Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Robert Jenrick

Thursday 6th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I would be happy to do so. The hon. and learned Lady makes an important point. She has got the point, if I may say so, that sadly we will not be able to help every Afghan judge, but if we can signpost them to other countries that may be able to help, we will of course be pleased and keen to do so.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

I, too, thank my hon. Friend for her excellent work on the scheme thus far. As was implied by the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), the long-term success of the scheme will depend on the Minister and the Government persuading local authorities to participate and on giving them the tools to succeed. That is more difficult than it was with the Syrian scheme because local authorities currently have literally tens of thousands of people, mostly asylum seekers, in hotel accommodation. There are currently 60,000 to 80,000 individuals—almost a constituency-worth of people—in hotels. What is my hon. Friend going to do to persuade local authorities throughout the United Kingdom to participate and to ensure that they have the funding and support that they need to do so?

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his role at the beginning of Operation Warm Welcome. He did an enormous amount to energise and persuade councils of the benefits they could derive from having new citizens in their local areas. We are looking at a wealth of options to try to address the housing needs that my right hon. Friend has articulated so well. Those options range from the generous funding package that we have set out for some months now under the resettlement scheme to approaches such as a jobs-first approach—namely, trying to match jobs with those Afghans who feel able to work, and with accommodation. We are seeing whether we can get help from employers to offer accommodation as part of their employment offer and we are using the likes of Rightmove and others to tap into the private rental market so that we get these people into permanent homes as quickly as possible.

Representation of the People (Young People’s Enfranchisement and Education) Bill

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Robert Jenrick

Friday 3rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I am delighted that the hon. Lady has raised that point, because it is going to be my final point, and I will deal with it then.

At 18, with civic rights, such as the right to vote, comes civic responsibility. At 18, for the first time, a person can sit on a jury in judgment on their peers. An 18-year-old can be called up to the Old Bailey, just down the river, and sit in judgment on a teenage peer accused of murder. How on earth can we give 16-year-olds the extraordinary privilege of voting in our democracy—and it is a privilege; we could, frankly, be a bit tougher about requiring people to vote—and then say, “You have that right and yet you do not have the responsibility of sitting on a jury”?

[Robert Jenrick]

When the United Nations drew up the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which almost every country in the world—other than the United States, I think—has signed up to, there was a debate on the issue of child protection and when a child becomes an adult. Every country in the entire world other than the United States—with very different cultures, as one can imagine—came to the conclusion that 18 was the right age for declaring a child to have become an adult. That was in 1989. It has been debated many times since by the United Nations, which has always concluded—while it is difficult to judge—that 18 is the appropriate age to consider that a child turns into an adult.

[Victoria Atkins]

I completely agree. That goes to the point about protection. I am not saying for a moment that 16-year-olds are not capable of forming judgments, and I hope that no Labour Member tries to misrepresent me, because if they do, I will intervene on them. My hon. Friend is exactly right—it is about a gradation of protections moving away until the person reaches the age of 18.