Blake Stephenson
Main Page: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)Department Debates - View all Blake Stephenson's debates with the Home Office
(3 days, 1 hour ago)
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Anna Turley
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We remain firmly committed to the ECHR and the protections it gives us all, including the prohibition on torture, a right to life and protections from the state. However, we are determined, through this legislation, to protect its principles from over-interpretation, both domestically and internationally, and to ensure we have an immigration and asylum system that has the consent of the British people.
Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)
There are 21,000 serious foreign criminals still in the UK. Today, a foreign criminal jailed for four years or more cannot use family or long residence exceptions to avoid deportation. Last week, the Government voted down our amendments in Committee to keep that rule and extend it to terrorists, making the Immigration and Asylum Bill softer on the worst offenders than current law. Will the Home Secretary admit that only leaving the ECHR will guarantee us that foreign criminals are deported?
Anna Turley
It is sad to see the Conservative party so spooked by the far right that they are trashing some of the finest work of their greatest Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. When he said, “Never again,” and led the way in building a European convention on human rights, he knew the protection it gave everyone from tyrants, despots, torture and death. This Government will defend Churchill’s legacy—even if the Conservatives will not—by reforming both the ECHR, internationally, through co-operation with our European neighbours, and its domestic application through the forthcoming Bill, to ensure that its protections and principles are fit for the modern world.