Mr Mike Veale

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 7th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, as I have said, the misconduct proceedings are ongoing. If an independent panel finds a former officer guilty of gross misconduct, it can determine that the officer would have been dismissed had they still been serving. If that occurs, the officer would be placed on the College of Policing’s barred list, preventing them rejoining policing.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, the whole House holds my noble friend in high regard, but we have had this time and again. Another reputation is being besmirched—that of the Home Office itself. As the noble Lord opposite has just said, the Home Office has ultimate responsibility. Will my noble friend please, at the very least, tell the Home Secretary today that this House is virtually united in its concern at the way these events have been handled?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I note my noble friend’s comments. There is a process ongoing, and it would be wrong for me to opine on that process other than to say that it is ongoing. The Home Secretary has herself initiated a review into the IOPC, which will be commencing shortly, but I must stress that the police are operationally independent of the Home Office.

Ukraine: Refugees

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Wednesday 6th April 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend Lady Pidding and I strongly endorse what she said, particularly about the precarious position of Moldova. We must not forget that.

I join with everyone in eagerly anticipating the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Harrington. He comes here—and I have been in this building for almost 52 years now—with more good will than I have ever known for any Minister. All he has to do is deliver the goods: a very easy task. But seriously, we look to him and will hang on his every word today.

Our prime thanks are to my noble friend Lady Helic, not only for securing the debate but for the way in which she introduced it. As she spoke, I thought—I was much involved in all the debates on Bosnia in the other place—how remarkable it is that a Bosnian refugee is now a Member of the British Parliament, a participating Member, a valued Member. But, as she made plain in her moving words, she will always have a regret that she could not realise her potential and have her career in her native land.

As she was speaking, I thought of another, whom I know my noble friend Lord Wigley—he is my noble friend—will remember, because he sat for a Welsh seat. Stefan Terlezki was the only Ukrainian ever to sit in the British Parliament. He was driven into slavery by the Russians, and managed to get out. He built a career in our free country and was elected to our Parliament to represent a seat in Cardiff, the capital city of Wales.

It is very important to remember as we see these ghastly pictures in our newspapers and on our television screens day after day, night after night, that although Ukrainians are fighting with incredible bravery, and we all pray for and will them to win, this could be a long haul. My noble friend Lady Helic reminded us in her speech of Yemen, Syria and Libya, where conflicts have been going on for years and destruction has followed destruction. We have got to be in this in the long haul for Ukraine, because if Ukraine is subjugated, if it ceases to be an independent country, we will all have lost and the tyrant who reigns in Moscow will just be tempted to further acts of aggression. So our commitment must be total.

However, this debate is rightly concentrating on the position of the refugees. We have heard some fine speeches and some moving references, particularly from my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, to people who are suffering not because they are not welcome here, not because there are not arms to embrace them when they come here, but because of the ineptitude of British bureaucracy. This is what my noble friend must get right. We are all on his side. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, asked a series of questions and at the end of this debate we want to have the answer to at least some of them—and very shortly, the answer to all of them. How many visas have actually been applied for? How many have been issued? How many people have been settled in British homes? How many are waiting, like the two sisters so movingly talked about by my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury? How many sisters and brothers are waiting, whose lives hang upon this? What we would say to the Minister—and I think I can speak for everyone in the Moses Room—is please, get it right. We are all on your side. Every one of us wants the Minister to succeed. We are willing him to succeed. We want to help him to succeed, but we must not have petty bureaucracy standing in the way of humanity. That is the fundamental point.

There was a reference earlier to Hungary in 1956. That was what brought me into politics. There we saw a proud people being subjugated in the most aggressive and bestial way. I was a young man, but it brought back to me the memories of the newsreels at the end of the war and of seeing the newsreels from Belsen. I have said in the House before that my mother tried to shield me from the screen and my father, who served throughout the war, said “No: he must see this so that he can perhaps play a tiny part in ensuring that it doesn’t happen again”. Well, it has; it is happening again now, and it is absolutely essential that we get this one right.

Ten days ago, I handed my noble friend a letter that my son gave me. My son works for an independent consultancy, but with Universities UK. The letter was signed by eight rectors or vice-rectors of medical schools in Ukraine and it builds on the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. They were asking that, where British universities were willing and able to welcome academics and others—students—please could their entry into this country be expedited. I still await a reply. My noble friend promised me that I would have a reply this week; it may even be in this debate, which would be marvellous.

These are people of high professional ability, or aspiring to it, if they are still students, whom British universities wish to help so they can continue their studies, develop their careers—and go back. The thing that comes over time and again as we listen is that they do not want refuge in this country, full stop. They want to go back and rebuild their own country. As the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, said, we must help them to do that.

I will not reopen the Brexit debate, but I very much sympathise with what my noble friend Lord Balfe said. We certainly have to work with our European friends and allies— although we are no longer fellow members, we are still friends and allies—in the rebuilding of a part of Europe that, as we have been recently reminded, is or was the breadbasket of Europe. The failure of the harvest this year will have repercussions all over Europe— indeed, all over the world.

I conclude by once again thanking my noble friend Lady Helic for introducing the debate as she did and welcoming my noble friend the Minister, with his myriad responsibilities, and, as I said, willing him to succeed.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 4th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

I shall be brief. I have not really spoken on this Bill before. I sat with increasing disappointment and sadness through the debate on Report and I became increasingly convinced that this largely unnecessary Bill is narrow and mean-minded and at times approaches the vindictive. I did not vote in the 10 votes that we had, but I feel moved to get up and say a few words this evening, largely because of the powerful and commendably brief speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. We have had some excellent speeches since which make one essential point: do you wish to be in danger of breaching international law and also international humanity? That is what fundamentally it is all about.

The other place treated your Lordships’ House with disdain. The way in which it dismissed amendments that had been carefully argued and, in many cases, passed by large majorities was not worthy of a House of which I was proud to be a Member for 40 years. I was thinking of this and it dawned on me—although it should not have dawned on me and I should have been very well aware of it—that there is no scrutiny at the other end of the Corridor. The timetabling of every Bill is, I am afraid, the fault of the Labour Government provoked by the Conservative Opposition in 1997. I made a promise on behalf of the Front Bench on behalf of the Conservative Party that, come a Conservative Government, programming would be done away with. Of course when we first had a coalition Government and then a Conservative Government, programming was very convenient and so it was maintained. So there is no proper scrutiny. Sometimes important chunks of Bills are not even discussed. There is scrutiny at this end of the Corridor. Very occasionally, there is a little glimpse of filibustering, but not very often, and we try to look at these things in depth and with care. There are various watchwords which should guide us in what we do: do not give powers to your own Government that you would not wish an Opposition Government to have; err on the side of caution; be careful not to do to others what you do not want them to do to you. Those of us with a Christian background feel that very acutely.

What are we talking about here? We are talking about some of the most persecuted and endangered of humanity who are not motivated by legislation when they catch the train or drive their car or get into boats but are motivated by a desire to enjoy a freer and better way of life. Of course they come from all sorts of backgrounds, but at the moment we have a particular group uppermost in our minds. They are fellow Europeans and we can identify with them. When we see the blitzed remnants of their flat or house, we know it is the sort of place that we could live in.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Make it short.

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

With that exhortation from behind me ringing in my ears, I step forward to address the points made by noble Lords from across the House in a further interesting and wide-ranging debate. I will touch first on age assessment.

It is important to stress at the outset that the purpose of setting up a scientific advisory committee is that the Government should receive guidance from it. The consideration of what scientific methods of age assessment should be used, if any, is at the preliminary stage. The Government propose to be guided by the body which has been set up on an interim basis to provide them with advice. The Government are not seeking to compel any member of any profession to take part in any practice which offends that person’s ethical sensibilities, whether individually or as a member of a scientific or professional body. No compulsion can be contemplated as a means of obliging anyone to carry out a particular step.

The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, raised the issue of the identity of personnel carrying out particular steps, and I assure him from the Dispatch Box that only an appropriately qualified person would be asked to carry out the sort of testing that he discussed which, reflecting his specific area of expertise, related to dentistry.

I do not at this stage give any undertaking as to the constituent members of the committee which, as your Lordships have heard, is set up at the moment on an interim basis. However, it is very much in the way in which such bodies of learned people carry out their work that they will call for additional evidence and support from people skilled in specific disciplines where they feel there is any gap in their expertise which might properly be filled.

Reference was made by two noble Baronesses who participated in this debate to the meeting, in which I participated, with the noble Baroness, Lady Black, the interim head of the interim committee which has been set up. I invite the House to reflect on a number of aspects of the discussion we had with the noble Baroness which, for the benefit of Members who were not present at that electronic discussion, I will now précis. There are anxious discussions being carried out by professionals and academics within the committee, who compass this wide range of academic and professional disciplines, about what may be appropriate to carry out as—I gratefully adopt the phrase used by noble Baroness, Lady Black—a triangulation of methodologies in relation to the critical assessment of the age of a young person, where that is contested or where there is reasonable ground to believe that the age offered is inaccurate.

I interrupt myself to answer a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett. Yes, the parameters within which a decision will be taken are those set out at that meeting. There is no attempt to say that any one method can arrive with any degree of certainty at a specific age, whether expressed in years or months. As the noble Baroness suggested to the House, the matter is whether the scientific expertise can place a person so that the claimed age is possible. I am happy to assure the noble Baroness on that basis.

Noble Lords will also recollect that, in the context of that discussion, the noble Baroness, Lady Black, brought out certain matters which we have discussed in this House at earlier stages. I stress that she pointed out that the very prolongation of testing and interviews under the current regime—perhaps “testing” is the wrong word; “assessment” might be better when referring to Merton-compliant procedures, which your Lordships may well recollect from previous stages and which relate to a series of interviews—and repeated rehearsal of information that might be of a sensitive character and might oblige the person to relate traumatic events, is itself a source of harm. The scientific methodology that the Government have tasked this interim committee to look into is anticipated as serving two functions: to provide for that triangulation of methodologies, and to provide—as I have said on previous occasions to your Lordships—additional information to assist in that difficult process which currently falls exclusively upon the shoulders of social workers. It is not, and has never been argued as being, a means by which some value or accuracy can be ascribed to scientific testing, which we acknowledge it does not have.

None the less, as I have said, these methodologies are used in other places in Europe. Their use is widespread, and the United Kingdom is unusual in not using them. Given the nature of the problems that we face and the nature of the trauma from which people may be escaping—and which may be caused by the mere fact of having to rehearse events earlier in their lives—we consider it incumbent upon us to do what we can to shorten that process, at all times acknowledging the overriding importance of fairness to the persons involved.

I am not in a position to commit to there being a member of any specific profession on the committee, whether in its interim iteration or later on. However, as I said earlier, in the way of these things, it will be for the committee to call for additional expertise to support its working and to allow it to provide conclusions—

Ukraine Refugee Visas

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

The noble Baroness has asked a lot of questions in one go; I will do my best. On the number of extra staff taken on, I am now satisfied with staffing levels. There are 300 staff in Sheffield alone, and the total number of staff on this, in the different areas, comes to nearly 1,000.

The noble Baroness asked whether there is an appeals process. I do not believe there is. I shall check that, but for the moment the question has not come up. Most people who have applied have been accepted. We really are doing the best we can to make sure that everyone suitable is accepted. She asked me a further question on DNA, which she had asked me before and I found extremely interesting. I am trying to find out the answer.

The problem at the moment is not rejecting people but speeding up the system. I was taken on by the Prime Minister to do this, and I bear full responsibility for it. It is not an excuse, but the system is far faster than it was last week and the week before, and I am expecting significant incremental increases next week and the week after. At the DLUHC Select Committee I was asked what I felt would be the run rate imminently —next week or the week after—and I mentioned 15,000 per week.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I have one question. I handed to my noble friend a letter signed by eight rectors and vice-rectors of medical universities in Ukraine and asked for the expediting of visas for those who have been invited by British universities. What progress has been made on that?

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Cormack for his question. He and I have discussed this most days since he gave me the letter last week. The way government works, the responsibility for this is with the Department for Education. I have taken it up—I believe he has too—with the Universities Minister, and I hope to have an answer for him soon. He gave me until early next week, and I intend to keep to that.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Thursday 31st March 2022 Lords Chamber

We have compromised by allowing this additional condition to be imposed, but short of allowing the police to ban assemblies outright, including removing the power, proposed by the Government, to impose conditions on the grounds that a static protest might be too noisy. Motion D1 is necessary to protect the fundamental rights of assembly and free speech, and we will seek the opinion of the House when the time comes.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I intervene briefly, partly because the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, was kind enough to refer to an earlier speech that I had made. I congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Russell, who have been able to move things forward in an acceptable way, but I think there comes a point where this House has to have very real regard for its constitutional position vis-à-vis the other place. We were justified in asking the other place to think again and, I believe, justified in asking it to think yet again.

I was approached last week by two Conservative Back-Benchers—I will not name them—and they were keen that we should give them another opportunity to think again, which we did. But the fact is that they have not thought again, not by a majority. Some may have changed their votes, but they did not change the position of the other place. It is my reluctant view, particularly on the noise issue, which I think is rather preposterous, that we should now yield to the other place, but if ever a Bill called for post-legislative scrutiny to examine closely how it plays out on the streets and in the public squares, this is it. I hope there will be a proper opportunity to keep these matters under review, but we should have a mind for our constitutional position, and have regard for the fact that we are not the elected House and there is a point beyond which we should not go.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I think the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, is right to raise the important point about our constitutional obligations. I am tentative about what I am going to say because I am anxious not to act in defiance of an elected Chamber, not just for constitutional reasons but because democracy is very valuable, and we should have modesty in relation to our role in this place. However, I do feel that, at the very least, the Government are obliged to untangle some serious confusion about why the legislation in relation to protest is even necessary.

When it was originally introduced, there were grandiose claims that this was the Government responding to public concerns—a real clamour from the public—about dealing with new forms of protest. It is true that there has been a lot of anger in the public realm about new forms of protest. Anybody who objected to the amendments tabled by the Government was dismissed as “ignoring voters’ concerns”—just by objecting, in effect, they were being anti-democratic. Yet now the Minister comes back here and suggests that, in relation to the noise trigger, for example, it is a just a modest update of the law and it will not be used very often. It seems to me that the original motivation for these clauses has been lost, and we have ended up with a disproportionate and unnecessary commitment by the Government to deal with a non-problem.

There is perhaps some confusion because earlier this week, as people will have read in the newspaper, a mum was banned from driving for what was described as “nudging” some Insulate Britain protesters. She was trying to get her 11 year-old to school and was exasperated that the protesters would not move, and that the police were not acting to remove them. There was some popular backlash to the fact that this driver was the person who was prosecuted, and at a meeting I talked to people who said, “Well, the mum is not guilty of dangerous driving. The problem here was the failure of the police to police the protest.” They went on to say, “At least the Government are acting and bringing in a new law that will deal with this sort of thing.” When I explained the nature of the new laws that were being brought in, in relation to noise and static assemblies, they said, “What’s the good of that? That won’t deal with the problem of the mum and the motorway and the protester”, and they are right.

Despite reservations, I support the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Paddick, in the amended amendments that they have brought back, taking on board the modest comments that have been made. I think that these anti-protest clauses are being mis-sold to the public, who, when it is explained to them, do not see any connection between their clamour and these clauses being brought in by the Government.

If there is an issue with protest, it is possibly that the police have not consistently policed protests that have happened over the last few years with the powers that they have, and there is public concern about that. It seems to me that both these clauses, as illustrated by the points made from the Front Bench, will make the police’s job even more complicated and will compromise them politically because they will be accused of subjective interpretations of what is “too noisy” and what is the threat of a static demonstration. I think the Government will inadvertently help to politicise the police, and make the situation of protests more confusing, and they are not doing what I think they originally wanted to do, which was to assure the public that their concerns about new forms of protest would be honoured in legislation. These parts of the Bill do nothing useful for anyone.

--- Later in debate ---

I end on this: the police are under the biggest pressure they have been under in my lifetime. More of us are concerned about the way the police behave than was ever true when I was a child. That is serious. How on earth can we allow the police to say that a particular protest, although widely supported, will not go ahead because it might be too noisy and is outside a building which does not have double-glazing? I am sorry; I say to my noble friend that I cannot support that, and I do not think this House should support it, because it is precisely for that kind of discussion that we are here. I say to my noble friend that if he maintains his position, the House of Lords may as well say, “Okay, we’ll vote twice against it and never do it again, so you may as well get on with it”. I am sorry; I am not here for that purpose. I would prefer not to be here at all if I am not able to—

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

I am most grateful. My noble friend makes a very powerful speech and makes it very sensibly. However, I would just point out that, at the time he was giving instructions and saying, “There are five things I want, but others I’ll give way on”, the House of Lords was a very different place. It had a massive, built-in hereditary Tory majority.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I do not think that helps the issue. All that says is that we are a different place because Parliament has decided that we should be. I am not sure that we are necessarily a better place; I would not like to draw attention to that. I am merely saying that we are a place and that we are here to make certain kinds of decisions. I have more sympathy for my noble friend the Minister than I do for almost any other Minister and I admire her enormously—which is why I really find this difficult. I really wanted to be able to say today that I support the Government, but I cannot, as somebody who came into this House saying that I would concentrate on Europe—that has been difficult—the environment and human rights. One of the first human rights is that I can walk with lots of other people to say that something is wrong. For the police to have the powers to say that we cannot, because it might be too noisy, is wrong.

Homes for Ukraine Scheme

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

The answer to the question on the babies is that children under five do not have passports or visas. The reason why there still have to be visits to visa application centres is our fear that very young children will be used to be trafficked over here, and we need evidence that typically the mother—but sometimes the father—in question is in fact the rightful parent. We really do that as quickly and easily as we can. We cannot ignore the fact that there are people traffickers operating, and we have to do some due diligence.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that today, following meetings with British universities, eight rectors of medical universities in Ukraine—and I have the letter in my hand—have written to the Secretary of State asking that where a British university has invited an academic or a student over, entry into this country be expedited?

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. I was not aware of the letter and I look forward to receiving it from him personally, because it might be quicker than via the system, and I will answer it very quickly.

Ukrainian Nationals: Visitor Visas

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. We have done quite a lot of work on orphans in the countries around Ukraine. The problem is that the policy of the Ukrainian Government, which we have to respect, is that orphans are to be kept in countries adjacent to Ukraine. In the vast majority of cases, they do not want them brought to the UK or other countries. It is therefore our role, predominantly, to support the Ukraine Government by providing aid, hospitality and all the facilities that we can in those countries.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend has been very helpful. What happens to those to whom permission for three years is given when the six months for which the Government are paying elapses? Are the Government prepared to continue paying those families or are they expecting those refugees to move elsewhere?

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

My Lords, I will just clarify the situation. The six months to which my noble friend refers is the six months of the sponsorship scheme. That is the minimum period for which individual sponsors may be asked to provide accommodation. That, of course, is extendable. All the benefits, rights to education and all the other facilities extend for the full three years. Depending on what the sponsor wants, however, those people might have to move to another sponsored accommodation or elsewhere after six months.

Home Office Visas for Ukrainians

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The noble Lord might recall me talking this week about the humanitarian sponsorship pathway, which is for Ukrainians without family in the UK who want to come here. There is no cap on the number of people who can come. All they need is a sponsor. As was mentioned previously, we have been inundated with offers. One thing that I discussed this morning with Richard Harrington was how we capture that generosity and ensure that the people who want to help can help.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, we capture that generosity by being efficient. Will my noble friend tell me what is the status of Lille? On Monday, refugees were told to go to Calais and on Tuesday they were told to go to Lille. Where do these poor people go?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

There will be a temporary facility at Lille, but I want to put in context for my noble friend and others in the House the number of people who went to Paris compared with those who went to VACs in Poland. The number in Rzeszów and Warsaw was 10 times the number going to Paris, for obvious reasons. People are far safer to go to the nearest VAC as they exit Ukraine.

Ukraine: Urgent Refugee Applications

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a very understandable point. As I said yesterday to the House, I know that we are training people as we speak, and surging the capacity and capability of our VAC teams from that region.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, what are we doing to liaise with the Polish authorities, who have received so many of these refugees from Ukraine? Surely, if they have been accepted into Poland, we can arrange quick transfers to the UK for those who wish to come here—many of whom have family members here.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My noble friend will have seen footage of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary there over the weekend. We are in very regular contact with Poland. I just turned to my noble friend to clarify the contact we are having with the UNHCR: it sounds regular and very thorough in enabling refugees to come to this country as quickly as possible. If someone is in Poland, and has had their visa issued in Poland, they are absolutely ready to come to this country. That is the very positive benefit of having VACs in Poland.

Mike Veale: Police Conduct Report

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The IOPC does not usually provide updates on its investigations, but certainly when it has completed its investigations, its reports are published.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, can I take my noble friend back to the Question asked by my noble friend Lord Lexden? I entirely endorse his personal comments about her, but the case of Mr Veale, who appears to have tarnished every office he has held and whose traducing of Edward Heath still remains on the record, really is extremely unsatisfactory. This should be properly investigated. For reasons I do not understand, we have heard constant refusals to have a proper inquiry into Conifer and Midland. We need one. It is not too late to have one now.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I am afraid that I must disappoint my noble friend by telling him that we do not have any plans to commission a review of either the conduct of the investigation into the allegations made against Sir Edward Heath or the findings of that investigation.