Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

I should first of all point out to the hon. Lady what the chief constable of Greater Manchester police actually said. He said that

“the end result will be more resources put into frontline policing and a more efficient and effective service for the people of Greater Manchester.”

If she is going to mount her attack on the basis of police numbers falling, perhaps she will reflect on the fact that police numbers in Greater Manchester fell in the last year of the Labour Government.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Under the previous Government, more than 4,000 new offences were created—an average of 28 new offences for every month of that Government. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should not have a deluge of new offences under this Government?

[Nick Herbert]

I agree with my hon. Friend that the previous Government’s record was repeatedly to introduce criminal justice Bills and to create more and more offences. This Government want to ensure that the police can focus on crime fighting rather than on form writing and the bureaucracy that they were landed with by the previous Government.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill because it introduces an expensive set of reforms which will do nothing to bring the police closer to the communities they serve; because it risks a single elected politician remote from the frontline overruling operational policing decisions, thus ending one hundred and seventy years of tradition of police independence from politicians; because it gives insufficient attention to the risks of police force collaboration being undermined by the creation of individually elected police commissioners; and because the Government has indicated that it will implement this expensive and disruptive reform in the same year as the Government is making the biggest annual cut to police funding as set out in the Spending Review.

Protecting the public and giving people confidence that they can live free from the fear of crime and antisocial behaviour is the first duty of Government. On the front line in the fight against crime are our police and police community support officers, who do a difficult, sometimes dangerous job with great professionalism. We should start by congratulating our police, who, in record numbers, under Conservative and Labour Governments since 1994, have delivered a 50% fall in crime. We congratulate them on that achievement. We will support the Government, where we can, to ensure that our police have the resources and the powers that they need to do the job.

It is right, too, as the Home Secretary said, that the police must be close to the local communities they serve and be responsive to the views of local communities in order to be accountable to the taxpayer. I pay tribute to the reforms made in recent years by Labour Home Secretaries who have introduced neighbourhood policing, which has ensured that the police are embedded in our communities. That is an achievement of which Labour Members can be very proud.

However, we will argue in Committee that there is more that we can do to deepen that accountability at the force level and at the neighbourhood level to ensure that the police are properly and fully responsive to local communities. I have to say to the Home Secretary that the approach to police accountability that the coalition is pursuing in the Bill is absolutely not the answer to that challenge. Indeed, the judgment of the Association of Police Authorities, which said that elected police commissioners are the wrong reform at the wrong time, is looking more prescient by the day.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman cast his mind back to the cuckoo months of the previous Prime Minister’s Administration, when the then Home Secretary, the former Member for Redditch, considered the idea of elected chiefs of police and then discarded it, not because of politicisation or fears about cost, but because of lobbying from Labour councillors who did not want to lose their lucrative positions on police authorities?

[Ed Balls]

I merely draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the excellent House of Commons research report on the Bill, which makes it absolutely clear, in terms, that the then Home Secretary rejected that proposal because it would lead to the politicisation of our police, which is exactly why we are opposing these measures.

Look at the storm that is now gathering around the Home Secretary. Over the past few days, we have seen the events in Sweden—[Interruption.] Hon. Gentlemen mock the events that are happening. We are seeing a rising terrorist threat. We saw the events of last Thursday and the statement that we had to have this afternoon about disorder on our streets. We have the Olympics coming up the year after next, with the Home Secretary now proposing to force through a 20% cut in the Olympic policing budget.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Ellis]

I very much agree. Of course we all recognise and cherish the right of people to protest in this country; we have an extremely liberal democracy that allows and, indeed, encourages it. It has however, reached a point of utter nonsense in Parliament square gardens.

The Vagrancy Act 1824 can be used to remove these people because they are either

“in the open air, or under a tent”,

and committing an offence under that provision. The maximum penalty for breaching it is a fine at level 1 of the standard scale, which is a maximum of £200. However, Members will be interested to know that if a person is prosecuted a second time for this offence, they can then be classified as “an incorrigible rogue”. The provision then allows the magistrates to remit the matter to the Crown court for sentence. Whereas on first prosecution the maximum sentence is a £200 fine, on second conviction for the same offence the maximum penalty would be up to 12 months’ imprisonment. That might well act as a disincentive to those encamping themselves on Parliament square, encouraging them to move on. The only requirements for prosecution are that the people concerned have been given an opportunity to take shelter elsewhere and have not availed themselves of that opportunity; that they have persistently ignored reasonably accessible alternatives; and that their remaining in situ would have offensive consequences or those consequences would appear likely to occur. I think that the House could well deal with the encampment by means of a prosecution before the Bill is given Royal Assent.

I have dealt with two clauses. I have only two minutes in which to cover several hundred more, but let me say a little about the proposal relating to police commissioners. It is a fundamentally democratic proposal, which I strongly support. Only a tiny number of people currently know that police authorities even exist.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Does my hon. Friend agree that in this country we police with consent—the consent of the people—and that there is no better way of securing the consent of the people than a democratic election?

[Michael Ellis]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It has been quite strange to observe Opposition members baulking at the suggestion that police and crime commissioners should be elected. One would have expected them to support the democratic process.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I simply do not recognise the picture that the hon. Lady has set out in relation to youth services across the country. I would also remind her of the extremely effective point that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice made just now in response to the shadow Home Secretary—namely, that the Government have had to take the recent decisions on funding because of the mess that the last Labour Government left the finances in. We will be looking very closely at the support that we can provide in relation to specific issues about youth crime, to ensure that we are able to help young people not to go down the route of crime and to ensure that they are able to fulfil their full potential and develop the life that they deserve.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

In my constituency, there are many voluntary organisations providing key services such as children’s centres and youth services. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is essential to maintain the funding for those voluntary organisations that are doing such key work?

[Mrs May]

I pay tribute to the voluntary organisations that are doing key work in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and indeed in other constituencies up and down the country. This is a very good example of the big society in action. As he will be aware, the Government are putting support into voluntary organisations; £100 million is being made available to help voluntary organisations in the difficult times ahead.

Immigration

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Tami]

I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point that, in some aspects, tier 1 has gone wrong, but we should not put the whole thing in the bin and say, “We are going to introduce a blanket ban at some point when we reach some quota that is made up as we go along.” I accept that there are problems, but I am discussing a company that directly employs and pays such workers; they do not come to this country to look for work.

ICTs are not a substitute for trained local employees. In fact, they are quite the reverse, because the vast majority of ICTs are trainers themselves who train local employees. They have helped Toyota to improve the productivity of its UK plants, which have become some of the company’s leading plants throughout the world. I am sure that we all applaud that. The ICTs are paid by Toyota; they pay taxes locally and pay money into the local economy; and they have helped to create and maintain many thousands of jobs, as well as to help our export efforts.

I asked a question in Business, Innovation and Skills questions today, because, although I welcome the statement about ICTs, I know there is still a feeling that, given the levels being discussed, the policy is being made up as we go along. We have to clear up the situation as quickly as possible, because many companies are worried about exactly how it will work. Toyota employs 3,500 people in the UK, but throughout the entire business it employs on average only 50 ICTs each year.

I am concerned, because those ICTs are key workers, and if we say to Toyota and other companies, “At some point, you will not be able to site the key workers who do that very important work,” we will affect their decisions about whether to invest more money. I accept that it is probably a marginal decision, but if it is a close call, those companies might start to think, “Should we put our money here or somewhere else?” Somewhere else might mean somewhere prepared to make those guarantees.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the requirement for skilled workers from abroad reflects the failure of the previous Government’s education and training policies?

[Mark Tami]

I am about to move on to training, so if the hon. Gentleman waits a few moments he will hear what I have to say.

There is a concern, because we are introducing extra barriers, which, for international companies, might affect their decision about whether to invest in the UK. I have given examples of two companies with major concerns about the effects of the cap, illustrating the point that, if we apply the cap in a way that greatly concerns business, we could increase rather than reduce UK unemployment. It is simplistic to believe that, if we stop more people from coming in, UK workers will suddenly pick up all those jobs.

As the hon. Gentleman said, that prompts the question: why do we in this country not have the skills we need? The simple answer is: we have failed to train the people to meet our needs. Like the previous Government and the Government before them, the current Government are talking about more apprentices and more training; no doubt future Governments will do the same. The issue is a major problem, and we have not addressed it so far. It is all very well talking about a cap or whatever, but unless we really address the skill base and training need in this country, we will never solve the problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Tami]

The point that I am trying to make—and the hon. Gentleman’s point, I think—is that we have to address our training needs. Just stopping a person coming in does not address that problem. We still do not have the skill base. We lag behind other countries, and we have done so for many years. I am not saying that we got everything right, and I am certainly not saying that the current Government have got everything right. We will be having the same argument for many years to come.

We have to admit that some UK private industry has been reluctant to train people. Many companies see training as an avoidable cost rather than as an investment. For too long, rather than training people themselves, companies have preferred to poach a skilled employee who has been trained by another company. After a time, that becomes a bit of a vicious circle. Many people from companies, particularly smaller companies, have asked me what the point is of training somebody. They invest a lot of time and money in doing it, but then the bigger company down the road comes in, offers the employee more money and off that employee goes. Those companies say that they might as well not train anybody in the first place.

In the past, we had a number of nationalised industries; whatever their merits, most people will accept that they trained an awful lot of people to a very high standard. Many of those people drifted off to the private sector. After privatisation, one of the first things to suffer was the number of people being trained—numbers were cut and shareholders became the fundamental concern. We saw a big drop-off in the number of employees being trained by companies such as British Telecom, British Gas and the old electricity companies. People were not going from the public sector to the private sector in the same numbers to fill the gap that the private sector has always failed to fill.

I know that this will get absolutely no support from Government Members, but I support a training levy: a company of a certain size should have an obligation to train a certain number of people. That would mean a level playing field. It might address the problem of some companies not training people because they are worried—

[Andrew Bridgen]

Do we not already have a levy on companies? It is called corporation tax.

[Mark Tami]

The hon. Gentleman says that corporation tax is a levy, but does it address the training issue for companies? No, it does not.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Skidmore]

I certainly recognise that, back in 2004, the previous Government failed to address the problem of transitional controls when negotiating with the EU. If the EU is to expand, the current Government will ensure that those controls are put in place, as is absolutely necessary.

I certainly welcome the current plans to halve the net migration figure—currently 200,000—by 2015 and also the cap on annual non-EU immigration. We can have a debate today on what the figure for the cap should be, but I believe that it must be in the tens of thousands, drastically lower than the hundreds of thousands that we were witnessing until recently.

Above all, as a Government and a Parliament, we must send out a clear message. My constituents in Kingswood want a Government who are finally in control of their immigration policy—a Government who are policing their borders and standing up for the British people.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is an argument for controlling immigration that would be obvious to anyone with a basic grasp of mathematics? It is that we are an island of limited resources. The more people there are in the country, the less, on average, every single one of us will get.

[Chris Skidmore]

I certainly agree that our circumstances as an island place us in an unusual situation compared with the rest of Europe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I am very pleased to participate in this debate. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) for proposing it and to the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames), who cannot be here today. I do not necessarily share all their views on this subject, but they are both entirely right to say that immigration is a matter of overwhelming concern to the public.

It is with a degree of trepidation that I speak on this topic. Unlike my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead, I have done comparatively little work on immigration. I do not pretend to have all the answers, and I certainly do not pretend that my remarks will please everyone, but as someone who represents a part of London that has benefited enormously from the flow of people from all over the world I feel compelled to say something about the conundrum in which we now find ourselves, where the Government’s desire to see the “brightest and best” come to the UK is contradicted by an artificial, policy-driven cap that prevents those very people from coming in the numbers our economy needs. It is a conundrum in which thousands of people, many of whom have families, have been told by the UK Border Agency that they face removal or deportation, yet for years have been left to get on with their lives in towns and cities up and down the country. It is a conundrum surprisingly summed up best by our tabloids. One day it is “Save Gamu Nhengu”, the next it is back to the old refrain of “Fewer immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers”. I meet people such as Gamu every week in my surgery, who have come to our country to make a better life for themselves and their families. Not everyone has been on “The X Factor”, but many have equally strong cases for staying in the UK.

Immigration was one of the top concerns raised by my constituents during the election, as it was for many other Members. In fact, I would say it was probably in the top three subjects of conversation on the doorstep, along with concerns about the economy and a general disillusionment with politics and politicians. Time and again, I spoke to people who believed that immigrants were taking their jobs and homes. The vast majority of those people were not racist and some were first or second-generation immigrants themselves, but they were often people who were struggling to make ends meet, had seen significant changes in their neighbourhood and were looking for someone to blame for their own hardship. Many held the belief that immigrants were jumping the queue for social housing, and others felt that eastern European construction workers were taking jobs from their sons and grandsons.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Does the hon. Lady agree that those in our society who are the most vulnerable to the next wave of uncontrolled immigration are not her or Conservative Members but the previous wave of immigrants? They will have to compete for the scant resources in our inner-city areas.

[Heidi Alexander]

I do appreciate that recent waves of immigrants are sometimes the most deprived people in urban areas, and I understand their concerns, but I believe that a lot of them respect the contribution that former waves of immigrants have made, and they want to feel that society’s resources are shared fairly and that we take an appropriate, fair but firm approach to immigration.

I have talked a little about the stereotypes of the Daily Mail about why people are concerned about immigration. Those stereotypes have now taken root in many communities across the UK. I understand the concerns of my constituents. I understand that when a family from a different country who speak a different language move into a council house down the road, constituents might question why their daughter is still living at home with them and is number 4,323 on the housing waiting list. However, who is to say that their new neighbours are not renting that house privately? Who is to say that the house was not sold many years ago under the right to buy, or that the main breadwinner in the family is not a highly skilled hospital doctor who has come to the UK to fill a position in our NHS that desperately needed to be filled?

Aviation Security Incident

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind remarks, and I agree with him absolutely. By definition, the very nature of the secret services is that part of what they do is secret. It is important that efforts are made where possible to explain to the public the sort of work being done and the sort of issues being addressed. Indeed, there has been a series of speeches in recent weeks—from the director general of MI5, the head of GCHQ and, now, Sir John Sawers—explaining the operation of each of those different agencies, but of course it is axiomatic that secret work has to be conducted in secret.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

I would like to praise the security services and the staff of East Midlands airport, which lies in my constituency. By intercepting that package, they may well have saved lives. Everyone who contributed to that successful operation can be rightly proud. However, I would like to ask the Home Secretary for an assurance that additional screening will be introduced only if it is clearly shown to be necessary, and that any such measures would be implemented on a Europe-wide or worldwide basis, and not in the UK alone.

[Mrs May]

rose—

[Andrew Bridgen]

In other words, what we need to do is avoid UK-only measures.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think that we have got the drift of the hon. Gentleman’s inquiry.