Afghanistan Policy

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Diane Abbott

Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

May I thank my hon. Friend, who is an absolute stalwart in speaking up not only for his constituency, but his local council? He is very much putting his constituency on the map. I am delighted to support the great offers of Darlington Borough Council and other councils across the country. I encourage them to do whatever they can to help. We should not forget that we can all play our part, because we have the portal open on gov.uk, where we can register offers of donations, volunteering, English language lessons—whatever we can manage. Also, for those who are able, there is the specific accommodation portal, where people can offer accommodation.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I have listened with care to the Minister’s statement. Is she aware of how many British residents and passport holders will be very shocked to learn that the Government can offer them no information on their relatives trapped in Afghanistan, let alone help them get their relatives to safety? Perhaps she should write to us and say she has no information. At least that would help us shed some light for our constituents. On the question of bridging hotels, many of them are entirely unsuitable, such as business hotels that have one single member of a family in every room. Can she assure the House about the maximum length of time individuals will be in this bridging accommodation?

[Victoria Atkins]

Again, I regret that the right hon. Lady did not hear what I said earlier, which is that for those people in Afghanistan at the moment, it is a very fast-moving situation. At this point in time, I am not able to signpost constituents and parliamentarians in the way that I would normally be able to do, and that is one of the tough messages I have had to deliver today from the Dispatch Box. That does not mean that that will remain the case forever, and that is why the work of the FCDO, the Ministry of Defence and others in trying to secure safe passage out of Afghanistan is so critical.

In terms of bridging hotels, we have yet to complete the transfer of everybody from quarantine to bridging hotels, but the more offers of permanent accommodation we have, the sooner we will be moving people out of bridging accommodation. This is why we have to do things methodically, and this is why we are being very careful about the numbers of people we can welcome in the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Diane Abbott

Monday 15th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

May I thank the right hon. Gentleman, as I said, for the work that he and his colleagues did on the review? It was an extraordinary piece of work and very thorough, and I know that he was pleased that we were able to accept the majority of its recommendations. We absolutely accept the point about the public sector, and he will know that the Prime Minister recently made an important announcement to confirm that Departments will make modern slavery statements to ensure that their supply chains are free from slavery. As for the further details, I will write to the right hon. Gentleman in due course.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

We on the Labour Benches appreciate the progress that has been made on modern slavery thus far, but the House will be aware that there was recently a shocking case of agricultural slavery. A fresh produce supplier to major US supermarkets was using slave labour in its supply chain. Does the Minister accept that consumers who are conscious of issues such as organic production and sustainable food production will not appreciate unwittingly purchasing fresh food with slave labour in its production? Will the Government act more swiftly? We need faster action than she is suggesting to get proper business compliance with their modern slavery legislation.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am delighted that this is one of those issues that enjoys the support of Members from all parts of the House. The right hon. Lady will know from the announcements last week on our response to the independent review that we are very much seeking to toughen the regulations and requirements for the largest businesses. For what it is worth, some 75% of businesses that are in scope have set down a modern slavery statement, but we want to make it easier for civil society and others to judge how effectively businesses are doing, which is why we are looking into setting up a central Government registry to help that happen. We are conscious, too, of the role that non-governmental organisations can play in this space. Only last week, Oxfam released its new behind the barcode supermarket scorecard, which shows how the sector as a whole needs to step up activity to identify and rectify labour exploitation risks. I am delighted that many UK supermarkets have signed up to that.

Violent Crime

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Diane Abbott

Monday 17th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for the experience that he brings to the House from his shadow portfolios over the years. We have always said that stop and search is a vital tool for law enforcement. We are all conscious in this House that a few years ago there was a real problem regarding the trust that certain parts of our society felt in relation to stop and search, and we wanted to try to reassure communities. That reassurance is now there, particularly with the introduction of body-worn cameras. Victims’ families and others I speak to welcome the intelligence-led targeting of stop and search, as well as the section 60 search powers for moments when police action is necessary and needs to be immediate.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Another blood-stained weekend in the capital, and this morning four families will have woken up having lost a son, a brother or a father. The Minister is correct to say that there is no single answer, and we congratulate the Met police on its work over this horrible weekend that we have endured, but does she accept that any strategy to combat rising crime must include hiring more police officers?

I note that the level of complaints about stop and search has dropped, which is very important. As the Minister intimates, that is to do with the use of body-worn cameras, because there is no question but that in the past, indiscriminate stop and search undermined communities’ confidence in the police and therefore undermined the fight against crime.

In relation to the President of the United States implying that the Mayor of London is responsible for the rise in violent crime, the Mayor must be held to account like any other politician, but in 30 years in Parliament I have never heard a President of the United States reference a London Mayor at all. It is hard to escape the conclusion that President Trump may be singling out Sadiq Khan because he is of the Muslim faith. Does the Minister accept that if that were true, many people would find it distasteful?

[Victoria Atkins]

I welcome the fact that the right hon. Lady welcomes our action to ensure that stop and search has the trust of more people in communities. We see it as a vital tool within the portfolio of tools that police officers and others have. If she does not mind, I will decline to respond to the point about President Trump, for the simple reason that, as I know from the urgent question, we all have at the forefront of our minds today the four families who have been affected in the most terrible way this weekend. I hope she will forgive me if, today of all days, I do not dive into the political pool.

ISIS Members Returning to the UK

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Diane Abbott

Monday 18th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. May I join colleagues from across the House in reflecting on the fact that the debate follows upon the weekend’s terrible events in New Zealand and Surrey and, today, Utrecht. As has been said before, we will reflect on the fact that terrorism takes many forms but the purpose of terrorist acts is to undermine the rule of law, to frighten, and to put a stop to the values that we hold dear in western society. It is sickening that people choose to undermine our societies by killing the most innocent of people—people going about their daily lives, whether at a place of worship or in a car park as they go about their day-to-day business in a working day.

Many colleagues are in the main Chamber, focusing on the issue of far-right violence and online extremism, and bearing that in mind I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall) for the measured and balanced way in which he opened the debate. It is quite something that the petition has secured some 570,000 signatures which, as my hon. Friend told us, makes it the most heavily endorsed petition to have come before the House. It is with those great expectations of the public weighing heavily on our shoulders that I hope to answer some of the points raised today.

[Ms Abbott]

Can the Minister provide the House with figures about the number of far-right terrorists we are engaged with, or who are perhaps currently going through the Prevent programme?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am sorry; I was talking about the people who signed the petition. I do not understand the link. Perhaps the right hon. Lady could clarify.

[Ms Abbott]

I apologise to the Minister. I was referring to her earlier remarks about far-right terrorist responsibility for the atrocity in New Zealand. I wanted to understand whether she has figures available for the number of far-right terrorists whom Government agencies are currently engaged with, and who are passing through the Prevent programme. If she does not have the figures to hand I will quite understand, but perhaps she can write and furnish me with those figures.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am happy to provide that information. As the right hon. Lady knows, the Prevent programme, which I shall talk about later, focuses on the threats and risks posed by individuals regardless of the ideology under which they claim to be acting or which people who are worried about them, and who have referred them to the Channel programme under Prevent, are worried they are operating under. The Government have been clear that people of far-right tendencies are part of the programme and are being helped through it. We are clear that it is a matter of threat and risk. The efforts to stop radicalisation apply regardless of the false ideologies that people appear to subscribe to when they are put through the programme.

I thank other Members—including the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), who has paid particular attention to this subject during his parliamentary career—for their contributions and thoughtful comments on such matters as the passage of the most recent counter-terrorism Act, the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019.

The Government’s priority is the safety and security of the United Kingdom and the people who live here. That includes managing the risk posed by those who have gone to fight in Syria or Iraq or to support terrorist organisations such as Daesh or al-Qaeda. We have a range of powers and tools available to us to protect the UK from the national security risk posed by returning Daesh members. Members have referred to specific cases in their speeches, but I cannot as the Minister discuss individual cases in response, for many reasons including the possibility of related or future investigations or legal proceedings. Of course the Government never comment on the operational capabilities and methodologies of the security services, for obvious reasons.

All decisions that we make must be rooted firmly in British values and must be made in accordance with the law. That means that we cannot make people stateless, and UK nationals have the legal right to return to this country. However, anyone who returns from taking part in the conflict in Syria or Iraq can expect to be investigated by the police and prosecuted, where there is evidence that they have committed criminal offences that meet the requirements in the code for Crown prosecutors. About 900 people have travelled from the UK to engage with the conflict in Syria and Iraq, against the advice of the Foreign Office. Of those, approximately 20% have been killed in the conflict and about 40% have returned to the UK. They have all been investigated and the majority have been assessed to pose no or a low security risk. The hon. Member for Barrow and Furness asked about the number of foreign nationals who have been deported and I am afraid I do not have that information at hand, but I will ask the Security Minister to write to him with it.

We know that those who remain in the conflict zone include some of the most dangerous, who choose to stay to fight, to raise families or otherwise to support Daesh. They turned their back on this country to support a group that butchered and beheaded innocent civilians, including British citizens. Those individuals pose a greater threat to the UK than those who returned earlier in the conflict. They will have become desensitised to violence and may have received combat training and intense indoctrination. They will have had the opportunity to expand their terrorist network. Where they pose any threat to this country we will do everything in our power to prevent their return. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office advises against all travel to Syria and since 2011 there has been no consular support available to British nationals there. We are resolute that we will not put British officials’ lives at risk to assist those who have left the UK to join a proscribed terrorist organisation, and therefore we cannot and will not actively provide assistance to any individuals who have travelled to the region.

The Home Secretary can exclude non-British nationals from the UK, and under the British Nationality Act 1981 has the power to deprive any British national of citizenship status. Deprivation of citizenship is used in extreme cases where it is conducive to the public good and where it would not leave the individual stateless, which would be unlawful. Deprivation is a powerful tool that can be used to keep the most dangerous individuals out of this country. Each case will be considered based on the information that is available, regardless of gender, age or family status. Since 2010, the power has been used about 150 times for people linked to terrorism or serious crimes. I know that that is a matter of concern to colleagues, so I emphasise that Parliament has clearly set out the legislative basis for the exercise of the power, and that it is a decision to be taken by the Home Secretary. Removing an individual’s British citizenship is a weighty decision and, for that reason, it is a matter reserved to the Home Secretary. He takes those decisions in the light of carefully considered advice prepared by officials and lawyers. However, a statutory right of appeal is attached to each deprivation decision, and individuals can and do exercise that right, so that the courts can review the appropriateness of a decision independently.

Several colleagues have raised the issue of bringing to justice people who return to this country. My hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate did so on behalf of the petitioners, and the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness emphasised its importance. Those who have fought for or supported Daesh, whatever their nationality, should wherever possible face justice for their crimes in the most appropriate jurisdiction. Sometimes that is in the region where their offences have been committed.

Individuals who return will be investigated and, where there is evidence that crimes have been committed overseas, they should expect to face prosecution in the UK. There have been about 40 convictions of individuals prosecuted following their return from Syria for a range of offences, either connected with their activities overseas or as a result of subsequent CT investigations. That includes a 10-year custodial sentence for Mohammed Abdallah, a British national convicted in December 2017 of Daesh membership after leaked documents from a defector revealed his role as a specialist sniper, and a minimum of 40 years imposed on Khalid Ali, who was sentenced in 2018 for planning a terrorist attack in Westminster. I will, however, remind the Security Minister of the specific request by the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness.

In answer to questions posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate regarding new offences, or offences available for law enforcement and the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute, our courts could try cases involving overseas terrorism offences relevant to foreign fighters even before the recent extensions of extraterritorial jurisdiction in the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019. Those offences include preparation of terrorism, for which the maximum sentence is life imprisonment; encouragement of terrorism, the maximum sentence for which has been extended from seven to 15 years by the 2019 Act; training for terrorism, which also has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment; and membership of a proscribed organisation, which has a maximum sentence of 10 years.

Hon. Members also asked whether the Government are considering a new law of treason. That is a matter for debate and the Government have not yet reached a settled position, but our concern is that to prosecute terrorists for treason risks giving their actions a political status or a glamour that they do not deserve, rather than treating them merely as criminals. That is why we recently passed the 2019 Act, which updates terrorism offences and introduces new powers to reflect the threat we face today from foreign terrorist fighters, thus providing the police and intelligence services with the powers they need to protect the public. At this point, we do not believe there are grounds for introducing an offence of treason, but of course the Government keep all these matters under review.

It is of course for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to decide whether individuals should be prosecuted, in accordance with the code for Crown prosecutors. As has already been acknowledged, for crimes committed in a conflict zone where there is no national infrastructure and no police force taking section 9 witness statements or making notes about who said or did what, obtaining evidence admissible in a UK court is extremely difficult. That is the problem we have to face.

That is why, where prosecution is not possible, we have a range of powers available to protect national security and to monitor and manage the risk posed by terrorism suspects in the UK, including terrorism prevention and investigation measures and temporary exclusion orders to place conditions on individuals’ return, including regular reporting to a police station and mandatory attendance on our de-radicalisation programme. The best way to reduce the risk posed by these individuals will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Those decisions are based on advice and intelligence from the security services, counter-terrorism police where relevant, and specialist security and legal officials in the Home Office.

We publish statistics on the total number of TEOs in place in the annual “Disruptive and investigatory powers: transparency report”. Last week the Home Secretary asked officials to expedite the publication of the next transparency report, which will include the most up-to-date annual figures on disruptive and investigative powers, including TEOs and deprivation orders, because we recognise that it is a matter of great concern to the House.

The Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act updated our terrorism laws for the digital age and modern patterns of radicalisation, closing gaps in some existing offences and adding new ones, such as recklessly expressing support for a proscribed organisation, or publishing its flag or logo online. The Act also creates a new power to ban British citizens from entering designated terrorist hotspots without legitimate reason. The designated area offence, along with most of the Act’s provisions, will come into force automatically in April, two months after Royal Assent. Decisions to designate an area will be based on careful assessment of all relevant information, including sensitive intelligence as well as open-source information, while applying the tests of necessity and proportionality.

The hon. Member for Barrow and Furness raised the question of retrospectivity—an understandable point to make. This is where balance is required; our priority to protect the security of the United Kingdom must be within the confines of the rule of law. In line with normal judicial principles, the power will not be retrospective and it will not be possible to prosecute for travel to an area before it is designated, but it will be an offence to remain in an area after it has been designated, even if the person has been there for some time. Individuals will have one month to leave the area, following which they will face prosecution if they remain. I hope that goes some way towards answering his concerns.

These powers and tools send a clear message to individuals that membership of or support for terrorist organisations will not be tolerated. Of course, as has already been discussed, this is against the backdrop of the Prevent strategy, which seeks to help those who may be at risk of radicalisation and extremism and to put them on to another path of lawfulness, away from criminality and potentially terrorism offences, by ensuring that they are able to obtain help locally from Prevent officers and others to steer them on to that better path.

The UK is doing all it can to help innocent people caught up in this conflict. We have committed £2.8 billion to Syria since 2012—our largest ever response to a single humanitarian crisis—and we are on track to resettle 20,000 vulnerable refugees who have fled the country, with our national resettlement programmes resettling more than any other EU state in 2017. We do not have a consular presence within Syria from which to provide assistance. Our position therefore applies as much to children as it does to adults. However, if British children were able to seek consular assistance outside Syria, then we would work with local and UK authorities to facilitate their return.

Children returning from Syria are likely to have been exposed to the conflict and to have experienced trauma. In some circumstances they may also pose national security concerns that must be carefully managed. A range of specialised support, some of which is funded directly by the Home Office, is offered to address many concerns ranging from safeguarding to national security. Our support will be tailored to the needs of each individual child. Local authorities and the police can use existing safeguarding powers to protect returning children, support their welfare and reintegration back into UK society, and minimise any threat that they could pose within schools and to their local community.

[Ms Abbott]

On the question of children, which the Minister addressed a few sentences ago, we have seen that journalists, aid workers and United Nations officials can go in and out of Syrian refugee camps. Why is it so impossible to make arrangements to protect British children?

[Victoria Atkins]

As the right hon. Lady knows, and as I have said twice already, we do not have a consular presence in Syria. The firm advice of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is that it is not safe to travel there. I know that journalists and aid workers travel there against that advice, and they must take that decision very carefully and seriously. However, we are clear that we do not wish to put British officials at risk in a part of the world that we have designated as so dangerous that we have withdrawn consular support from it.

[Ms Abbott]

I am well aware that the Government advise people that it is not safe to travel to Syria. However, the Minister will be aware that children, particularly those who may only be a few months old, are not in a position to abide by that advice. I ask her again: would it not be possible, working with NGOs, to get these very young—often weeks or months old—British children out to the nearest British consular presence, which may be on the border with Turkey?

[Victoria Atkins]

First and foremost, we do not want babies to be born in war zones, so the longer-term answer is that we do not want people traveling to Syria in the first place. It is not good for them and it is against clear FCO advice; we have clearly advised people for some years not to travel to the area. As I have already set out, if children are in a camp, it may well be that aid workers and others seek access. That is against our advice. I am afraid we cannot put officials at risk in that way.

This is very difficult—I do not think that anyone pretends otherwise—but Syria is in a part of the world from which we have withdrawn consular support, and anyone going there does so against Foreign Office advice. Given the situation in the region, everyone who returns from Syria or certain parts of Iraq, including some children, must expect to be investigated by the police, to determine whether they have committed criminal offences, to assess any safeguarding concerns and to ensure that they do not pose a threat to our national security.

Before I bring my remarks to a close, I note the completely reasonable comments that have been made about the role of social media and tech companies in this regard. Colleagues will know that the Home Office and others are working with tech companies to ensure that they clean up their own backyards. We have seen some progress by some of the major technology companies, including the development of technology that can automatically detect and take down terrorist content. However, such material continues to remain accessible. More needs to be done.

As part of our efforts to prevent the dissemination of terrorist content online, the Government are not only preparing a White Paper on online harms, but working with those in the advertising industry to make them more aware of the types of content that is appearing online, and to highlight that their advertisements may unknowingly appear next to that harmful content. I must say that the industry response has been very positive, and I hope that we will see some real change over the coming months. However, as this weekend has shown, there is a great challenge to the tech companies to ensure that, when invidious material is placed on their platforms, they remove it as quickly as possible, so that it cannot be forwarded or embedded in the web.

I conclude by thanking the 570,000 people who felt moved to sign the petition, causing us to debate this important issue again in the House. The Government’s priority is to ensure the safety and security of the United Kingdom and the vast majority of our citizens who continue to uphold our shared values. We will not allow anything to jeopardise that.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered E-petition 231521 relating to ISIS members returning to the UK.

Knife Crime

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Diane Abbott

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary to make a statement on the crisis of knife crime.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

The Home Secretary flew to Brussels last night to participate in the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council, the significance of which at this time I am sure colleagues across the House will recognise. He asked me to respond to this urgent question on his behalf.

The senseless killings in recent days, and the too many others before them, have rightly shocked the country. Our thoughts and sympathies are with the families of all the victims and everyone affected. There is no denying the urgency of this issue. Day in, day out, we are acting to end the bloodshed. At the start of the week, the Home Secretary came to the House to set out our approach to serious violence. He said there was no single solution and that we had to unite and fight on all fronts to stop the slaughter.

We are taking a tough law enforcement approach with our Offensive Weapons Bill, which is going through Parliament, and we have listened to what the police tell us they need and at their request are introducing knife crime prevention orders in that Bill. We are also increasing police funding by up to £970 million next year, including council tax, and police and crime commissioners are planning to recruit hundreds of new officers as a result.

We recognise, though, that we cannot arrest our way out of this. In the serious violence strategy, we announced a multi-agency approach, and we will consult very soon on a statutory public health duty of care to ensure that all agencies that can and must work on this play their part. We are also investing more than £220 million in early intervention projects to stop the most vulnerable being sucked into a life of violence and addressing the drivers of crime, including the drugs trade, with the launch of our independent drugs review.

Day in, day out, we, the police and others are acting across the country to try to stop the bloodshed. We continue to look for new ways to tackle this epidemic. Yesterday, I attended a serious violence summit with senior police officers hosted by the Home Secretary as part of our continuing work under the serious violence strategy. Consulting those on the frontline is vital to making sure our next steps are effective. While lives are being lost, we are determined to do even more to stop knife crime and serious violence. We owe it to our young people and our communities to get this right.

[Ms Abbott]

We have had several days of newspaper headlines on knife crime, but does the Minister accept that for families and communities up and down the country this is not just a few days of newspaper stories; this is their lives? It is every mother’s worst nightmare: they say goodbye to their son in the morning and the next call they get is from the emergency services telling them their child is the victim of violent crime.

On police numbers, does the Minister accept that it is a question not just of police officers on patrol, but of community policing, safer school partnerships and police officers working with our diverse communities? Does she agree with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Cressida Dick, who says there is a clear correlation between the fall in police numbers and the rise in violent crime, including knife crime, or does she agree with her Prime Minister, who denies any such correlation? Does she agree with the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who said of the Prime Minister:

“I don’t think she listens, quite frankly, to what she’s being told”?

Does the Minister accept that many people will find the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s suggestion that the police only have to move resources from other areas to fight knife crime, monstrous and an insult to grieving families? The police are under pressure in nearly every area. Our constituents know this from the delays in responding to 999 calls—not just a few hours, but sometimes the next day—and they know when they ring up to say they have seen people selling drugs or other criminality on the street that the police do not have the resources to respond. We need more resources for the police, and we need them now.

Yesterday, the Home Secretary met police chiefs from seven forces and others. Since 2010, Tory Governments have cut more than 9,000 officers from those forces alone. Did the Home Secretary apologise to them? Did he offer them extra resources? Is the Minister able to tell us?

In 2009, the Home Affairs Committee published a comprehensive appraisal of what needs to be done to fight knife crime. We know about the success of what has been done in Glasgow. Does the Minister accept that what frightened communities, families and mothers need is not more hand-wringing, not more summits, not more committees, and not more reviews? They want the Government to put the necessary resources into the youth service, into work with excluded children, into strengthening mental health services for young people and adolescents, and, above all, into the police service. Only then will the public believe that the Government are taking the knife crime epidemic seriously.

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments. She knows from the many debates that we have had on this matter, and the many occasions on which she and I and Home Office Ministers have discussed it, that we all recognise the great fear, worries and concerns of mums and dads in certain parts of the country that have been suffering from these crimes for some time. That is precisely why we issued the serious violence strategy last year. [Interruption.] The right hon. Lady is chuntering at me. I am trying to answer her questions.

It is because of that fear that we are putting so much effort into supporting local charities, through both our anti-knife crime community fund and our early intervention youth fund, to help young people and children and their families. We are also working on the youth endowment fund, which will invest some £200 million over 10 years to support projects to intervene on young people and protect them from being ensnared by gang leaders.

The right hon. Lady was right to raise the issue of resources. Only a couple of weeks ago we voted to increase police resources by nearly £1 billion, and I am sorry that she did not feel able to vote for that. Police funds were increased last year, and will be increased again next year.

The right hon. Lady talked about summits and meetings and so on. The point of those is getting the right people into the room to tackle this issue together. As we all know, there is no single simple solution. I wish that there were, but the issue is very complex. That is why there are both short-term and longer-term measures in the strategy, which meets with the approval of the police and others with whom we engage to try to crack this problem.

I very much hope that today we will yet again hear fruitful, constructive and non-partisan comments about this topic, because it is affecting every single one of our constituencies. We need to work together to get it right, because when I meet victims and their families they want to hear what we are doing, not what our conversations across the Dispatch Box are about.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Diane Abbott

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

I am pleased that there has been some progress—albeit, as my hon. Friend describes, in small steps—in the inquiry in Telford. The fact that an inquiry chair has been advertised bodes well for the process overall, but as a good constituency MP she will continue to pressure the local council to ensure that it continues its work expeditiously.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Ministers will remember that last Monday the Home Secretary said:

“We must, of course, observe international law, and we cannot strip someone of their British citizenship if doing so would leave them stateless. Individuals who manage to return will be questioned, investigated and, potentially, prosecuted.”—[Official Report, 18 February 2019; Vol. 654, c. 1193.]

Ministers will be aware that the Opposition think that the latter would have been the correct course of action. By Wednesday, however, the Home Secretary had stripped Shamima Begum of her citizenship rights. Can he share with the House whether he contacted the Bangladeshi high commissioner or the Bangladeshi Government before taking this decision?

Knife Crime Prevention Orders

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Diane Abbott

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I am bound to say that I agree with my right hon. Friend, if he is congratulating himself. I thank him for his contribution and of course recognise the work that he did as Mayor of London. I sit here alongside the Policing Minister, who is also the Minister for London, and the joined-up work between the Government and the Mayor of London’s office is critical in tackling this. Stop and search is a vital tool in the police’s armoury, but it is not the only answer. That is why our approach on early intervention—including the Home Secretary securing £200 million from the Chancellor recently to set up the long-term youth endowment fund—will, I hope, absolutely give the results that the House expects. However, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) is absolutely right: there is no room for complacency, which is why, in addition to these very long-term projects, we also have much shorter-term, immediate projects such as knife crime prevention orders, which will have a very real effect very quickly on the streets of our cities and rural areas.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Does the Minister accept that with knife crime at record levels, the public at home will be very disappointed that the Home Secretary could not find the time to be in the Chamber today for this urgent question? Opposition Members appreciate that knife crime prevention orders are an attempt to intervene without criminalising, but does the Minister accept that the problems of knife crime and other types of violent crime are as much about capacity as the law? When we say “capacity”, it is a question of not only the number of police officers, which has dropped under this Government, but the capacity in the youth service. I was in Wolverhampton last week, where the youth service has been decimated. People said to me over and over again that they report those they believe to be drug dealers and what they believe to be young people carrying knives, and they get no response because of a lack of police capacity.

Does the Minister accept that although the announcement of knife crime prevention orders was preceded by the Home Secretary’s declaration in October last year that the Government are adopting a public health approach to violent crime, it is simply not clear how knife crime prevention orders fit into that? How is this a public health approach that is supposed to address the underlying causes as well as tackling criminals? We are told that suspects as young as 12 will be on curfew and deprived of their liberty and access to social media. These are only suspects. Are any of these measures based on evidence? If so, what is that evidence? Will the new orders be subject to appeal or review? In addition, what measures are in place to ensure that those deprived of internet access do not simply open up another account using different personal details?

The head of the violent crime taskforce said

“we cannot enforce our way out of this—prevention and intervention is the key”.

We do not reject out of hand these knife crime orders. The House will study them when they come to Committee, but we want to see more from Government than token changes in the law. We want to see real intent and real resources behind prevention and intervention, because the lives of young people in our cities depend on that.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am pleased the right hon. Lady appears to support these orders. The Mayor of London also supports them. This is what I mean when I talk about a cross-party consensus. People out there, including the bereaved families I meet, such as the Goupall family, whom I met last week, are not interested in the back and forth over the Dispatch Box; they want us to work together to stop this happening, and so I welcome her support for the orders.

As I am sure the right hon. Lady knows, having read our serious violence strategy, we have set out the factors that we believe underpin the rise in serious violence. We note, for example, that other countries across the world have seen similar rises. Last year, we held an international conference to discuss with other law enforcement agencies and healthcare providers across the world what they were doing to tackle serious violence, because of course we want to learn from other people’s experiences.

On intervention, we are as one; we want to intervene earlier. Families worried about their children and young people walking around, whether in London or further afield, want us to deliver results. That is the absolute reason for the strategy and the serious violence taskforce, which, as I said, is a cross-party initiative—I am extremely grateful to Members across the House for helping us with it.

I should have said to the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) that I very much take on board his point about the House being updated more regularly on what we are doing. I am conscious that we are busy working quietly in the background with our partners, and I agree that we should inform the House more, so I undertake to do so.

Public Health Model to Reduce Youth Violence

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Diane Abbott

Thursday 13th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

I thank my hon. Friend for his important intervention.

Nick Alston, the former Conservative police and crime commissioner for Essex, has said that austerity has had a negative impact on crime. The reality is that too many of this Government’s policies, particularly austerity, have exacerbated some of the underlying causes of the drift to criminality in our young people.

The issue of drill music has been raised. The Minister will be aware that, for as long as anyone can remember, people have sought to blame the music that young people listen to for their bad behaviour. Much of the drill music and videos are horrifying and appalling, but at the end of the day, the music is a reflection of those young people’s lives and realities. It is not a cause of violent crime.

[Victoria Atkins]

To clarify, I was not claiming that the music causes serious violence. From a safeguarding perspective, and as mums, surely we want to keep our children safe and protect them. We need to have a debate about what sort of music and videos we, as mothers, want our children to be listening to and watching. At the moment, I do not know where that line is. There are clear cases where violence has been incited. I appreciate that there is a grey area, and there may be terminology that we do not like, but do we, as mums, still want our children to be watching those videos? That is the point I was making.

[Ms Abbott]

As a mother, let me gently tell the Minister that what we want our children to view online and what they actually view online are two different things. If she is concerned about safeguarding children, maybe she should spend some time lobbying Education Ministers to make more money available for education, particularly in the areas with the biggest incidence of violent youth crime.

We respect the Minister’s genuineness, but we feel that the Government have not done enough to promote a genuine public health approach to violent crime, let alone fund it. They mouth the phrase, and they set up committees and commissions, but in reality, their policies tend more towards an Americanisation of our police and the notion that we can arrest our way out of this crisis than the public health approach, which we have seen successfully implemented in other nations of Britain.

To our police officers—the women and men we rely on to uphold the law—I want to say this: we respect the work you do, and we are grateful for the way you put your lives at risk fighting crime, including violent crime, but we urge you not to be taken in by this Government. They are not defending you; they are cutting your numbers. They are not defending you when they ask you to go on routine armed patrols.

Let us have a serious discussion about tackling violent crime, addressing the causes of crime and what our actual police needs are and how to meet them. Above all, I look forward to an ongoing debate about what a real public health approach to policing would be. I would welcome never again having to meet a mother whose son has died because of violent crime. After all, if we in this House cannot take practical measures to protect young people and communities from violent crime, what are we doing?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Diane Abbott

Monday 4th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point, and I also thank the all-party parliamentary group on prostitution and the global sex trade for its report. I know that my hon. Friend is a member of that group. The Government are committed to tackling the harm and exploitation that can be associated with prostitution. Those who want to leave should have every opportunity to do so. We have provided more than £2 million to organisations supporting prostitutes and sex workers, and we are now funding a study to look into the scale and nature of prostitution.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

With reference to the earlier questions on how the cap on tier 2 visas is depriving the NHS of much-needed doctors, the visa cap is damaging the NHS at a time when it is already facing a doctor shortage of 10,000 and an overall staff shortage of more than 100,000. The Home Office is turning away doctors the NHS needs because it is unable to breach the cap. Ministers have referred to briefings in the press in the past few days, but does the Secretary of State appreciate that the NHS needs him to come forward as a matter of urgency and say that he is prepared to review the workings of the cap to allow us to recruit those doctors?

G4S: Immigration Removal Centres

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Diane Abbott

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the renewal of G4S’s contract to run the Brook House and Tinsley House immigration removal centres.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

The Government have agreed a short-term continuation of G4S’s contract to run the Gatwick immigration removal centres while further work is carried out to identify a long-term manager. The Home Office will launch a further, full competition later this year, after the outcome of two independent reviews. The contract for the management of Brook House and Tinsley House, which was due to expire this month, was put out for tender in November 2016. However, after careful consideration of the bids, it was decided that G4S would continue with the contract for a further two years. This will provide sufficient time to reflect on the two independent reviews’ conclusions, conduct a new procurement exercise, and mobilise the successful provider. As with any procurement process, the Home Office has undertaken a robust evaluation of all bids, supported by a comprehensive due diligence process.

I recognise that the Government have taken this decision against the backdrop of the BBC “Panorama” programme on Brook House, which was broadcast in autumn last year. The previous Home Secretary made it clear at the time that the behaviour on display from some G4S staff was utterly unacceptable and set out our expectation that G4S would take urgent action to address the serious issues the programme uncovered. G4S has put in place a comprehensive action plan and this has quickly delivered improvements at Brook House. My right hon. Friend the Immigration Minister has met G4S to review progress, and visited the two Gatwick centres on 18 January.

Detaining those who are here illegally and who refuse to leave voluntarily is key to maintaining an effective immigration system. But regardless of status, all immigration detainees must be treated with dignity and respect. Please be assured that we will always demand the highest standards from those we entrust with the safety and welfare of those in detention.

[Ms Abbott]

Is the Minister aware of the concern that the Government put out news of the renewal of the G4S contract on the Friday between local elections and a bank holiday? There must be a suspicion that the Government were hoping to escape scrutiny—the fact that the contract was renewed at all is an even greater scandal.

The Minister mentioned the “Panorama” programme, but is she aware of a whole list of scandals in which G4S has been involved? In 2016, the BBC’s “Panorama” programme also uncovered alleged abuse and mistreatment of youngsters at a G4S youth detention centre; in November 2017, an independent report found surging levels of violence were “unsafe”; another G4S facility, HMP Birmingham, was hit by riots in December 2016; and G4S was fined at least 100 times for breaching its contract to run prisons between 2010 and 2016. There is also the very well-known case of father of five Jimmy Mubenga, who died under restraint on a British Airways plane while being deported. Several witnesses said he was held down in his seat for more than half an hour by G4S guards. His cries that he could not breathe were ignored until he actually stopped breathing. A 2011 inquest ruled his death unlawful. We have seen with the Windrush scandal that the public want an immigration system that is fair and efficient, and that bears down on illegal immigration, but they also want an immigration system that is humane. Many will feel that, given what people know about G4S’s record, renewing this contract, even for two years, is not commensurate with a humane system of dealing with migrants.

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the right hon. Lady for the urgent question. Let me reassure her that the decision to re-award the contract was taken during purdah and so we announced this on the first available opportunity after polling day on Thursday—the announcement was made on Friday. I hope that assuages her concerns as to why this has not happened more timeously. I am very conscious that I am being scrutinised here in the House, so I do not think the Government can be accused of escaping scrutiny.

As for the re-procurement process, it is precisely because we want to ensure that the long-term contract for these centres is dealt with in the way we expect that we have put in place this short-term continuation, for a period of two years. That will enable us to consider carefully the results of the independent reviews conducted by Stephen Shaw and Kate Lampard, and then build the procurement process. At the risk of striking a tone that is unusual to hear in the Chamber, we can agree across the House that we wish to have an immigration system that respects those who abide by the rules and that treats people fairly and with dignity and respect.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Diane Abbott

Monday 8th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

Very much so. My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that health places were used as places of safety in more than 26,000 cases last year, compared with 1,029 cases of using cells, but we are determined to try to sort this out.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

On the question of detention, the Minister will have read recent reports that immigration detainees are being paid £1 an hour. Will the Minister assure the House that no children are currently being held in detention, that no pregnant women are currently being held in detention and that no one is being paid below the legal minimum wage in any of the immigration detention centres?

[Victoria Atkins]

As I say, we are determined to ensure that places of safety are in appropriate places—health places—and we are investing £30 million to try to ensure that happens. If there are any individual cases that the right hon. Lady would like to bring to my attention, I will of course consider and review them very carefully.

UK Elections: Abuse and Intimidation

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Diane Abbott

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Ms Abbott]

We will have to agree to disagree.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Abbott]

I am afraid I cannot give way, because I am mindful of the time.

The type of racist and sexist abuse I get is not tied to any events in this particular election campaign. This is not about just politicians or even women politicians. Any woman who goes into the public space can expect that type of abuse. People will remember how Mary Beard, the historian, received horrible abuse online because she was on “Question Time”.