Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend asks a perfectly reasonable question. We are not holding the inquiry to a timescale, but the chair has indicated that by 2020 she should have concluded a large element of her work. We have absolute confidence in the chairman. She was appointed in view of the fact she had led such a successful inquiry into some of the terrible things that happened in Rotherham.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, my Government in Scotland appointed Professor Jay to head up our social work inspectorate in 2006. She is an outstanding individual and, I believe, not only the best appointment to this position but one who should have been appointed earlier, given her track record. I hope we will give her every support. That said, I ask a question I have asked before about the links between this inquiry and the similarly stuttering inquiry in Scotland into survivors of child sexual abuse. Have those links been properly set up, and will information be exchanged between the two inquiries to ensure that the whole of the United Kingdom is covered accurately?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

On the noble Lord’s second point, the entire point of the inquiry is that it is a full and proper inquiry into what happened in the past, both in Scotland and in England and Wales. I am sure there will be sharing of information across the piece. I am pleased he mentioned Professor Jay because she has shown in her past work into Rotherham what an outstanding chairman she is and how she got to the heart of what was a very difficult, complex issue. I am pleased to hear the noble Lord make that point. The Government also have full confidence in her.

Immigration: Overseas Students

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for initiating this really important debate. I want to record a number of relevant interests in my commitment to universities, to teaching and to the importance of education.

If we were to recruit a group of cultural philistines and educational vandals, and send them away for a weekend to devise a policy that could do the most damage to this country in the shortest time, they would be hard pressed to come up with a better outcome than the policies and practices of the Government that we are debating today. They are incredible at this important time of global relationships and international economic competition, when for example in China there are now more graduates every year than in the whole of the European Union and Russia combined.

On a recent visit to Nigeria, I met a young businesswoman being supported by DfID. She was setting up her own business in northern Nigeria in the heart of Boko Haram territory and employing local people who are trying to create a decent economy in a large Commonwealth country. Her higher education was in India and China, not in the United Kingdom. This is the kind of world we live in today, yet we have devised a policy that discriminates against talented people and then deters them from coming to this country and making a connection with it. It damages our reputation and our economy—and it damages the pursuit of human knowledge in a way that we should be ashamed of.

I will reference specifically the Scottish dimension because, as I mentioned in your Lordships’ Chamber back in July, we established the Fresh Talent programme in Scotland with the enthusiastic support of the then Home Secretary, my noble friend Lord Blunkett. This was back in 2002 and it was brought in in 2004. It extended the post-study work visa to Scottish universities and then to Scottish colleges for up to two years as a precursor to what happened in the rest of the United Kingdom. There was no abuse of that system. It helped us turn round Scotland’s historic population decline and made it absolutely clear that Scotland was open for business, knowledge and talented people. It was an outstanding success, so much so that it was copied elsewhere in the UK—yet there are no Scottish universities or colleges involved in the pilot project on tier 4 visas that was established by the Government in July.

I asked the Government a number of questions after my initial Oral Question in your Lordships’ House. I am astonished to discover that the four universities—all from the south of England and from the higher-ranked universities of the United Kingdom—were consulted in advance, but no other universities or colleges were consulted in advance about the pilot project. The data on which the universities are supposed to have been chosen are secret and we cannot scrutinise them because of “commercial confidentiality”. Yet at least one Scottish university—the University of Edinburgh—has a minuscule number of visa refusals on first application, which is meant to be the criterion chosen for this. Colleagues in universities and colleges across the country will not believe that these four universities were chosen objectively unless the Government publish those data and review the universities that were chosen for the pilot. It is simply wrong that the north of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were missed out of that pilot project, and that should be reviewed, even at this late stage.

The other issue I want to mention today is our international soft power. We have debated in this Chamber on many occasions the importance of Britain’s soft power in the world: our role in the Commonwealth, the United Nations Security Council, the European Union and other international bodies and the connections that we have internationally, economically, educationally and culturally. Surely it has to be part of that soft power that we make these connections with people who come to study in this country—and not just those who go on to be world leaders, whom other noble Lords have mentioned, and I understand their point. In the now well over 30 years since I left university, I have met people who I studied with in business, academia and politics on almost every continent of the globe. They are working hard and making a success of themselves but they will retain a connection with the United Kingdom all their lives because of where they started their undergraduate or postgraduate education. It seems to me fundamentally at odds with our objectives as a peace-loving, internationalised nation that in future we would deter these individuals coming to this country and being part of that wide international network.

The fantastic American writer Maya Angelou, who sadly is no longer with us, once wrote:

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends”.

Surely in this day and age, at this time, when there is so much global uncertainty, insecurity and fear of the other, bringing people together, educating them together and sharing knowledge, research and teaching has to be one of our international goals. I urge the Government to treat this matter more seriously and to rethink their policies.

EU: Unaccompanied Migrant Children (EUC Report)

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, I should note my registered interest as vice-president of UNICEF in the UK. Although it is clearly not a financial interest, it is one of some impact on this subject. I start by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, on an outstanding report that is comprehensive, thoughtful and practical, and also on her passionate and very clear introduction to our debate this evening. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and the noble Lord, Lord Roberts—who has raised the subject in this Chamber now month after month when many of us were not prioritising the lack of action on it. I am very pleased that he has spoken this evening about the situation in Calais this week.

The report contains 65 conclusions and recommendations and all of them deserve attention. They certainly deserve more respect than a response just before the start of our debate. In looking at the report and considering this debate and what has been happening over recent months I have thought on many occasions about my own childhood. I remember all sorts of things. I remember watching the first man on the moon on the new colour TV and all the other incredible technological advances that were taking place and the hope for humanity that we were somehow going to have a much better world that was more open, corrected and advanced.

There was the decision of the then Conservative—Conservative—Government to admit 27,000 Ugandan Asians to this country because they were being expelled from somewhere they were no longer welcome. There was also the decision of the then Conservative Government to be part of an international effort to relocate more than 20,000 Vietnamese refugees to this country alone and 800,000 internationally, and no matter which side people were on during the Vietnam war, there was support for both of those decisions from local authorities and politicians in all major parties.

I also think back to my own childhood and the complete freedom from violence and fear that I was able to enjoy, and I think about these children and the journeys that they have had, losing friends and brothers and sisters across deserts in north Africa, and across the Mediterranean, whether from Turkey to Greece or from north Africa to Italy or Malta. Presumably there was some hope in their hearts and minds and presumably some promises were made to them before they embarked on those journeys. It is absolutely shameful that they find themselves in civilised, 21st century Europe being ignored, abandoned and neglected, as has been the case over recent months and years.

I have been in about five or six different countries over the last 10 weeks since the summer break and in every country one of the first questions I have been asked by people locally, whether people I just happened to meet or representatives of people in Governments or organisations, is: “What is happening in the United Kingdom and in Europe?”. We have thousands of kids vulnerable to sexual exploitation, hunger and disease—as the committee unanimously says in this report—and yet we have seen this determined effort not to act. It is not laziness, not the absence of any solutions or the existence of a vacuum; there has been a determined effort not to act over the months of this year to bring these children to the UK and across Europe, leaving them in what are essentially detention camps after the horrific journeys that they have endured. The international system has been allowed to drag its feet again and again and to make promises to these children that are not kept again and again. We should think about the conditions that have resulted in them coming to the shores of Europe.

We have the cheek to lecture countries around the world about the use of the rule of law. I cannot count the number of times that I have heard when travelling to different places that the UK and Europe stand up for the international rule of law and that other countries —whether dictatorships in parts of the developing world, Russia or China in the South China Sea—do not do so, and yet we are ignoring our international legal obligations to these children, as this unanimous committee report says.

We boast about our efforts to deal with human trafficking and say that we are taking a lead. We see it reported constantly that the Government in the UK are taking a lead in tackling human trafficking and the European Union is taking a lead in tackling human trafficking and slavery worldwide. Yet we leave these kids vulnerable to human trafficking and slavery. We talk about our European values, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has just said, and what we stand for as a civilisation, yet we are willing to walk by on the other side so often on this issue. Future generations will look back and wonder at this hypocrisy and be ashamed of us.

I think the UK has many obligations. We have a huge obligation as a member of the UN Security Council and a huge one still as a member of the European Union. We have an obligation because of our role in Iraq and Afghanistan and one because of our history in Africa. These are all obligations that we should be fulfilling by playing a proactive role not just in resettling more of the kids more quickly from France but in trying to find Europe-wide and international solutions to looking after the kids who have arrived in Europe and dealing with the reasons behind this movement of people, not just making promises, particularly in north Africa.

I want to ask the Government three questions today. I hope they will be addressed in the Minister’s summing-up. The first is in relation to Calais and the wider European issue. Can we receive today an up-to-date position on these kids—over 1,000—who seem to be either living in containers or actually still living and sleeping on the site in Calais. Are we going to see through this programme of resettlement in a genuine way over the coming weeks and will we continue to be part of an EU effort over the next two years despite the fact that we will be negotiating Brexit at the same time? Can we have a firm commitment from the Government that Britain will proactively engage in the EU-wide effort to provide solutions over the next two years?

Secondly, what is happening in north Africa? There was considerable talk a year ago about trying to prevent the boats and the traffickers coming across the southern Mediterranean and to deal with some of the problems at source and create better conditions and organisation in the north African coastal states. Is the UK involved in any activity there? Is anybody paying any attention to these people any more given that there is so much attention being paid to Greece and Calais and so on? What action are we taking, both through our aid programme and our international efforts in the UN to deal with the countries of origin?

Thirdly, will we take seriously the fact that the kids in detention camps in Greece and the kids in France and elsewhere have the same right to education that we have spoken about in this Chamber regularly in relation to kids in refugee camps in Jordan, the Middle East and elsewhere? Are any of these kids receiving any education just now at all? If not, what are we doing to try to change that situation as part of the international effort to educate refugees that we in the UK, again, boast about being a central part of?

I have mentioned what I think are the key obligations —the UN Security Council post, our membership of the EU, our recent history in Iraq and Afghanistan and our earlier history in Africa, but it seems to me that ultimately this is about a moral obligation. We should be helping these kids because we can. We are one of the five largest economies in the world. We have a history of civilisation, democracy, openness, transparency and caring. The fact that in the second decade of the 21st century we seem to have been willing at the very least to drag our feet but at worst to deliberately slow down the process of helping these kids is shameful and I hope that we have seen a turning point in recent weeks.

Student Visas: Pilot Study

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what criteria they used to select universities for the pilot study on student visas announced on 25 July.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, the four universities chosen to participate in the tier 4 visa pilot—namely, Oxford, Cambridge, Bath and Imperial College London —were chosen on the basis of their consistently low visa refusal rates.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, when he was Home Secretary, my noble friend Lord Blunkett and I agreed the Fresh Talent scheme for Scotland in 2003, which introduced a post-study work visa for students graduating from Scottish universities. That scheme, which helped reverse population decline and increased economic activity in Scotland, was never abused. It was extended to the rest of the United Kingdom in 2008, when it was abused elsewhere, and the Government abolished it in 2012. This new pilot scheme directly discriminates against the Scottish university sector and is a slap in the face for Scottish higher education. I ask the Government first, to review the involvement of the Scottish higher education sector in the pilot project and, secondly, to set a threshold which gives universities a standard to meet—and, if they get above it, to include more than these four elite universities in this discriminatory scheme.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the scheme may be expanded following the pilot; that has not been decided yet. On population decline in Scotland, I would say to the noble Lord that in fact it is projected that the population of Scotland will increase by 3.1% by 2024.

Migration: Middle East and North Africa

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

The Government have always recognised that there are both push and pull factors in the context of migration—indeed, historically, that has been well established. One could go back to the Goths moving into the Western Roman Empire to confirm that issue. With regard to more recent migration, there is no doubt that a great deal of it is economically based. Indeed, statistical flows into Italy between January and April this year show that the top nationalities entering across the Mediterranean have been Nigerian, Gambian and Senegalese.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, I saw for myself in Kurdistan in northern Iraq just last week that the major pull factors for people to come to Europe from that part of the world just now are fear and a lack of hope for the future. Will the Government at the coming World Humanitarian Summit properly prioritise education and child protection for families to ensure that they feel safer in the camps where they have been living now for far too long?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

The example that the noble Lord gives is in fact an example of push factors—if I might respectfully suggest. Clearly, they do exist in that part of the world. We are, of course, prioritising the issue of addressing these problems at source. That is where our most material efforts are being made and that is where we can prevent the terrible development of the criminal enterprise, which is not only moving families and children across the Mediterranean but then, according to recent reports, trafficking these vulnerable victims further.

Religious Hate Crime

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I agree with the right reverend Prelate, but I also believe very strongly that adversity is an opportunity and that Questions such as this present an opportunity to all of us in this House, across the political spectrum, to speak with one voice and unite against bigotry in all its ugly guises.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister agree with me—

[Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB)]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Cross Bench!

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

I think it is this side. Will the Minister agree with me that the idea that bigotry and hatred are confined only to the extreme elements in the Islamic religion in this country is absolute nonsense? Historically, bigotry and hatred have been inflicted on both Catholic and Protestant communities right across the United Kingdom by alternative Christian religions. Will he join me in consistently condemning all forms of religious sectarianism and bigotry? If we do that in this House, we will perhaps have a stronger message to tell the country.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I totally agree with the noble Lord. One other point I would add is that whenever we face such bigotry, the resilience of our country and our historic legacy shows that when we face those challenges, we come together as a more united nation going forward.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Funding

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, given the importance of diplomatic efforts for the reasons that have been explained by other noble Lords, will the Government give a clear guarantee that whatever the level of cuts in the Budget to be announced by the Chancellor later in this Session, the Government will bring to the House an opportunity to debate the strategy behind the implementation of those cuts to the Foreign Office budget, and in particular to look at what opportunities there are to work more closely with the European External Action Service, which now has diplomatic offices in many of the countries where we are represented as well?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, as the noble Lord will be aware, not long ago we had an interesting debate on the responsibility to protect, to which I was able to respond from this Dispatch Box. It is up to noble Lords to put down debates on this subject at any time, and I am sure that the noble Lord will attempt to do so.

Higher Education: Overseas Students

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, it is of course entirely appropriate to ensure that the administration of student visas is being carried out effectively, but that should not diminish the contribution that overseas students make to this country culturally, academically and financially. There are examples all over the world of economies that benefit from overseas students not just when they are studying but from the contribution that they can make following graduation. Will the Government drop this plan to limit the access of overseas students to the United Kingdom after they complete their studies, and will they look at proper examples elsewhere in the world where people stay on, contribute to entrepreneurial activity and eventually return home to help to develop the economies of the countries they came from in the first place?

[Lord Bates]

Let me underscore that absolute commitment. When people are coming here to study, they are coming to invest in the UK and they will be welcome. There is no cap on students coming to the UK, provided that they are bona fide students in bona fide universities and they have the funds necessary to complete their studies. We are talking about tier 4, which is the student visa, and whether people ought to be able to stay on. There are some examples of abuse of that system under the previous Government, and we are trying to tighten up on that by simply saying that they ought to have an appropriate visa. We have opened up new routes through tier 2 and tier 1 particularly to entrepreneurs and those in high-skilled occupations. They will continue to be welcome in this country, as in others around the world.

Child Abuse Inquiry

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, I hope the Minister and your Lordships’ House will accept my apology for missing the first two paragraphs of the Statement. I want to ask a question on the very important issue of Scotland. Given that a number of these allegations pre-date devolution and that a number of the institutions referred to cover the whole of the United Kingdom, not just England and Wales, including, for example, the BBC, there is dismay in Scotland among the historic survivors of child abuse that this inquiry will not cover Scotland. Therefore, I ask the Minister, as I asked his predecessors, why is this inquiry not including Scotland? Has the Home Secretary discussed this issue with the Justice Secretary in the Scottish Cabinet? If the new First Minister in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, who is expected to be in post before the end of this month, were to agree to include Scotland in the inquiry, would the Government be willing to reconsider this position?

[Lord Bates]

The inquiry is being set up now, and now it is a devolved matter in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is undertaking its own inquiry under Sir Anthony Hart into some matters which happened there. Scotland is free to undertake that process. Of course, as part of this process which we are now embarking upon, we remain open to approaches and suggestions from wherever they come, including from the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish First Minister.

Child Abuse

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I pay tribute to the role of the church in the care of children. I am sure that the Home Secretary will note the offer of involvement in the review and these inquiries. I am delighted that the right reverend Prelate has raised this issue. The involvement of church activists in the national group to tackle sexual violence against children and vulnerable people is an important start.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, by far the most harrowing constituency surgery meetings I ever attended were those where representations were received from victims of historic child abuse. People were haunted by that abuse 40 or 50 years later. One of the most difficult days I had as First Minister of Scotland was when I had to issue from the Chamber of the Scottish Parliament a formal apology to those victims on behalf of the Government and people of Scotland. However, there is still no independent inquiry into historic child abuse in Scotland. I warmly welcome what the Government have announced today which, I presume, at this stage covers England and Wales. Victims and perpetrators will have crossed borders over the past decades. What discussions could take place to ensure that any review at this stage or future inquiry will cover those victims and perpetrators across the whole UK?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

We know that these are devolved matters in some areas. As the former leader of the Scottish Parliament, the noble Lord will know that Scotland is affected as much of the United Kingdom has been by these matters. We have inquiries going on in Northern Ireland and north Wales. In so far as it is not a devolved matter, the inquiry will indeed embrace the entire United Kingdom, but it is about England initially. However, I am sure that we can all learn from each other’s experiences. If there is a willingness to accept, across the United Kingdom, that information should be exchanged between the Governments and Assemblies in other parts of the United Kingdom and the inquiry, I am sure that that will be made clear.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that I have received a comment about gagging and whether people will be prevented because they have signed a commitment not to talk about matters. I make it clear that this is to be a wide-ranging review. It will have access to all papers and reports, as I have said, and, subject to the constraints of criminal investigations, it will be free to call witnesses. We have made it clear that if the inquiry panel deems it necessary, the Government are prepared to convert it into a free inquiry. It will have considerable powers.