Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Selous Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
We have very regular discussions with chief constables across the country about local policing—in fact, just this morning I had a discussion with the chief constable of Staffordshire Police about some local policing issues in that county. It is a dialogue that happens on a regular and ongoing basis. Police chief constables are, of course, operationally independent, but we work very closely in partnership with them.
Andrew Selous
Leighton Buzzard, Dunstable and Houghton Regis are the third, fourth and fifth largest towns in Bedfordshire, yet they have a fraction of the police officers that are based in Luton and Bedford. Will the Minister speak to the chief constable to ensure that we get a fairer allocation of the record number of police officers we have in Bedfordshire, spread across the county and with a 24/7 first responder presence?
Chris Philp
My hon. Friend is a doughty champion for his part of Bedfordshire. He is quite right to say that Bedfordshire, in common with many other parts of the country—and indeed with England and Wales as a whole —has a record number of police officers. In the case of Bedfordshire, the number is 1,456, and across England and Wales as a whole we now have over 149,000 officers: that is more than we have ever had before, and over 3,000 more than we had under the last Labour Government.
I speak regularly to Chief Constable Trevor Rodenhurst and the excellent police and crime commissioner in Bedfordshire, Festus Akinbusoye. Of course, how they deploy their record headcount is a matter for them, rather than for Government, but I will certainly mention the issues that my hon. Friend has raised when I next speak to them—I think we are having a meeting quite shortly—and I know that my hon. Friend will mention these issues as well.
Police Grant Report
Andrew Selous Excerpts(2 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Several hon. Members rose—
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
I thank the Minister for Policing for those increases he mentions and for his help on section 59 of the Police Reform Act 2002 and dealing with illegal motorcycles in my area. The issue is that Bedfordshire police survives on a series of top-up grants because the national funding formula is not very fair to us. Does the Minister foresee a time when we can get rid of those grants and have our core funding baked into our core funding, so we do not rely on special grants?
Chris Philp
My hon. Friend campaigns tirelessly for Bedfordshire policing and to combat the scourge of antisocial motorcycle use. I believe we will shortly be organising a meeting to discuss that issue. He is right that Bedfordshire receives special grant support in order to fund its activity, particularly in relation to gang violence in certain urban parts of the county, but he is also right that we need to change the underlying funding formula because it is over 10 years out of date. It needs to better reflect population changes and changes in crime, and better reflect issues of sparsity and rurality. The Home Office is actively working on that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Selous Excerpts(7 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Suella Braverman
We take these matters incredibly seriously. That is why my right hon. Friend the Policing Minister met the Co-op and other major retailers recently to discuss this issue in detail. Shoplifting and retail theft have become a challenge for retailers and our community, which is not right. That is why, a few weeks ago, we made a nationwide commitment whereby all police forces have agreed to follow every reasonable line of inquiry. That will mean that CCTV footage, online evidence of resale and other actionable evidence will be followed up by the police, leading the investigations and justice process.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
The illegal use of motorcycles can cause distress and be dangerous to the public. The police have all the powers they need to police that, and such use of motorcycles is illegal. The College of Policing’s authorised professional practice provides advice to the operationally independent chief constables, whom I urge to use their powers to the full.
Andrew Selous
Dangerous motorcyclists are out of control in my area. We have had one death and one life-threatening injury. We now have six year olds riding pillion on motorbikes, and people doing wheelies down roads, pavements and amenity areas, with not a helmet in sight. My police tell me that they need urgent guidance on safeguarding officers who try to apprehend them, and an urgent review of section 59 of the Police Reform Act 2022 on the requirement that officers be present in uniform at the time of offending. Would the Minister get on to those specific issues, please?
Chris Philp
I would be happy to look into those specific issues. The police have powers to pursue, even where the motorcycle rider is not wearing a helmet. We had similar issues with mopeds in London four or five years ago. For a time, the police did not pursue them, and moped crime shot through the roof. They now pursue them, and it has gone back down. I urge Bedfordshire police to use those powers, but I will certainly look into the questions that my hon. Friend has raised.
Illegal Migration Update
Andrew Selous Excerpts(7 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Robert Jenrick
I strongly support the view of my hon. Friend. He is right to say that illegal migration places immense pressures on public services, housing supply and community cohesion. That is what we on this side of the House understand and that is why we are taking the action that we are to stop the boats.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
When will the Old Palace Lodge in Dunstable be available for the people of Dunstable again, given its particular role in providing a social community for marking life events for the whole town?
Robert Jenrick
I have had numerous conversations with my hon. Friend about that hotel. I hope that we will be in a position to exit hotels shortly, as a result of the work we have done to restore order to the asylum decision-making system and the reduced numbers of illegal migrants crossing the channel.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Selous Excerpts(10 months ago)
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Chris Philp
It is, of course, important to make sure that UK industry can compete globally, and a light-touch regulatory framework is important in that. We should be aware that some parts of the plant contain high levels of THC—tetrahydrocannabinol—and do need regulation, which is the Home Office’s concern. I will be meeting DEFRA colleagues in the near future to make sure that our approach to regulation is as light-touch as possible, because, like him, I want to see our domestic industry flourish and I do not want any excessive regulation.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
The Government have said they will be reviewing the police funding formula, and I hope to have news for the House in the relatively near future about initiating the consultation process. The formula is quite out of date and it needs overhauling, and we are working on that.
Andrew Selous
The record number of 1,455 police officers in Bedfordshire and the recent £6 million special grant are both very welcome indeed, but does the Minister recognise that it is simply not fair or right to go on funding a force with a series of one-off special grants that really need to be part of core funding?
Chris Philp
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I should take this opportunity to pay tribute to the Bedfordshire police and crime commissioner, Festus Akinbusoye, who has done a fantastic job for the people of Bedfordshire. He advocated for more funding via the special grant and was successful. He is a great representative for the people of Bedfordshire and I am pleased that he has delivered record police numbers in Bedfordshire, just as the Government have delivered record numbers of police across the whole of England and Wales.
Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery
Andrew Selous Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of human trafficking and modern slavery.
I am grateful to Mr Speaker for rescheduling this debate. Unfortunately, I had flu when it was first scheduled; I am not entirely sure I am over it, so I might croak my way through my speech. It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts.
I thank the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Miss Dines), for appearing today to respond to this important and timely debate, and I also thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), and the SNP spokesman, the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), for being here. I thank my exceptionally talented senior parliamentary assistant, Isobelle Jackson, for the preparation of this speech; my parliamentary assistant, Jack Goodenough, for his assistance; and Tatiana Gren-Jardan, the head of the modern slavery unit at the Centre for Social Justice and at Justice and Care, who has helped me a lot with the research for this debate and over many years on the issue of human trafficking. I know that they will be watching this debate closely.
When I was first elected a Member of Parliament in 2005, I had a letter posted to my constituency office. It was anonymous, but the person who wrote it was a prostitute from Northampton. She was very concerned about what was happening to young women who were being brought into this country and forced into prostitution in Northamptonshire. That was the first time I had come across human trafficking, and from that moment on, I began to campaign on the issue. I have served as the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on human trafficking, and I am the chairman of the parliamentary advisory group on modern slavery and the supply chain. Given that the House is considering a Bill that will affect provisions of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, this debate could not be more relevant. Having said that, its purpose is not to scrutinise the Illegal Migration Bill; it is about the crime of human trafficking.
In debates concerning small boat crossings or modern slavery laws, I often hear the terms “human trafficking” and “people smuggling” used interchangeably. In fact, each has a distinct meaning, and the language we use when describing these criminal activities matters. I sometimes throw things at the TV when I hear Ministers using the wrong terminology. Let us get this sorted out. According to the United Nations, migrant smuggling is
“the facilitation, for financial or other material gain, of irregular entry into a country where the migrant is not a national or resident.”
The people being smuggled have willingly paid smugglers—often large sums of money—to help them enter a chosen country. In so far as a country can be defined as a victim of crime, the victims of smuggling are the countries where the borders have been breached.
On the other hand, human trafficking is defined as
“the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of people through force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them for profit.”
Victims of human trafficking are individuals who are coerced into being exploited in the most horrendous conditions. They often arrive in the UK legally, with valid visas and passports. However, the largest group of people referred to the national referral mechanism are British nationals. Some 80% of the British nationals referred are children exploited for criminal, labour and sexual purposes in their own country, and one in five—3,337—of the potential victims found in the UK last year was a British child.
The national referral mechanism is the Government’s mechanism for supporting the victims of human trafficking. When I started to campaign on the issue of human trafficking, alongside Anthony Steen, the former Member for Totnes, human trafficking was not recognised as a crime in this country. It was not even recognised as happening. Anthony Steen has gone on to set up the Human Trafficking Foundation, which serves as a secretariat for the APPG. It was a pleasure to meet up with Anthony last week. He almost single-handedly brought the issue of human trafficking to the attention of this Parliament, and we are greatly indebted to him for that. He is an absolute star. Some of the things he used to get up to even I would blush at. He would somehow talk his way into a Romanian prison to speak to traffickers—just amazing.
During my time as chairman, the all-party parliamentary group on human trafficking and modern slavery travelled to Europe and further afield to understand and learn from existing frameworks relating to modern slavery. The group visited Europol so as to understand the international approach to identifying traffickers, and we met with the Dutch rapporteur, who was a former judge.
National rapporteurs are an initiative originating in the Council of Europe, under which Governments are encouraged to appoint an independent rapporteur to report on the Government’s actions against human trafficking. In the case of the Dutch rapporteur, once the office was established, it was recognised that she had helped the Government, because she did not just criticise; she promoted the good things that were being done.
When I started campaigning for a national rapporteur in this country, we had to overcome two problems. First, the name clearly sounded too French, so there was no way I could recommend that, but that was easy to fix. We changed the name to independent commissioner —job done. The second problem was much more difficult. It was to explain to the Home Office that it needed to do this. The Home Office resisted.
Initially, the Home Office created what it considered to be an equivalent to a rapporteur, an interdepartmental ministerial group. Sir Humphrey would have been proud. The group proved largely ineffective and met infrequently, normally with a large number of ministerial absences. Eventually, however, pressure from the APPG forced the Government to appoint an Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, and the Modern Slavery Act 2015 imposed a duty on the Home Secretary to make such an appointment. The first commissioner was Kevin Hyland. He was replaced by Dame Sara Thornton, who was appointed in May 2019. She left in April 2022. Since then, there has been no Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner. At the same time, suspected cases of human trafficking have hit an all-time high, and Parliament is scrutinising the Illegal Migration Bill, which clearly has implications for human trafficking.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech on important issues. I wonder whether I might lift his gaze to the global situation. The International Labour Organisation estimates that there are 50 million people in modern slavery, a large number of whom are in south and south-east Asia and involved in textiles, construction and fishing. Many of them will never leave, for example, the same brick kiln. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is incumbent on the UK Government to challenge Governments in the countries concerned to look at what is happening, and to challenge businesses here to ensure that goods produced in this way do not end up in UK supply chains? Does he agree that we all have a role to play in that important work?
Mr Bone
My hon. Friend raises an important factor, and there are more slaves in the world now than in Wilberforce’s day. That is an issue that Parliament is looking at in particular, so as to ensure that nobody in the supply chains for this Parliament is a slave. However, a year or so ago, we did find a product that was produced by slaves, so it is important that we use our soft power. If I were spending our overseas aid budget, that is where I would put a lot of the money, because there would be real benefit for everyone involved.
Andrew Selous
Does my hon. Friend agree that that story had a good ending? We went back to that business in Malaysia, and the conditions for the workers are now improved. We effected real-world change for the better, and we should count that as a positive result.
Mr Bone
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we discover something in this House, as he says, we correct it. We do not just say, “We are not going to use that product.” We go back and improve the situation, which is entirely the right approach.
It is not good enough that we do not have an Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner. The only conclusion that people can draw is that the Home Office does not want independent scrutiny of human trafficking. I cannot see any other reason for it. In 2022, almost 17,000 potential victims of human trafficking were referred to the national referral mechanism—an increase of 33% on the previous year. Last year, the average number of days that a victim waited for a conclusive grounds decision was 543. That is an improvement on the previous year, when it was 560-odd days. In about 100 years’ time, we will probably get it down to an acceptable level. We are creating a huge backlog in the system and stretching the resources available to support survivors of human trafficking.
In last year’s Queen’s Speech, the Government promised a new modern slavery Bill. In addition, a new modern slavery strategy had been promised in spring 2021. That was in response to the 2019 independent review of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which suggested improvements. To date, neither the Bill nor the strategy has been forthcoming. The independent review had four main topics of focus, one of which was the safeguarding of child victims of modern slavery. That issue has long been a source of personal frustration to me.
As I have said, almost 80% of UK nationals referred to the NRM are children. The situation regarding the safeguarding of children who may have been trafficked is unique, in that the provision of care for trafficked adults is far better than that for trafficked children. Where else in Government do we look after adults better than children? I made that point during my Westminster Hall debate over 10 years ago. I recounted how in 2010 I went to a safe home in the Philippines, where there were children who had been trafficked and had experienced the worst kind of abuse—in the Philippines it was largely prostitution. They received specialist support and went to school. They were in a safe environment, and after a few years, they left a changed person. In fact, I had the great pleasure of attending a wedding of a former trafficked child who had gone through that process. There is no reason why this country could not offer the same standard of care. We should learn from best practice elsewhere, and could offer more specialist support and rehabilitation to trafficked children in this country.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Selous Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Suella Braverman
Many people have commented on this. All I will say is that people who resort to such analogies have already lost the argument.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important topic. The Government are committed to reviewing the police funding formula, in which there are some unfairnesses. The police funding formula is historical and somewhat out of date, and we intend to consult on it in the near future.
Andrew Selous
Will the new funding formula be crime based, rather than just population based? Will it be implemented immediately for the winners, to stop the gross unfairness of the current formula to forces such as Bedfordshire?
Doctor Training
Andrew Selous Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
It is upsetting for young British students who have the grades and desperately want to be doctors in a country that desperately needs them to be turned down. I nearly went through that as a parent; I have an interest because my eldest daughter is a junior doctor, and the agonies that she went through, and that we went through as parents, wondering whether she would get the grades and get a place, were awful. Many British families go through that, and it is simply not right when, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) has said, we have 30,000 doctors from India and 3,000 from Iraq. We should be able to train more.
I am encouraged that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has at last said that the Government will introduce a plan to ensure that the NHS has the workforce it requires to meet future need. The plan will be for the next five, 10 and 15 years, taking into account improvements in retention. That is absolutely right and, frankly, we should have backed it when he was Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee and made the same point. But better late than never—a sinner who repents and all that.
I want to talk mainly about general practice, but we have to get the training right for our doctors everywhere—in hospitals and in general practice. They work incredibly hard under huge stress. I will be delighted to visit the junior doctors’ mess at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital, as I had an invitation recently. I will listen very carefully to what is said there. Today I want to talk about general practice, and in particular about ensuring we have somewhere to train those young GPs as they go through their career. I was very upset to learn last Wednesday that my integrated care board—Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes—had to turn away eight trainee GPs, because there is nowhere for them go. That is an appalling situation.
Some 14,000 new homes are being built in my constituency. The NHS uses the measure of 2.4 people per home, which means 33,600 new residents, and we are really struggling to expand general practice. Last Wednesday, my integrated care board scrapped 30 of the 53 proposed expansions in primary care across its area—where we could have trained young GPs—for the lack of £2.95 million out of a £1.7 billion budget.
I think about those eight trainee GPs that Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes had to turn away. My constituents are particularly angry because to the east of Leighton Buzzard is a big new development called Clipstone Park. I have with me a copy of what Barratt Homes, Taylor Wimpey and David Wilson Homes say in the planning application, which states that the development will see the delivery of a doctor’s surgery. No ifs, no buts, no caveats; it will happen. People bought those homes on the basis that there would be a surgery where we could train the young doctors we are talking about. It is not happening, so is it surprising that there is a breakdown in trust among our constituents? It is simply not good enough. Two health hubs that desperately believe in integrated health and care have also not been given the go-ahead. Furthermore, I have discovered that of the £7 billion of section 106 money to fund facilities, including healthcare facilities to train doctors, less than £187 million went into health. That is simply not good enough.
We either take health seriously or we do not. We need to get waiting times down in hospitals. However, we also need to get down the time that many of our constituents spend waiting at 8 o’clock every morning, day after day, trying to see a young doctor, so many more of whom we need to train.
Sir George Howarth (in the Chair)
I remind Members that I will be calling speakers from the Front Benches at 10.30 am. To get everybody in, I will now impose a formal four-minute limit on speeches.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Selous Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Damian Hinds
Gangs of criminals certainly do not get a free run, and we will be investing and doing more than ever before to bear down on fraud. During the covid era—the trend had started already, but it accelerated then—while other forms of crime got depressed, there was a boost to some of this distanced crime that people do over their computers. Crime overall across the world is changing, and our response must change in a way that is commensurate to that. We must ensure that we take the most effective action. Part of that is the spending review commitment that has just been made; there is also the new economic crime levy, which represents an additional £400 million over this spending review period.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
In advance of the recent irresponsible and self-defeating protests, there has been regular engagement with the police, local authorities and industry to ensure that these protests can be managed effectively, and that there is no risk to fuel supply. All fuel supply points are fully operational, and we will continue to work closely with the police and industry to ensure that supplies are maintained.
Andrew Selous
Does the Minister agree that while the right to protest is a fundamental liberty, this type of behaviour just infuriates the public, whom we need to get on side with our net zero campaign? It is particularly unfair to the self-employed. If they cannot get fuel for their vehicles, they cannot get to work and they do not get paid. Will he ensure that the police and the law stay on the side of the law-abiding, so that everyone can earn an income?
Kit Malthouse
I certainly will ensure that, and my hon. Friend is right to point out the impact, particularly on those who rely on their vehicles for their work, of these irresponsible and self-defeating protests, many of which have been extremely dangerous. It is worth also reflecting on the other impact, which is that hundreds of police officers are pulled away from policing neighbourhoods across the UK, because forces provide each other with mutual aid. We have brought police from as far away as Scotland, the south-west and Wales to help deal with these protests, and that has a direct impact on crime in all our constituencies. We are all committed environmentalists and want less use of fossil fuels, but this is not the way to achieve it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Selous Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Priti Patel
My right hon. Friend’s question is an important one because, as all hon. Members will be well aware, I asked for MOD naval assets and support back in 2020, because no Department can resolve the complex issue of channel crossings on its own. It is also right, having called for MOD involvement, that we now bring the whole machinery of government, the ultimate utility, together to ensure that we work collectively to protect our borders. My right hon. Friend is right about the wider issues on immigration, and that is why we have the new plan for immigration.
Andrew Selous
I fully echo the Home Secretary’s remarks about the late Member for Birmingham, Erdington. He was well liked and respected by many of us on this side of the House.
Does the Home Secretary recognise the anger felt about this issue, not least by the many people who fully respect this country’s proud tradition of asylum and the tremendous contribution made so many people who have come to this country legally?