Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Carol Monaghan and Tom Pursglove

Monday 6th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

My hon. Friend is a brilliant advocate for Harrogate generally, but on this issue he is a passionate advocate for Access to Work and Disability Confident. We work to promote those schemes through our social media, through working with stakeholders, through working with local employer partnership teams and employer associations and through the Disability Confident scheme generally. I would certainly welcome the opportunity to look at ways in which we can spread the word further, including on a localised basis. I am about to do that as a constituency MP in Corby, and perhaps my hon. Friend could do the same in Harrogate.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

On Friday night I was given the terrible news that a popular business in my constituency, Mortons Rolls, had ceased trading, putting at risk 250 jobs. Will the Secretary of State take the time to meet me to discuss what can be done to support that business and the 250 staff who are now threatened with redundancy?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Carol Monaghan and Tom Pursglove

Monday 25th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

10. What recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Government’s implementation of the 1951 refugee convention.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tom Pursglove)]

Part 2 of the Nationality and Borders Bill defines the key provisions of the refugee convention. In developing this policy we have considered factors such as the law in other jurisdictions, case law and academic works. All provisions of the Bill, as well as our asylum policy framework, are a good-faith, effective interpretation of the refugee convention and are compatible with it.

[Carol Monaghan]

The Nationality and Borders Bill as it stands does not comply with the 1951 refugee convention. Former Supreme Court judge Lord Brown has said of the Bill that

“several of these provisions flagrantly breach our obligations as interpreted by the UNHCR”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 4 April 2022; Vol. 820, c. 1882.]

Lord Brown has tabled an amendment to ensure compliance with the convention. Will the Minister confirm that the Government will support Lord Brown’s amendment?

[Tom Pursglove]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising that point. Under the Vienna convention, it is for Parliament to interpret our international obligations. We will always act in accordance with our international obligations; we have made that consistently clear. The Bill has been through appropriate due diligence, and we will get on and deliver it.