Refugees from Ukraine

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

It is disappointing that the right hon. Lady needs to be dragged here to make the process simpler and quicker. A lot of the people in this country will not understand why it is so complicated. She has already responded to the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) on why we cannot just let people come here and have the checks done here, as we do for millions of visitors from non-visa countries. So will she at least commit to looking into whether that is possible, because Ukrainians who flee war have gone through days and weeks of trauma and exhaustion, and they deserve to be treated better?

[Priti Patel]

I have always made it abundantly clear in the House that our approach is always under review —it is under review for a range of issues, for example, as the situation changes or the security threat level changes. The hon. Lady has just asked why we cannot just let people through. There is a range of advice that I have to consider. Having considered all the advice and looked at the approach we can take, my priority has been to streamline the approach. Clearly, it is not appropriate to keep sending people who do not necessarily need to go to visa application centres to those centres. We can now prioritise those who are more vulnerable and do not have documentation, and we want to focus on those individuals. The final point to make is that not only are we as a country generous in our approach to people fleeing persecution, but this is how the Government’s approach has always been, in terms of safe routes, legal routes, Afghan refugees and British nationals overseas who have come to the UK. That has been at the heart of the Government’s work. For every crisis that takes place in the world there is no single solution. We have to develop bespoke solutions, which is what we have done.

HMICFRS Recommendations

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

My hon. Friend is totally right: improving how the police, the CPS and all parts of the system work together is vital to improving victims’ experiences and bringing more rapists to justice. Other measures that we have introduced, such as those in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, will bring in stronger sentences to act as a deterrent. I am always happy to update the House on the groundbreaking work of Operation Soteria, which is led by the Deputy Prime Minister.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I welcome the Government’s intention to take violence against women and girls seriously at last. I put on record my disappointment that yesterday the Government did not agree to the Lords amendment to make misogyny a hate crime, but there we go.

Further to the question asked by the hon. Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt), will the Minister support my private Member’s Bill coming before Parliament next week? My Bill would establish an independent review of rape conviction rates and the effect on victims of rape, and it would make sure that the Government act on the review’s requirements.

Ukraine

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Infiltration is one aspect, but there is much wider security and intelligence information that points to why we need these checks. We know—I have said it already in this House—what Putin is capable of in terms of threats to our own homeland security. We saw that with Salisbury. People have died in our country, and it is right that we ensure we check those who come to the United Kingdom.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

A considerable number of the 650,000 refugees from Ukraine will try to make it to the UK. I welcome the support that the Government have announced and the compassionate words that the Home Secretary has used today, but I worry that under the current provisions of the Nationality and Borders Bill, those Ukrainians would be criminalised, because they would be passing through another country to get here. I sincerely hope that the Government will look at the provisions of the Bill again and look at supporting the Lords amendment to remove clause 11.

My question is this: I have a constituent with adult stepchildren and grandchildren in Ukraine who we hope to bring over, so can the Home Secretary confirm that the scheme she has announced today will include stepchildren and grandchildren?

[Priti Patel]

I absolutely reject the hon. Lady’s comments about round the Nationality and Borders Bill, because this is the equivalent of a safe route and it is a Government-sponsored scheme. The answer to her question is yes, it is a Ukrainian families scheme.

Channel Crossings in Small Boats

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. No one can dispute the fact that those who are seeking to claim asylum should do so in the first safe country. That is a long-standing principle, and it is one that we stand by.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Clearly, this country was far more successful in dealing with illegal immigration as a member of the European Union than it is now, with five people removed compared with 263 before we left. In her answer to the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), the Home Secretary was not very clear about the successor agreement to the Dublin regulation, so will she clarify who would be responsible for negotiating any such agreement? Is it the EU Commission or individual member states?

[Priti Patel]

It is the EU Commission.

Nightclub Safety

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Monday 8th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Geraint Davies]

rose—

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

rose—

[Mr Baker]

Suddenly we are having a debate.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I totally respect what the hon. Gentleman says. Of course, we should not undo the fact that many men behave well and are decent towards women. However, we have a culture where women are not treated with respect where, through banter and all sorts of things, it goes into more horrible and violent behaviour. It is the underlying and, unfortunately, still prevalent culture of disrespect to women that we need to address.

[Mr Baker]

As I have said, my instinct is with the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Gower, but I have been asked to swallow my pride and to not demand that fellow men as a class change their behaviour; it is men who commit wicked acts who need to change. It is men whose attitudes towards women are appalling who need to change. It is people who do wicked things who need to change, and we need to be a bit careful about painting all men as some kind of criminals.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Going out and having fun is an important part of everyone’s life. We need it for our general wellbeing, to switch off from our busy working lives, and for our social lives. Nobody should be excluded from it, or live in fear that their night out will turn into a nightmare. Why should so many women live with that fear when most men do not?

I am fully behind the many women, including those in my constituency in Bath, who have taken to the streets or boycotted nightclubs to campaign against the rise of spiking incidents. Just imagine the fear and trauma of suddenly losing control of your body on a night out: your vision becomes blurry; you feel dizzy or sick; your memory disappears. You wake up in the morning with no recollection of how you got home, or with a fear that something really bad happened that you cannot even remember.

Spiking is predominantly an attack on women, and happens primarily to young women. One of my constituents wrote to me to say,

“not only have I been spiked myself—so have two of my close friends and nameless other girls I know”.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council has reported almost 200 confirmed incidents of drink spiking across the UK in the past two months alone. Reports of spiking by needle have added an extra layer of fear, and I completely agree with the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) that those reports need to be treated with much more severity, because they represent another level of crime. Those recent reports are not isolated incidents: data shows that drink spiking has been a growing problem in the UK for several years. Over 2,600 reports of spiking have been made to the police in England and Wales between 2015 and 2019, and that number may just be the tip of the iceberg, as many who have been spiked do not come forward.

Some have called for increased police presence in venues, or searches upon entry to night-time venues, but I am not sure that that is the right approach to stamping out spiking once and for all. As we have seen with stop and search policies under the Government’s hostile environment policy, increased police presence and searches often end up disproportionately affecting marginalised communities. We need a solution that considers the impact on all groups within our society. However, the Government should act urgently to make night-time venues safer for everybody. Spiking test strips should be made freely available at every venue; if necessary, that should be backed by Government funding. Police and venue staff should be given specific training to spot the signs of spiking so that they can give proper support when incidents occur. I urge the Minister to convene a conference of senior police officers from forces across the country as soon as possible. We need to get a complete picture of what is happening and draw up a national action plan on spiking, particularly the urgent issue of spiking by injection.

There is an epidemic of violence against women, and the rise in spiking incidents is simply the latest manifestation of that. We need to get to the root causes of why so many women are still regarded as inferior or, worse, a target for hate. Again, I agree with the hon. Member for Gower—

[Mr Steve Baker]

Wycombe!

[Wera Hobhouse]

I mean the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker)—I am terrible with names. We need to bring everybody with us in order to achieve behavioural change—I do get it—but we also need to call out what needs to be called out, which is that this behaviour is increasing, and it is predominantly a crime committed by men against women. We cannot paint that fact out of the picture, but we absolutely need to have men on our side, and we need men to find this behaviour despicable. I know that many men, particularly in this Chamber, find it despicable and are on our side as women to stamp it out.

I repeat my call to the Minister to make misogyny a hate crime. The culture that allows crimes such as spiking to continue without sanction must change. Women must be given confidence that the system is not stacked against them, and must feel confident that those who are perpetrators of disrespect and hate against women are being brought to justice. That starts by making misogyny a hate crime, but today we are talking about spiking, so I look for leadership and urgent action from the Government. They should call a conference of all senior police officers across the country in order to get a proper picture, and listen to what the young women who have been affected by this despicable crime are asking for.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

I agree, although I have to say that even that kind of spiking is not necessarily a new phenomenon. I am a little old for nightclubs now—actually, I am not—but I remember there being a similar phenomenon. The Minister, whose constituency is a near neighbour of mine—at certain points she has been a nearer neighbour as a representative in Birmingham—will remember that there was a story about a particular nightclub in Birmingham. It is no longer there, so I can name it and not bring it into any disrepute—it was called The Dome. There were all these stories about pinpricks, and I am talking 20 years ago.

I do not know whether this new form of spiking is a new phenomenon, but the thing is that we do not know. What women know, and what my hon. Friend the Member for Gower and the petition are suggesting, is that they are seeking some level of security so that they can go into a place and feel safe. We can never stop all harm; we cannot. However, I really hope to hear from the Minister some tangible asks and action about how we will make sure people can feel safe.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Does the hon. Member feel, as I do, that there might be a fatality at some point? Then we would think, why do we always wait until something really dreadful happens before we take action?

[Jess Phillips]

Every single constituency Member of Parliament who has ever tried to get any sort of road safety measure in and has been told that they have to wait until somebody dies on that street hears the call of the hon. Member for Bath. I am afraid to say that a woman is murdered every three days in the UK by violence against women and girls; if that was happening at football matches in our country, football matches would be banned. The reality is that even if somebody does die in these circumstances, I do not think that will be what suddenly changes things. I want to hear from the Minister what exactly the Government will do to make it so that women can feel safe, and that perpetrators are the ones who are scared?

Violence Against Women and Girls: Police Response

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I am obviously sorry to hear of the experiences of the hon. Lady’s constituent. The Government are doing a great deal of work in examining the treatment of rape victims, but the hon. Lady has raised a specific case, and of course I should be happy to meet her and discuss it with her.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I, too, welcome the Minister to her place. I have listened carefully to these exchanges, and I understand that she sincerely wants to tackle the issues, but I think that what we on these Benches are asking is for the piecemeal approach to end and for the Government to deal with the root causes of the problem. Will they finally tackle the root causes of violence against women and girls, and legislate to make misogyny a hate crime?

[Rachel Maclean]

If the hon. Lady is serious about tackling the root causes, she will understand that we need a whole-system approach—a societal approach—and it is impossible to do justice to that in these exchanges. The violence against women and girls strategy sets it out in considerable detail, and the inspectorate report pulls out some key themes. We are looking across the piece at all the actions that we need to take. We are taking this seriously: that is why we have passed the Domestic Abuse Act, created the VAWG strategy, and appointed the national policing lead. However, there is a great deal of work still to be done, and I am determined to do it.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 19th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I believe everyone wants to tackle people smuggling, human trafficking and dangerous trips across the channel. The only way to do that is the one thing that the Bill does not do: to provide safe legal routes to sanctuary in the UK. Instead, the Bill treats asylum seekers more harshly, despite no evidence that such an approach will stop them trying to come here.

The Home Office has been treating asylum seekers abysmally for years, keeping them in unsafe accommodation, making them wait months for a decision on their claim, banning them from working and forcing them to rely on little more than £5 a day. If cruelty were the answer, the problem would have been solved long ago.

What about the legal routes to asylum that the Government promised? The number of people granted asylum in the UK fell by 46% last year. The number of children granted asylum fell by 55%. The Government’s new scheme, which opened in March, resettled 25 refugees in its first month—just 25. That compares with 477 per month on average under the previous schemes. The proposals under the Bill are not just cruel; they undermine the UK’s commitments under the refugee convention. We cannot simply rewrite them to suit ourselves.

The Liberal Democrats are calling for a fully funded commitment to resettle 10,000 vulnerable refugees each year. We should resettle a further 10,000 unaccompanied child refugees from elsewhere in Europe over the next 10 years, and we must guarantee the rights of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in Europe to be reunited with family members in the UK.

Another historic injustice that the Bill fails to address is comprehensive sickness insurance. A few years ago, many EU citizens had their application for a permanent residence document refused. Those refusals were down to an obscure need for CSI, which they had never previously needed to live in the UK or to use the NHS. At the time, the Government insisted that they were powerless to change the requirement as it stemmed from EU free movement laws. The requirement was removed from the EU settlement scheme, but CSI is still hidden deep within our rules. Many thousands of children have been cut off from their rights to be citizens of this country, all because of some obscure insurance requirement that no one was told they needed to have. The Government must come clean and use the exit from the EU for some good, as they so often claim they do. There is no more excuse to hold on to the CSI requirement for those seeking to become UK citizens.

Rather than fixing the problem, the Bill will make the problems worse and fail those most in need. I will vote against it.

Racist Abuse on Social Media

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

Very much so. My challenge to these tech companies is, “Look: you have some of the brightest brains in the world. You recruit from the top universities. You pay—I imagine—handsomely. Use those brilliant brains to do some good and to stop this abuse on your platforms.”

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

The whole England team have been remarkable in opposing racism and championing justice and equality for all. Sadly, they have not had the full support of this Government. It is up to all of us with a public platform, including the Home Secretary, to personally confront racism in all its forms and give our full support to those who are working against it. The Home Secretary is not here today, so I cannot ask her personally, but will the Minister add her support to the petition to ban racists for life from all football matches in England, which now has more than 1 million signatories?

[Victoria Atkins]

I do not know whether the hon. Lady was in the Chamber at the beginning of this urgent question when I explained that the Home Secretary is hosting a meeting—a long-standing meeting—with charities that work with survivors of violence against women and girls. I hope that the House will understand.

On the hon. Lady’s general allegations, I am minded to point out that the Home Secretary herself receives extraordinary levels of online hatred. Some of the things that she—and, in fairness, others across this House—have to deal with are eye-watering. I urge hon. Members to join together with us in tackling this racism.

On the petition, the hon. Lady may have missed the Prime Minister’s answer at Prime Minister’s questions. We are going even better than the petition, because we are looking urgently at football banning orders to ensure that people who express these racist views are stopped from going to our matches entirely.

EU Settlement Scheme

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD) [V]]

Nobody who campaigned to leave the EU will have considered the human cost of Brexit and, despite many heartbreaking stories, the Tory Government still do not. EU citizens have been treated appallingly, and their hardship continues. Many find themselves in legal limbo and fear that their status will become unlawful. For those who moved to the UK—decades ago in some cases—and have lived, studied or worked here and have fallen in love or started a family here, this country has become their home, but the future is uncertain for all those who have not become British citizens.

For those with pre-settled status, the situation is even worse. The Government must show that they are serious about the rights of EU citizens and, at the very least, provide them with physical proof of status to prevent discrimination. Many EU citizens, including constituents in Bath, are struggling with the untried, untested digital-only status, and 89% have expressed unhappiness about a lack of physical proof. It is incomprehensible that the Government are still not listening to them.

EU citizens seem no longer to be of any interest to this Tory Government. It is hostile Britain par excellence. Each time an EU citizen returns to their adopted home, they cannot be certain that they will be allowed in. Such fears are not unfounded. Here is another example why digital-only proof does not work. Research from the Residential Landlords Association found that 20% of landlords were less likely to consider letting their property to an EU or EEA national. The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants found that, in 115 mystery shopping inquiries, only three landlords explicitly said that they were willing to conduct an online check; 85% did not even respond. People are required to prove their immigration status throughout their lives. They could be seeking a new job, finding a place to live, opening a bank account, getting treatment at a hospital or returning home from a holiday abroad. The big promises about a simple proof of the right to be here have been shamelessly broken. The EU has mandated all member states to issue British citizens a uniform physical residence document; the UK must reciprocate.

As a European migrant, I feel the pain and sadness of all such EU citizens that Britain—a country that we once admired and chose as our home—has turned into a country of small-minded insularity. I ask the Government once more to show more sense and compassion towards EU citizens. Economies and societies are about people. For decades, the UK has welcomed and nurtured those who came. The country was a good example of an open, tolerant society and has seen the benefits of being modern and diverse. The pendulum is swinging the other way, not by accident but by political design. Britain continues to be geographically, historically and economically part of the European world. Europe is a continent with few barriers between countries, where academic, business and private life is shared across non-existent borders. The UK is no longer part of this open Europe. Those with choices, those with skills and qualifications, the best and especially the young—those the Government want to attract—have already moved or will move and not return. This is the tragedy of my adopted country.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 5th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

Keeping people safe and secure is a priority for any Government, particularly this one. That is why I am delighted to speak in this important debate. I am fortunate to live in Devon, which enjoys the second lowest crime rate in the country. Crime continues to fall, in no small part thanks to the excellent work of the Devon and Cornwall police, and our excellent police and crime commissioner, Alison Hernandez. However, even in my remote rural constituency, concerns about an increase in pet theft are growing. As a dog owner, indeed a pet lover, I can only imagine the distress of losing my four-legged best friend. This is not the first time I have raised this issue in the House, and I am delighted that the cross-Government pet theft taskforce has been launched, better to understand and tackle the issue.

While crime may be low in Devon and Cornwall, in the past three years there have been 256 reports of dog theft, yet just two people have been charged. I am pleased that the maximum sentence for dog theft is already seven years, but that is no deterrent if no one is prosecuted. Understanding that disjoint is vital, and I hope that the taskforce will come up with a solution to increase prosecution rates and deter further canine crimes. Locally, our police and crime commissioner has highlighted issues regarding how dog thefts are reported. Classing such thefts as merely theft of property is a contributory factor to low prosecution rates, but there are many others. Unfortunately, the taskforce will not report until later this summer, but I am delighted that its policy recommendations may be made in the Lords, before the Bill returns to the Commons, to ensure that it adequately reflects what is truly needed. We are a nation of animal lovers, and it is vital that our animal companions are as safe and secure as their owners.

We are also a nation of shopkeepers. Some of the reports I have heard about the abuse received by retail workers, particularly during the pandemic, are horrifying. It is unacceptable that key workers, who have gone to work throughout the pandemic to ensure that we could access the items we needed, have been treated in this way. I warmly welcome our review into this area, which found that not reporting offences, and wider concerns about how the police handled those reports, were and are important issues that need addressing. I understand that Lords amendments may be considered, if required, to ensure that such offences are treated with the seriousness they rightly deserve.

I support the detailed analysis of such issues by the Ministry of Justice, to ensure that amendments, if needed, are tabled when the data are fully available, rather than being like many of the knee-jerk Opposition amendments, which frequently are poorly thought through, and in many cases seek to reduce sentences for those who commit crimes, rather than ensure that criminals see the justice they deserve.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD) [V]]

The Government say that this Bill will empower the police and courts to take more action against crime. However, much of it continues the failed approach of successive Governments. Legislating for longer and longer custodial sentences without any evidence that they deter people from committing crimes shows ignorance of the real drivers of crime. At its best, the Bill will be ineffective; at its worst, it is an assault on human rights and democracy.

There are some good elements of the Bill. Trauma-informed services, the strengthening of rehabilitation and the police covenant are all things that we Liberal Democrats support, but we argue that there is a need to go even further. It is a great shame that constructive debate about those important measures, which should really be at the centre of the Bill, is undermined by the elements of the Bill that are extremely concerning: serious violence reduction orders, which hand over stop-and-search powers; the increases in mandatory sentences that tie judges’ hands and do not even work to prevent crime; the proposals to criminalise trespass on unauthorised encampments, which discriminate against Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities; and the new restrictions on the right to protest, which are nothing short of an assault on our civil liberties.