International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2022 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Elliott. I will start where my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) finished: by talking about the pointy-elbowed, middle-class privilege that allows me to stand here and say that still, in 2022, we cherry-pick which victims we think are innocent and which we do not. That is why there is massive media coverage of some cases and not of others. We like our victims to be young, blonde and white, do we not? When police community support officers of my age are killed, it makes barely a headline, as in the case of Julia James. The murders of young women such as Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, whose photographs were taken by police officers, do not gain the same number of column inches as the murder of Sarah Everard. When women such as Raneem Oudeh and her mother are murdered while the police are ignoring their calls for help, we must wonder what cultural element came into that.

It is important that we stand up in this House and are prepared to use our pointy-elbowed, middle-class privilege to highlight that, in this country, on International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, we need to get our own house in order. We need to be prepared to legislate for things such as public sexual harassment. Let us face it: countries such as Morocco have managed to legislate for that, but we still have not.

I have high hopes for my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) and his private Member’s Bill. I pay full credit to police forces such as Nottinghamshire police for collecting statistics on misogyny as a hate crime, but we need that to be rolled out to more police forces across the country. In this place, we have done some great work and every year the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) stands up in the Chamber on International Women’s Day and reads that great long list—which is not getting shorter—of those women who have been murdered over the previous year. At her behest, a couple of weeks ago I met, virtually, Carole Gould and Julie Devey, the mothers of Ellie Gould and Poppy Devey Waterhouse—young women murdered by their partners. Carole and Julie have set up a new organisation, Killed Women, specifically to make sure that we listen to the victims and consider the aftereffects for those families who have lost a loved one in horrific circumstances. We all need to listen to those stories and understand the very profound impact that ongoing violence against women is having in this country.

I will speak very briefly of the work that the Women and Equalities Committee is doing on this subject. I pay tribute to you, Ms Elliott, for having been a guest in a recent session. We are looking at sexual harassment, misogyny, violence against women, and sexism in all its forms across a variety of areas in this country, whether in schools, colleges and universities—I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock for the great work she did on that before she left the Committee—or in the music industry, where black women are overly sexualised. We know from the case of Child Q that black children are—I am not sure if this is even a word—adultified and treated as adults when they are still children. That still happens way too often. We heard of the horrors of being a young black woman in the music industry—they were truly horrific in the same way as the sexism in football that we heard about.

Similarly, we hear time and again about how women at university are treated appallingly and how, in too many cases, the institution does not stand up for them. I will highlight Bristol University—apologies to the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) for referring to her city again—because it did not support a young woman who spoke to me yesterday on this subject. When she went to the police, she was told that she had to think of the mental health of the student she was accusing of sexually harassing her. That, to my mind, is absolutely unthinkable. How are we going to empower and encourage young women to have the courage to come forward, speak of their experiences and press charges when they are being told to consider the impact on the individuals they are accusing? We know that 97% of the accusations made are truthful.

I want to pay tribute briefly, in 50 seconds or less, to—

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Caroline Nokes]

That will not give me an extra minute. I pay tribute to former Ministers who have worked so hard on this issue, some of whom are sitting in this room today, including Ministers from across the Home Office who worked so hard on the tackling violence against women and girls strategy and on finally getting the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 on the statute book. My message to all of us is that there is more that we can and must do. We have to keep pressing forward. If we do not do that, we will not be able to look around the globe and wring our hands in horror at the actions that we see elsewhere, when our own house needs to be in much better order.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Leo Docherty)]

I am glad to be able to respond to this powerful and forthright debate. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) and my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) for calling the debate and leading off. I should say that this subject sits in the portfolio of the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), but I am pleased to be here in his place. I am grateful for Members’ contributions, and I will try to cover them all and give some assurance about the Government’s policy.

The hon. Member for Bristol South laid out in quite stark terms the landscape of inequality and risk that women and girls face with regard to gender-based violence. She kicked off with remarks about Qatar and put the subject in the context of Ukraine, but she also focused on her constituency and Bristol. That was quite an alarming picture. She made very good points about the need for specialist rape courts, for particularly well-qualified individuals to be working in our police forces, and for a data-driven response to that challenge. I commit to her that I shall gently ask one of my fellow Ministers, perhaps from the Ministry of Justice or the Home Department, to write to her with an update on how we are getting on in relation to specific expertise in dealing with rape cases in our courts system. I was very grateful that she raised that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock was frank in her very stark assessment of how poorly we are doing when it comes to the statistical feedback. She laid down a very forthright and welcome challenge to the Government, and she drew attention to the very bad experience of our own colleagues in conducting their lives as female MPs. She mentioned the very dignified and powerful speech delivered to us and all colleagues by Madam Zelenska on Monday and put that in the context of our efforts in Ukraine.

I am glad that my hon. Friend commended our PSVI conference, but she also reflected that we need to keep our own house in order, and we accept that challenge. Our policy should not be just words, and she made the case for proper therapeutic care in the NHS and proper protections for rape victims in prisons. Again, I will ask my colleague in the Ministry of Justice to write to her with an update about the situation regarding proper protections in prisons. I will also ask, from the NHS side, for an update on the therapeutic care pathway for rape victims. I will be very pleased to do that.

My friend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke movingly about the international context with regard to victims of gender-based violence and about kidnap in Nigeria and the Yazidis in Iraq. Of course, we are keenly aware of the ravages of Islamic State in Nigeria. We raise that on a very frequent basis with the Government of Nigeria, and we will continue to do so. I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising those cases here today.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) referred very forthrightly and movingly to the Killed Women organisation. I am grateful to her for raising that. I was glad that she commended the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, but she quite rightly said that we must get our own house in order, and the Government certainly accept that challenge.

The hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) made a very valid point about the confidentiality of counselling notes in the handling of rape cases, which is by necessity extremely sensitive. I will ask my colleague in the Ministry of Justice to write with an update on our policy with regard to confidentiality in the handling of counselling notes, because the hon. Lady made it very clear that that is a key component of successful prosecution of these cases. She put it in a very well rounded way when she said that violence against women and girls cannot be ended by the victims. I thought that that was a very good way of seeing it, and she made a good point. We all join her in calling for holistic change.

My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) gave us some interesting reflections about the genesis of the PSVI conference and programme. We are grateful for his long-standing involvement in that and his keen advocacy of it still, some 10 years later. I agree with him that it was an achievement of true statecraft, and it continues to be. I think that those who visited the conference on Monday saw the energy, resource and priority that the Government afford this work, but of course that will only be as good as our ability to maintain the momentum, commitment and political priority. Of course, it is a priority, and that can be seen in our international development strategy.

My hon. Friend asked me how much resource was going to the Ukraine fund specifically. I can tell him that it is £10 million, and that will be routed through Ukrainian organisations on the ground. They will be best placed to afford that assistance to our Ukrainian allies, who are heroically resisting outrageous Russian aggression.

The hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) also reflected on the PSVI conference. She made some quite critical remarks. I accept those in the spirit in which they were intended. I should confirm to her that our bilateral violence against women and girls spend is £27.6 million annually, and it remains a major priority. That is why we have another commitment, of £12.5 million, over the next three years. It is front and centre in our development strategy, as is only right.

My hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) challenged the Home Office to update her on spiking laws. That is a very serious issue, and I commit to asking my colleague in the Home Department for an update. We all recognise those sorts of cases in our own constituencies, and I am pleased to take action on that.

I was most grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) for reflecting on the Bunny Walks initiative in her constituency, which is a powerful example of community action. She also made a commendable point about the PSVI conference: there can be no peace without justice. She spoke movingly about the valuable time she spent in Africa, and I was pleased that she referred to her visit to Ethiopia in October. I think that all colleagues will commend and thank her for her energy while in her ministerial role, and for her continued interest in these issues from the Back Benches. We are most grateful for her continued advocacy.

[Caroline Nokes]

I join the Minister in his comments about my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), but I will not let him gloss over what she said about women’s right to reproductive health, which is a crucial part of preventing violence against women and girls. Will he join me in reaffirming the Government’s position on women’s right to access abortion, and in regretting the fact that, in some countries, abortion is still not available when it should be?

[Leo Docherty]

I am very happy to join my right hon. Friend in those remarks. We are of one view, and I am very grateful for her intervention.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly) made a strident and powerful speech, based on intimate personal experience in his own constituency, about the low prosecution rate in rape cases. I will ask my colleague in the Ministry of Justice to write with an update on that. My hon. Friend painted a picture, based on intimate personal knowledge, of a derisory state of affairs. I will seek an update for him.

I am grateful for the powerful contribution of the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson, the hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown). I join her in calling out the shocking impact of gender-based violence on women and girls, and I am grateful to her for bringing to the attention of colleagues the powerful testimony of survivors in Ethiopia. She asked, validly, why there were no Ethiopian survivors at the conference on Monday. We will take that home. She rightly pointed out some other lessons that we should learn from the conference about the handling of the experiences of survivors. I can confirm that they are being learned in advance of the next conference. She spoke about empowering women around the world. I assure her that gender-based violence will remain a core priority of the Government, and that we will seek to reflect that in our sanctions policy.

We were delighted that, subsequent to the conference, 54 states endorsed the political declaration, which sends a powerful sign of international resolve. We thought that that was important. That is backed up by our new three-year strategy and £12.5 million of new funding. More than £5 million will go to the Global Survivors Fund, founded by Dr Mukwege and Nadia Murad. We are putting our money where our mouth is. This work has resource and significant political energy. I again thank colleagues for their contributions to today’s powerful debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question and I have a lot of sympathy for the point he is making. In the two or three weeks since I have been in this position, I have met the Met’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner McNulty, who has particular expertise in this area and is the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on this topic. He has made a number of interesting proposals that are consistent with what the right hon. Gentleman just suggested. I am studying those carefully and sympathetically, and hope to have more to say on this topic in the near future.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

10. What steps she is taking to tackle delays in the processing of biometric residence permits.

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

There are currently no material delays in the physical production or delivery of biometric residence permits. We aim to deliver a BRP within seven working days of the immigration decision. All BRPs are currently being produced within 48 hours of receipt of a production request at the secure printing facility. Our secure delivery partner, FedEx, is attempting to deliver 99% of BRPs within 48 hours of their production and is successfully delivering nearly 80% of them first time.

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank my right hon. Friend for those statistics, which appear to be somewhat at odds with the experience of my constituents: Oksana Vakaliuk, a refugee from Ukraine, has been waiting since 1 May for her BRP; Adnam Hameed was granted his tier 2 visa in May and was still waiting for his BRP last month; and Mohammed Poswall has been waiting since July for his wife to receive the spousal visa stamp in her passport. I really appreciate the work that my right hon. Friend is doing in this respect, but the challenge is that these individuals could be working in our economy, contributing to meeting our skills shortages and paying tax. Will he meet me to go through these and other cases to help understand what is causing the delays, which may be specific to my region?

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be happy to meet my right hon. Friend. As I said in answer to her initial question, the data suggests that the vast majority of customers are receiving their BRPs within seven days and the system is working in an acceptable fashion. But if cases are falling through the cracks, it is of course right that we aim to fix that, and I would be pleased to meet her.

Western Jet Foil and Manston Asylum Processing Centres

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

Well, of course, it is very serious when a child goes missing, particularly in those circumstances. When it happens, we work very closely with local authorities and the police to operate a robust missing persons protocol. We have also changed the national transfer scheme so that all local authorities with children’s services must support young people. We need to identify and ensure proper risk assessments so that we have the proper protections in place to ensure this does not happen.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

I declare an interest as a member of the RAMP Project. Returning to the issue of children, we have seen terrible accounts of children sleeping on mats at Manston. Can the Home Secretary reassure the House that no children are being kept at Manston for longer than 48 hours and that proper safeguarding procedures are in place? Will she let us know what work is being done with Kent County Council to make sure that the children who are there are being safeguarded? Will she please urge the Minister for Immigration, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) to come to the Women and Equalities Committee, where we are doing an inquiry into the asylum system? He is not available this Wednesday, but can he make it as soon as possible please?

[Suella Braverman]

We take extremely seriously our duty of care towards children and young people who are in the system. As I said, there are delays in the system because of the extortionate amount of cases due to be processed. We are working to prioritise applications from children and young people where possible. We want to increase overall decision making, numbers and capacity, so that children are processed far more quickly than others.

Public Order Bill

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 18th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I promise I was just about to wind up. I hope the Minister will address the issue in new clause 14 about foreseeable harassment and that perhaps over the course of the debate he will rethink his opposition to new clause 11. I know many of us across the House would welcome that.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy).

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[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I apologise for not having been here earlier, Madam Deputy Speaker; I was dealing with other parliamentary business. I have a clinic on Station Road in my constituency where, after a lot of hard work, residents secured a public space protection order on 7 September. Because of the concern about the legal considerations and the consultation, it was drawn quite tightly, and its effect has been simply to push the protesters further down the road so that, ironically, they are now nearer to the local school. That makes it easier for gentlemen my age and sometimes older to approach 13 and 14-year-old girls and ask them if they know where babies come from and what God’s view of pregnancy might be. Normally, I would call anyone doing that a bit of a pervert, but apparently these people are speaking on behalf of some higher order. Does that not demonstrate that the need for communities to individually pursue PSPOs at local expense is not a satisfactory way to proceed, and that we need some national legislation that everyone can draw upon?

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We need national legislation; we do not want a piecemeal approach or to push the problem to a different area or from one clinic where a public space protection order has been put in place to a clinic where protest may still be legal. It is imperative that we have a coherent national approach and that we protect women from that sort of harassment.

I hope the Minister will confirm what further action the Home Office will take in the event that this new clause falls today. I hope it will be successful; I hope this House can come together and recognise the benefit that the new clause will provide, and that we can make some progress on the issue.

I will speak briefly about the finances. I referred to the cost to a local authority and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) indicated that in his constituency it will have been expensive for the council to bring a PSPO forward. Too often, councils face legal challenges from campaign groups with very deep pockets, which are potentially not even funded from this country.

I vividly remember going to a sixth form college just outside my constituency at the start of the summer and talking to the female students there, girls aged between 16 and 18. They talked to me specifically about abortion, because they were scared that they would see their right to access healthcare being eroded. They asked whether I thought the overturning of Roe v. Wade would travel across the Atlantic and impact us here.

At the time I said, “No, I don’t”, but since then I have watched the deep pockets of largely American-funded campaigns opposing our local councils when they seek to bring legal orders to protect women from harassment. How can I now look at those teenagers and say, “Of course the overturning of Roe v. Wade won’t come here. Of course the American influence will not impact your right to access healthcare in this country”? It is about time that this country and this Government were prepared to step up where the United States has stepped back. That is why I will be supporting new clause 11, tabled by the hon. Member for Walthamstow. It is imperative that we send a message to women—I was going to say young women, but it is actually to all women in this country—that we are on their side.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

I rise to speak to the amendments in my name and the name of the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), which arise from the legislative scrutiny of the Bill by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. They are amendments 28 to 31, 33, 34 to 36, 37 to 40 and 41 to 49, and also amendments 12 to 15, which appear first in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin), and 1 and 2.

I remind hon. Members that the Joint Committee is a cross-party Committee with half its members from the House of Commons and half from the House of Lords, and we undertake scrutiny of the human rights implications of all Bills. I speak here in my capacity as the Chair of the Committee rather than in my personal capacity. I have great sympathy for new clause 11—similar measures are being taken in the Scottish jurisdiction—but, as my Committee did not have the chance to consider it, I will not be speaking about that new clause.

The Public Order Bill contains further significant changes to the law on public order in England and Wales, following on from those introduced in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. It is obvious from my accent that I am a Scottish MP. Despite the fact that this law only applies in England and Wales, it is of interest to a lot of Scots, because they come to London to protest—I see the Minister laughing, but it is the truth, and many of us have been doing it for years, since before we were elected to this House.

Leaving the EU: UK Language Schools

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dr Huq]

The hon. Lady, who is from the lovely city of Bath and is a polyglot herself, is completely right. When I was a kid in 1984, we did a trip to Le Touquet on a group passport of that nature. The teacher had it and everyone was waved through. I think the kid with slightly dodgy status ducked at the moment when we did the headcount—I am only revealing this now. The hon. Lady is right that we have to find a solution. The majority of European kids under 18 do not have passports, because they travel on ID cards. The Government have said that they will not budge, so that would be a sensible solution. I think Jim Shannon wanted to intervene next.

[Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)]

Order. Can we not use colleagues’ names, please?

[Dr Huq]

My apologies: I think the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) wanted to intervene next.

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[Dr Huq]

My hon. Friend is so right. He is from a capital city; I mentioned cities at the beginning. I understand that the number of language schools in Cardiff has boomed from a small number a decade ago, but they are in jeopardy now. We are meant to be going for global Britain, so, as he said, shrivelling up and putting the barriers up seems completely wrong. We should enable students to study these languages on our shores, not the complete opposite, which is what seems to be happening. That may be an unintended consequence, but I know the Minister is a reasonable man. When I come to my list of demands, I hope that he will see sense.

The fact that we had a global pandemic that nobody foresaw means that it is difficult to disentangle what was Brexit and what was covid, but a bit of Brexit-proofing would not go amiss. Surveys done by English UK show that the ID card issue is a major factor. We should of course be proud of the English language; it is our greatest export, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) says, there is a danger of killing off the market for these schools, even though as recently as 2019, we had twice as many as any other English-speaking competitor country. The business operates on pretty tight margins. One school owner I spoke to said, “I’m paid the highest of everyone here, but I like doing this. I want to spread the English language. Money doesn’t matter to me.” However, we are in danger of losing this lucrative category of student to Ireland and Malta, even though they are both pretty tiny, have capacity issues, and actually cannot cope.

To be fair, I must admit that the sector suffered multiple hits long before Brexit. Ben Anderson, of the Edwards Language School, said:

“There were a tiny minority of visa shops in the 1990s created by the old Tier 4 visas. Gordon Brown ramped up regulation.”

So the problem did not start with Brexit—it started long ago—but all this stuff has been put on steroids with the end of freedom of movement. Further tightening occurred under the coalition: until about 2014, this long-time form of soft power became conflated with immigration targets to get net migration down to the tens of thousands, which were never achieved,.

Asif Musa of West London English School said:

“There was a problem and so a crackdown was needed, rightly private schools lost their licences but then UKVI went OTT”.

In 2012, London Metropolitan University temporarily lost its right to recruit international students from outside the EU because of, in the Government’s words, “serious, systematic failure” of its monitoring of its international student body. New checks were added on monitoring. The problem is conflating language students, who are temporary and have more in common with tourists, and cutting down on bogus net migration. The legacy of that whole period, which persists to today and has been added to by Brexit, is that there is now a presumption of guilt. As one of the school owners said, “Basically, it is as if they are looking to shut you down; they are looking to suspend your licence.”

There is a danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. English is indisputably the lingua franca of the world, so why are we creating unnecessary obstacles when a hungry young public are eager to take courses in English on our shores? VisitBritain, in 2020, found that language school students stay three times as long as the standard tourist and spend twice as much—crucially, in local communities, on accommodation, local transport, cafes and attractions. In “Everyday Is Like Sunday”, Morrissey sang about the seaside towns they forgot to close down. They used to have a bit of a “God’s waiting room” reputation, but many have been revitalised by this vibrant business, and rejuvenated by the youngsters coming in. I feel that we cannot just do nothing while the sector is hitting the rocks.

Ealing, in losing three out of five colleges, is not alone; The Guardian says that there are just seven out 20 left in Hastings. The Minister, I am sure, shares my concern that both LAL Torbay and the Devon School of English have closed their doors. They are no more; their websites say they are permanently closed. While some post-covid recovery is under way, English UK reckons that by the end of this year, we will be at 40% to 60% of pre-pandemic volumes, but that is after an average 88% decline in student numbers over the past two years. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West and I are on the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, and we know that that is far worse an outcome than for any other type of tourism, with £590 million of lost revenue on 2021.

I talked about one school that looked like it was booming yesterday, but a lot of that is courses left over from 2020 that could not be taken and are now being realised. West London English School calls it pent-up demand because they honoured all courses, whereas I think other schools gave vouchers, which turned out to be pretty meaningless. As I said, these schools operate on tight margins—one of them said they were “almost non-existent”. Of those that have not gone under, many are crippled by debt. That is a shame when the power of English throughout the world is an inestimable good and a key component of soft power. Those attending UK language schools, often as children or adolescents, are much more likely to go to a UK university. I know from working in universities that we were always encouraged to get overseas students with their lucrative fees. Language schools are a linchpin of an important pipeline, which is coming under strain. At one end are school exchange visits that might see oversees students go into one of these schools; at the other end, they return for higher education. It should be noted that 57 of our current world leaders have studied at UK universities, and there is often a language component there.

The pipeline of host families is also under pressure. The cost of living makes the £200 to £250 a week per student, which used to be good money, go less far. I am told that in Ealing there used to be established residents who could be relied on, but now that houses change hands for £2 million, the new generation of homeowners is a bit befuddled at why anyone would want kids in their face. There are also things like Airbnb which are less intrusive.

What has Brexit got to do with it? I have a list of three main recommendations that I would like the Minister to take away. Enabling ID card travel is not happening, as we have heard. Ninety per cent. of under-18s in mainland Europe travel using only their ID. What about the idea mentioned by the hon. Member for Bath—the group travel option, with a group leader in charge of the rest? There is no risk that these people would abscond; they did not with the previous EU list of travellers option. We could try youth mobility schemes. The Government already have bilateral deals with New Zealand, Australia, the USA, Japan, South Korea, Canada, and others; they could sign deals with EU countries—the big ones, such as France, Germany and Italy. It can be done; I can supply the Minister with the paperwork.

I do not know if the Minister has seen in today’s Standard that our hospitality sector has loads of vacancies. Traditionally, part of the experience for oversees students was for the adult, non-minor students to spend about 10 hours a week pulling pints, as part of their immersion. These are valuable work and life skills. Limited work rights should be loosened up. People used to be able to do this as university students. Seventy-five per cent. of all English language teaching business in the UK is conducted in the summer bulge months of June to August. That is when these seasonal vacancies need to be filled. It has been done for fruit picking; it is something that the Minister could do here too.

[Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind the hon. Member that she will want to give the Minister time to respond.

[Dr Huq]

Okay. Minister, I had a bit more, which I will try to cover in a couple of sentences.

The other thing that worries me is that this hostile environment has prevailed at other levels, too. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West said, there is no danger of 11-year-olds absconding and becoming minicab drivers in Eastbourne, so there is no need for Border Force to treat them as risks, yet there seems to be a presumption that everyone is a criminal. Sometimes people are asked at the border to provide means for their stay, and they have an all-inclusive package with meals.

The last time this sector lobbied MPs, the discussion was about coronavirus. The Government acceded to the additional relief fund, so I am hoping they can do it again. Ealing Council has administered loads; I get praised for it. The Minister cannot do anything about the cost of living and business rates, so I will leave those out of it, but let us have a concerted effort to improve our visa regime to eliminate the xenophobic attitudes towards oversees students. There were two really horrible incidents in Canterbury and Cambridge in 2019, at the height of the papers saying that MPs were not allowing Brexit to happen. We need to have a better climate. After all, we want levelling up, global Britain, Brexit opportunities, and this is a lucrative sector that includes all of those. What is not to like?

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On resuming—

[Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)]

The sitting is resumed and the debate may continue until 5.6 pm.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)]

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. I thank the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) for securing the debate. This is a subject that I have a strong personal interest in, as my Torbay constituency is home to several excellent English language schools. The Government and I therefore fully appreciate the important contribution they make to the economy and the cultural value of all educational visits and exchanges between the UK and other nations.

I suggest from my own experiences that simply focusing on language schools and the issues raised today misses the range of factors that affect the sector. I noticed that the hon. Member referred in her opening speech to institutions that have closed in my constituency. I am not sure whether she is a regular reader of our newspaper Herald Express. Sadly, one language school closed down following a significant fraud involving one of its employees, which has been well publicised, and another building is hosting a local state school. Looking at things in isolation and then drawing conclusions from them may not be the best approach to this type of debate, without the local knowledge that a constituency Member of Parliament has.

Ukraine: Urgent Refugee Applications

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Let me say to Members, so that they can help each other, that these exchanges will run until about 1.40 pm, so the shorter the questions and answers, the better it will be.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

Snails also move “at pace”. No date has yet been set for a humanitarian sponsorship visa scheme, and as a result people who are coming forward with generous offers are advising their Ukrainian friends to apply for visitors’ visas. But what of those who do not have passports? What of children who are completely undocumented? When my hon. Friend the Minister says that he is moving at pace, he should bear in mind that the pace needs to be a great deal faster.

[Kevin Foster]

It is possible for children and others to travel to the UK without a passport if permission has been granted. As a former Immigration Minister, my right hon. Friend will be familiar with that process. As for where we are at present, we are making sure that the process is being stepped up. We have extended the provisions, and of course the sponsorship route will provide a whole new opportunity for people to extend a generous offer and the hand of friendship to those who need sanctuary in the UK.

Ukraine

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

We will have to look at the individuals coming forward, because not everybody who has previously had a visa may want to come, but the family scheme will capture a considerable number of family members. Obviously, those who have been here before will be eligible to come within the family route, and we will make sure that that works.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

As might be expected of a former Immigration Minister, I pay tribute to all the hard-working Home Office staff, particular those in region. Community sponsorship works—it really does—and we have long been recognised as global leader in it. Can I be reassured that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will make sure that this scheme works at pace, however, because that is one of the biggest lessons we have had to learn? We need this to work quickly because people are being bombed as they try to flee Ukraine. We often hear the language of burden sharing when we talk about refugees, but it is not a burden. We should regard it as a privilege to be in a position to help.

[Priti Patel]

I echo the last words that my right hon. Friend used, because it is an absolute privilege—it is a dreadful phrase actually—for us not just to stand up in the world but give support to other human beings. She is absolutely right about community sponsorship, which we looked at for other schemes last year—Afghanistan and all the rest of it—and it works but needs to be stood up fast. Standing up schemes fast also means that they sometimes fall over if they are not set up properly, and we intend to ensure that we have the basics in place. As I have said, we need the accommodation, the facilities, and the wraparound support and care that are so important. We are building on lessons from previous schemes, but we are also working across Government to look at how we can bring it in fast.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

I am obviously interested to hear of the case that the shadow Minister raises, and I would be interested to meet her to discuss it further, particularly if the family is in Afghanistan, as it may not be appropriate to share the details on the Floor of the House. I would be happy to meet her and have a conversation about the circumstances of that case.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

7. What assessment she has made of the potential merits of making public sexual harassment a criminal offence.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Rachel Maclean)]

We fully recognise the concern that my right hon. Friend raises. In fact, that same concern has been raised by many Members across the House and many campaigners. We will do all we can to make streets safer for women and girls, and if that includes a new offence, so be it.

[Caroline Nokes]

I know that my hon. Friend the Minister agrees with the Law Commission that misogyny should not be a hate crime. Does she not also think it appropriate that she should agree with the Law Commission that public sexual harassment should be a specific offence? I would like to echo the words of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who has just said that women should be able to live their lives

“freely, safely and without harassment”.

Can we stop looking hard at this and actually bring forward some legislation to make it happen?

[Rachel Maclean]

As I have just said, if the work we are doing with the Law Commission, legislators and others makes it clear that we need to make a new offence, that is exactly what we will do. I would like to draw my right hon. Friend’s attention to the work that the police are doing to keep women safer. They are recording more VAWG crimes, there is an increased willingness of victims to come forward and there are improvements in police recording. We know we have more to do, which is why this evening we are launching a national communications campaign to tackle the perpetrators of public sexual harassment.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I am in favour of a number of amendments, but for the purposes of time I will largely keep my comments to new clauses 12 and 13 in my own name and new clause 14 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy). New clause 12 would provide recourse to public funds to everyone holding a valid UK residence permit. New clause 13 would repeal the sections in the 2014 and 2016 Immigration Acts that restrict undocumented migrants’ access to work and services. New clause 14 seeks to abolish the immigration health surcharge. I am pleased these new clauses have received lots of support from Members across the House.

It will perhaps be obvious to colleagues that these new clauses are about addressing the unjust suffering caused by the Government’s hostile environment, a term used to describe all the policies that make life difficult for migrants living in the UK by explicitly and deliberately treating them as less deserving of dignity and humanity than British citizens.

My new clause 13, in particular, seeks to overturn the denial of basic human rights. Members will know from their constituency casework that the consequences are brutal and wide-reaching. The hostile environment deters people from reporting crime to the police or from calling out unsafe conditions and exploitative practices at work. It undermines trade union rights and pushes people into poor-quality and dangerous accommodation and homelessness. As new clause 14 highlights, the hostile environment even denies access to healthcare by scaring people from going to the doctor for fear of being charged or being reported, detained and deported.

No recourse to public funds, which new clause 12 addresses, abandons some migrants to having no safety net. It leaves children hungry, it pushes families into poverty and unsafe, overcrowded housing, and it means women, in particular, who flee abusive partners are not entitled to access mainstream refuges. It is breathtakingly cruel and unjust.

The disproportionate suffering that has been inflicted on migrants during the pandemic is well known, if apparently forgotten by this Government. Not only does the hostile environment produce a culture of fear that often risks the NHS being unable to do its job, but it puts all our communities in danger. Although such policies try to incentivise us to be suspicious of one another, they are not in the interest of the majority of people. It should be no surprise that the Bill is another horrifying extension of such an approach. It undermines human decency and must be opposed in every way.

The fact this is all in the context of the ongoing tragedy of people drowning in the English channel is chilling. That such people now potentially face jail sentences if they survive such precarious journeys, as well as an even more hostile environment, is catastrophically wrong.

I emphasise the humanity that runs through the amendments I am supporting today. We have to stop the political immigration game of misinformation and cynicism that has such horrendous human cost. There is no doubt that one of the reasons we are seeing scenes of desperate people trying to cross the channel is the lazy but deadly anti-migrant political agenda that closes off safe routes to the UK.

One of the biggest myths perpetuated by politicians is that they are too afraid to talk about migration when, in fact, the opposite is true. The more politicians talk about being tough on migration, the more they just talk about being tough on migration. For decades the rate of lawmaking in this area has exceeded the rate of lawmaking in every other social policy area.

When people repeat half-truths and inaccuracies and attempt to utilise society’s fears, prejudices and anxieties for opportunistic so-called political gain, a climate of acceptance is created for such ideas at all levels of society. The mainstream media must also reflect on the role of their focus on numbers and their use of words such as “flood,” “influx” and “waves.” I am sorry that the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) used the word “tsunami,” which is a disgrace.

Yet it is simply untrue that Britain takes in more refugees than everywhere else, and research shows that two thirds of asylum seekers crossing the channel in boats, for example, are finally granted asylum by the Government’s own measurements. Yes, we need solutions to the soaring inequality, the suffering and the frightening covid death toll over which this Government have presided, but we do not need suspicion and scapegoats. Wherever we are from, we all need a roof over our head, food to eat, healthcare and basic human kindness and solidarity. Surely the true measure of a civilised society is not in its hostility but in its humanity.

I commended these new clauses to the House.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in respect of the support I get from the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy project. It includes a cross-party group of MPs who, to follow on from the comments made by the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum), absolutely seek to take the toxicity out of this debate, to find consensus, to be careful in the language we use, and to find agreement and, indeed, pragmatic solutions. When it comes to crossing the channel in small boats, we certainly need pragmatic solutions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Pursglove]

My right hon. Friend speaks with great passion on this issue, and I am grateful for the constructive way in which she has gone about raising concerns in this policy area. I wish to emphasise that we will always act in accordance with our international obligations, and to be very clear that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children will not be subject to inadmissibility or transferred for offshore processing. It is also important to say that we will not split family units, because that would be contrary to our international obligations.

[Caroline Nokes]

I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will not mind my instantly picking up on the fact that he very specifically said that “unaccompanied” asylum-seeking children would not be sent offshore, and that we would not split families. I also seek his assurance that we will not send whole families to have their claims decided offshore, and a further assurance that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who have been accepted into the asylum process will not fall out of it again once they turn 18. To me, it is absolutely imperative that if somebody’s claim is to be decided here, it should be decided here, not diverted midway through the process because they pass an arbitrary age.

I have real concerns about the creation of two tiers of asylum seeker. I tend to use this illustration. We saw horrific scenes in Afghanistan when female judges and female Members of Parliament sought to flee that country. We have put in place some schemes—it is important to emphasise that they are not yet up and running—around the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme. Let me draw for the House the image of one female judge who comes to this country under that scheme when it is up and running. She is accepted into our country and is promptly given indefinite leave to remain and the right to work. A second female judge arrives on a small boat, but otherwise the circumstances are the same, in that she would be at risk if she returned to Afghanistan. We seek to offshore her. It causes me real concern that we will create a two-tier system in which people with identical claims to safety—at identical risk from the Taliban—are treated very differently.

I wish to raise concerns about where we might send people. I do not presume to know which countries the Home Office is in discussions with, but they might include Albania, which is in mainland Europe and not part of the European Union. There is already a well-established route from Albania to this country in the back of a van. We could be in a situation where we pay a third country a significant amount of money to accept someone into their asylum system—this is different from the model outlined by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden—but they are then refused. At that point, what is there to stop that person seeking to come back to this country immediately? There could be some sort of circular trade, in which people end up back on our shores, whether in the back of a van or a small boat, and so the cycle goes round and round.

I have some experience as a former Immigration Minister, so I know full well that at this time of year, there is a very popular journey using the return flight to Tirana. [Interruption.] I can see that you want me to hurry up, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will. There is the question of whether people might see an opportunity to head off to a different country, and then end up back here, whether their claim was accepted or denied in that third country.

We must get the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme up and running, and make it effective. We should also fulfil the commitment we made to vulnerable people when the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme and the vulnerable children’s resettlement scheme came to their conclusion. We cannot talk about safe and legal routes unless we actually have some, and it is imperative that we have them.

I am now stretching your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker, but let me finally address the comments of the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) about push-back. I was the Immigration Minister who rejected that idea because I thought that it was too dangerous to do in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the country, with vulnerable and overladen boats carrying women and children, in choppy seas. We should think very carefully before going down that route, because no Minister at all wishes to be responsible for more loss of life in the channel.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Strategy for Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

May I reassure the hon. Lady? She knows that we have to report to the House each October on our commitments to the Istanbul convention. I am pleased to tell the House that we meet or exceed the expectations of the convention in all but three of the requirements in the convention. Two of the three requirements will be met by the end of this year. We had to pass the extraterritorial jurisdiction measures in the Domestic Abuse Act. That has happened and, with the help of the Scottish Government, they will apply across the United Kingdom. Legislation also needs to be passed in Northern Ireland, and I am told that that will happen by the end of this year. That leaves the support for migrant victims. As the hon. Lady will know, in the Domestic Abuse Act we set out a support for migrant victims scheme, which is due to finish next year, but we take these serious commitments very seriously, unlike other countries. Some other countries do not need to meet the requirements before they ratify, but we do, and I hope and expect, given the commitment in the strategy to ratification, that that is our intention.

We know there are some instances in employment situations where non-disclosure agreements are used legitimately. They must not—I repeat, must not—be used to conceal criminal behaviour, and we want to take this first step with higher education because we are particularly concerned about how some young victims are having to deal with these cases at university.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con) [V]]

My hon. Friend will understand my disappointment that there is no current commitment to outlaw public sexual harassment. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, writing in The Times, indicated that there would be ongoing work to look at gaps in legislation, but her correspondence to Members this evening omitted it. Please will my hon. Friend the Minister, from the Dispatch Box, commit to making sure that, where gaps are identified, they will be acted upon, and swiftly?

[Victoria Atkins]

As I hope is clear in the strategy, we are looking very thoroughly at the issue of street harassment. We very much hear the concerns of Members on both sides of the House about whether current legislation meets every instance of street sexual harassment that we see in the survey, that we see as constituency MPs and, indeed, that we have perhaps experienced ourselves. That work will be ongoing, and I am sure I will appear at some point before the Women and Equalities Committee, which my right hon. Friend chairs, to provide an update.