office deals with outstanding asylum cases week in, week out, as I am sure do those of many MPs up and down the country. Despite promises that the situation would improve, we are still waiting an unacceptably long time for updates from the Home Office. Why is there nothing in the Bill to address the fact that 160,000 people are currently awaiting a decision—a 60% increase on the previous year?
Suella Braverman
We are making good progress on bearing down on the asylum backlog. We have increased the number of decision makers, we have improved the levels of productivity, we have streamlined the guidance, and we are making sure that we are processing the claims individually, on a case-by-case basis, more swiftly. That is how we will remove people from hotel accommodation and bear down on the costs.
Oral Answers to Questions
Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
Robert Jenrick
We provide funding for every asylum seeker who is in a local authority’s care of about £3,500, and we work closely with local authorities through the mandatory dispersal system to make sure that each one plays a fair and equitable part. However, the answer to this problem is not more accommodation; it is stopping the boats and ensuring that we have some of the most robust laws in the world, so that those who come here illegally do not find a way to a life in the UK. I hope that the hon. Lady will support us when we introduce our legislation.
Vicky Foxcroft
My constituent arrived here from Syria and claimed asylum in July 2021. He is a doctor and applied to volunteer with the covid vaccination programme, but was turned down because he had no documentation. After more than a year and many interventions by my office, he finally had his asylum interview and was given a job as a healthcare assistant, but that was delayed because he had to wait for his national insurance number. The NHS is crying out for staff. When will the Government sort this out?
Robert Jenrick
We are working to bring down the backlog of cases. Let me gently point out that the last Labour Government left a backlog of cases of not 450,000, as I said during the last session of Home Office questions, but 500,000, as has been shown by further research. So bad was the backlog that there was even a room colloquially known as the “room of doom” into which cases were put. We will get the backlog down, and create a streamlined and efficient asylum system.
Oral Answers to Questions
Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)
Last week we set out plans to clear the initial decision backlog of asylum legacy cases by the end of next year. Over the summer and autumn, the Home Office reduced the number of older asylum cases by 11,000, and the number of asylum caseworkers has doubled.
Robert Jenrick
I would be interested in the views of any of our stakeholders, but the Prime Minister set out a very compelling case last week to radically re-engineer the end-to-end process, with fewer interviews, shorter guidance, less paperwork, specialist caseworkers by nationality, including tackling Albanian cases, and reforming modern slavery by reducing the cooling-off period from 45 to 30 days—all steps to clear the backlog as quickly as possible.
Vicky Foxcroft
One of my constituents arrived in the UK from Afghanistan and claimed asylum in September 2021. Despite my caseworkers making regular inquiries since August 2022, we have received no updates regarding the status of his application. He tells us that the situation has made him seriously depressed. Does the Minister agree that excessive wait times can have a hugely detrimental impact on mental health, and will he agree to look at this case in further detail?
Robert Jenrick
I would be happy to look at that case and any others that are brought to my attention. The backlog, however, is a symptom of the problem, which is that far too many people are crossing the channel illegally, and that is what this Government are determined to tackle. The hon. Lady and her Opposition colleagues have voted against every tough measure that we have sought to take in recent years. I hope that she will now get behind the measure that we are taking, the statement the Prime Minister made last week and, of course, our world-leading Rwanda partnership, which the Court today gave its agreement to.
Preventing Crime and Delivering Justice
Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Priti Patel
If I may, I will not comment on that specific example that has been given. Actually, I think the focus should be on the legislation that is coming forward in this House, where there are plenty of debates to be had, rather than making a point like that. I think it speaks to how the Opposition treat matters of national security, and the disdain that they show to the significance of the threats posed.
Priti Patel
I will not, because I need to make progress so that others can come in.
The national security Bill provides us with powers to tackle state threats at an earlier stage by criminalising conduct in preparation for state threats activity. It will also mean that other offences committed by those acting for a foreign state can be labelled as state threats and those responsible sentenced accordingly. When sentencing for offences outside of the Bill, judges will be required to consider any connection to state threat activity and reflect the seriousness of that when handing down a sentence. There is also a new range of measures to manage those who pose a threat but it has not been possible to prosecute them. The use of these measures will be subject to rigorous checks and balances, including from the courts, but we cannot be passive, sitting around until someone does something awful.
The Manchester bombing tore into the fabric of our freedom. It was a truly evil act that targeted people, many of them young or children, who were doing something that should have been a simple pleasure—attending a concert. The protect Bill will keep people safe by introducing new security requirements for certain public locations and venues to ensure preparedness for and protection from terrorist attacks. It will provide clarity on protective security and preparedness responsibilities for organisations as part of the protect duty, and it will bring an inspection and enforcement regime that will seek to educate, advise and ensure compliance with the duty. We have worked closely across Government with partners and victims’ groups, and I pay particular tribute to Figen Murray and the Martyn’s law campaign team for developing the proposals and working with us.
These Bills further establish the Conservative party as the party of law and order, as do all the actions I have taken since I became Home Secretary. The people’s priorities are our priorities. Those on the Opposition Benches have only two responses, which they alternate between. Whether we hear splenetic outrage or total silence, their warped worldview means they have plenty to say about the rights of lawbreakers, but nothing to offer the law-abiding majority. We await their plan for a fair and firm immigration system that rewards those in need, not evil people-smugglers.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I have to say, that was an astonishing refusal by the Home Secretary to take interventions and questions from the shadow Home Secretary and a shadow Cabinet Minister. I have been taking part in Queen’s Speech debates for 25 years and I have never seen a Government Minister at the Dispatch Box afraid to take questions from her opposite number—I have never seen that anywhere. She took questions from a few other Members; her predecessors always took questions from me. I wonder what she is so frightened of. All my questions would have been really factual—maybe that is what she was frightened of.
When the Prime Minister opened the Queen’s Speech debate yesterday, he did not mention crime—not once. Those of us out on the streets talking to residents in different communities across the country—an experience that was probably rather better on our side of the House than theirs this time—know that crime and antisocial behaviour were raised a lot, but the Prime Minister did not mention them once.
The cost of living, soaring bills and rising prices were top of people’s list, but they were followed by crime and antisocial behaviour and a real persistent concern that when crimes are being committed, too often, nothing is done. There was nothing in the Queen’s Speech to tackle rising bills and rising prices and also no serious plan to tackle rising crime and falling prosecutions. There was nothing from the Prime Minister yesterday about the basic issues bothering people across the country.
Vicky Foxcroft
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. It was a shame that the Home Secretary did not want to give way to me, because I wanted to ask her why, more than 30 minutes into her speech, there had been no mention of a public health approach to tackling serious violence, which has a long-term plan, addresses the root causes and is joined up. Perhaps the Government want to be tough on crime and not tough on the causes of crime.
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right to talk about the public health approach and the need to prevent crime and work across communities to do that.
Across the country, in the last few weeks alone, I have heard from residents and victims talking often about there being no action when things go wrong; about repeated vandalism not being tackled even though there is CCTV evidence of who is responsible; and about the victim of an appalling violent domestic attack who was told that it would not come to court for two years.
I have heard about repeated shoplifting where the police are so overstretched that they have stopped coming; about burglaries where all the victim got was a crime number; about scamming, where Action Fraud is such a nightmare to engage with that pensioners have given up trying to report serious crimes; about persistent drug dealing outside a school where nothing had been done months later; and about a horrendous rape case where the brave victim was strung out for so long and the court case was delayed so many times that she gave up because she could not bear it anymore.
I have heard about police officers tearing their hair out over Crown Prosecution Service delays because they know that the victim will drop out if they cannot charge quickly; about other officers who are working long hours to pick up the pieces when local mental health services fail but who know that that means that they cannot be there to deal with the antisocial behaviour on the street corner; and about women who no longer expect the police to help if they face threats of violence on the streets or in their homes. There is case after case after case where crimes are being committed but no one is being charged, cautioned or given a community penalty and no action is being taken—and it is getting worse.
Since the 2019 general election—in fact, since the Home Secretary was appointed—crime is up by 18% and prosecutions are down by 18%. The charge rate is now at a record low of 5.8% compared with 15.5% in 2015. Cautions and community penalties are down too, notwithstanding the Prime Minister and his Downing Street staff’s attempt to make valiant personal efforts to get those numbers back up again.
The Home Secretary made an astonishing claim. She said:
“We have reformed the criminal justice system so that it better supports victims and ensures that criminals are not only caught but punished.”
Where are the criminal justice reforms that are pushing the prosecution rates up? The prosecution rates have plummeted on the Conservatives’ watch, which means that under the Home Secretary and the Conservatives, hundreds of thousands more criminals are getting off and hundreds of thousands more victims are being let down.
Oral Answers to Questions
Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
Victoria Atkins
May I try to correct the hon. Lady? First, clearly everyone in the House has heard the account she has given of her constituent and the families affected in her constituency by knife crime. We understand and we express very seriously our commiserations to the families involved. However, I do think the hon. Lady has perhaps missed the news about the violence reduction units, which we are funding, particularly in London, to help the police work together with other agencies, local authorities, local groups and so on to try to tackle serious violence both with enforcement and, importantly, with local intervention projects. Again, I very much welcome the opportunity at some point of sitting her down to talk about the youth endowment fund, for example, and to explain how that will help young people in her local communities. This Government are not complacent about serious violence or the deaths she has described. We are working very hard with the police and with local communities to ensure that these terrible crimes stop.
Vicky Foxcroft
The Government have stated that they are committed to a public health approach to tackling violence affecting young people and the Minister has just mentioned the violence reduction units, yet our 18 violence reduction units only receive short-term funding settlements. The work these units do is extremely important in tackling the root causes of violence, but they cannot formulate long-term strategies without long-term funding, so what is the Home Secretary doing to ensure that the comprehensive spending review delivers on that?
Victoria Atkins
As the hon. Lady knows, because we have discussed this many times in the past, violence reduction units are a key part of our work to tackle serious violence. We are constrained within the current spending review, with the wider problems of the pandemic and the impact that has had on Government spending, but she will know that the Government have invested record amounts in these units to get them working across the country in the 18 areas most hit by serious violence. However, we are going further than that, because through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, we are imposing a serious violence duty on every single local area across the country, so that every single area is taking the public health approach that she so commends, and rightly so.
Policing and Prevention of Violence against Women
Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab) [V]
Peaceful assembly must be an absolute right in this country, and the actions of the police on Saturday were deeply troubling. I would like to highlight the use of kettling, in particular. Many disabled people and disabled people’s organisations have long raised concerns about the use of this controversial crowd control tactic, which in the past has been used for up to 10 hours, with serious potential health implications. What does the Home Secretary have to say to the many disabled people who fear this disproportionate policy?
Priti Patel
In response to the hon. Lady’s question about operational tactics—of which kettling is one, based on a police assessment around a situation, a protest or an event—the police themselves make judgments and decisions about the tactics that they use as part of their operations.
The hon. Lady raised an important point about disabled people who wish to express themselves by participating in protests. Of course, their needs can be met by working with the police, and many organisers talk to the police about the groups of people and the characteristics of individuals who are coming out to protest. This is not a one-size-fits-all approach. She will be well aware of the approach that the police take in engaging with organisers over protests.