Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Bryant Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Michael Fabricant
I am grateful for that answer. A friend of mine tells me that a well-known retailer was recently attacked from abroad four times in as many weeks by a cyber organisation.
HM Passport Office
Chris Bryant Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Mrs May
As I said, the straightforward applications for a straightforward renewal of the passport are normally expected to be within three weeks, but some are going beyond that. Where it is a first-time application and an interview is required, it can take longer. I would expect a child’s first-time application to be within normal times, but if someone does not present the absolutely correct documentation, the application will take longer, which sometimes happens. As I indicated earlier, either the Immigration Minister or I will ensure that we write urgently to MPs to set out the measures taken and relevant details such as when people will be able to demonstrate an urgent need to travel in order to be upgraded.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The Home Secretary’s definition of “straightforward” has changed five times in the course of the past hour—and it has just changed again. That matters because the number of delayed applications that the Prime Minister came up with yesterday depended on straightforward applications, so the real figure is far higher than 30,000, is it not? Will the Home Secretary apologise to my constituents—foster parents who applied for a passport for their foster child, Corry? Weeks later, they received a phone call from the Passport Office, saying that the passport was on its way, so they booked their holiday. Six weeks after that, however, they had still not received the passport, so Corry, the foster child, was unable to go on holiday with his parents. Will the Home Secretary apologise to them?
Justice and Home Affairs Opt-out
Chris Bryant Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Mrs May
The Government have always seen this clearly as a number of measures, some of which interlink and relate to one another. Therefore, they are part of a package in relation to our ability better to protect the public and ensure that our law enforcement agencies have the powers that we consider they need.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
In what precise form will any vote be taken? Would it have legislative effect if the House added or took away one of the measures?
Mrs May
The Government will not bring forward legislation to the House on this matter, because that is not necessary. We will put before the House a package of measures that, following discussions with the European Commission, we believe we should be rejoining.
We responded to the Select Committees when they submitted their reports. I am sure that their work will inform the speeches we will hear in today’s debate.
I said that I would indicate what progress we had made in the negotiations. Everybody will of course understand that the nature of a negotiation is such that it is a poor negotiating strategy to reveal one’s hand in public while a deal is still being done. Detailed and constructive discussions are taking place with the European Commission and other member states. There are a great many processes and technical matters to discuss, but we are all keen to avoid the operational gap for our law enforcement agencies that will ensue if we have not settled the matter before 1 December, when, as I indicated earlier, the UK’s opt-out takes full effect. Our aim is therefore to reach an “in principle” deal well ahead of that date, and, as I have already indicated, to return to Parliament for a further vote before formally seeking to rejoin measures in the national interest.
Mrs May
I am aware of a number of reports in the press in relation to documents that, it is claimed, have been leaked as part of the discussions that have been taking place. The timetable I have set out is very clear. On 1 December, having exercised the opt-out, we will no longer be part of any of the roughly 130 measures covered by the opt-out protocol. If, before that date, we have not negotiated the package, had the parliamentary debate and vote, and been able to agree the formal terms for returning to those measures that we choose to opt back into, then we will be out of those measures. It is that date that sets an end-point for us on when we want to be able to ensure we can opt back in.
Chris Bryant
The Home Secretary is always very generous to me; I have never complained about her generosity and magnanimity. I just want to go back to the question I asked last time, because I do not think she understood fully what I meant. I understand that the motion before the House will not be legislation—it will not be an Act of Parliament or secondary legislation—so will it just be an amendable motion that the Government can then completely and utterly ignore?
Mrs May
It will be an opportunity for this House to debate on the basis of a motion that the Government will bring forward. By definition, we have not yet put that motion into place, so the hon. Gentleman may just have to wait and see the nature of the motion when it is brought before this House. The Government have been clear that Parliament should be able to exercise the opportunity to give its views on the discussions we have had with the European Commission and member states in relation to the measure that we choose to opt into. We have been clear throughout this process that Parliament will be given a vote on the final list of measures. I am happy to confirm, as I have done already on a number of occasions in the limited time that I have been speaking, that that will be the case.
While the negotiations continue, I realise that hon. Members want to debate and comment on some of the specific measures that the Government identified in Command paper 8671 as being in our national interest to rejoin. Chief among them is the European arrest warrant. I know that this measure arouses particular feeling in the House. We clearly need strong extradition arrangements in place to see criminals convicted and justice done, but when extradition arrangements are wrong, they can cause misery to suspects and their families, and risk miscarriages of justice.
The previous Labour Government had eight years to address the concerns that people raised in respect of the European arrest warrant, but they did nothing. Where they failed to act, this Government have legislated to implement new safeguards to increase the protection offered to those wanted for extradition, particularly British citizens. The concrete steps taken by the Government in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 will tackle the operational deficiencies of the arrest warrant head on.
Our changes will protect the fundamental rights of British citizens by allowing arrest warrants that are issued for disproportionate offences to be refused; they will address the understandable concerns that many people had about lengthy pre-trial detention; they will help to ensure that British nationals will not be extradited when the prosecuting authorities are still investigating offences; and they will help to ensure that people cannot be extradited for conduct that takes place in the United Kingdom and is not against the law of this land.
Mr Cash
Indeed, and not only that. Those people are no longer able to have recourse to our courts system in the same way that they would have done because the European Court of Justice, once it has made an adjudication and a judgment, binds our Supreme Court. Moreover, under section 3 of the European Communities Act 1972, it also binds this Parliament. That is why, with respect to the charter of fundamental rights, we said in a report that we published only last week that the situation was so serious. We voluntarily entered into the Act in 1972, and I emphasise the word “voluntarily” because what is entered into voluntarily can be adjusted later. Those two features led us to conclude, in respect of the conflict on the perception of the charter of fundamental rights, that the then Prime Minister, who specifically stated on 27 June 2007 that it was absolutely clear that the charter of fundamental rights was an opt-out, was wrong. Furthermore, he was not only wrong but, in effect, contradicted by the Attorney-General of the time when he gave evidence to us only a few weeks ago.
The consequence of this, which is extremely serious, is that we have an Act of Parliament that is covered in confusion, with some judges saying one thing and other judges saying another. As there is no doubt that the charter applies to the United Kingdom, the only way of dealing with this is not, with respect to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice, by having another legal challenge, as he proposes, but by amending the 1972 Act, because the situation is so serious that we have to bring in primary legislation in order to get it right in the interests of the people of this country. All the rights contained in the charter overlap with rights of the sort that people in this country, as citizens of the United Kingdom, would expect to be accorded to them. These are the kinds of matters that arise in respect of what we are considering as a result of the whole question of the 35 measures.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman is right. One of the key issues now is how many opt-ins there should be. I would probably err on the side of there being more than 35. He probably errs on the side of there being fewer than 35. The Commission might want to say that there have to be 53, or none. Who knows what the end result of all this will be? What I do not understand—perhaps he will be able to explain it, because he knows the Home Secretary’s mind better than I do—is why on earth the Government would not want an amendable motion to be presented to the House before they start the negotiation so that they know beforehand that they have Parliament behind them.
Mr Cash
I am rather attracted to the idea of an amendable motion. Indeed, in effect, I have just said so myself. If we have a vote beforehand, the coalition Government will know what Parliament thinks.
The Home Secretary clearly indicated that the Government must have a free hand in entering into these negotiations. In an intervention, I mentioned the complications involved in this and its rejection, or apparent rejection, by several countries. I referred to Spain, Germany, France and Holland, and there are others that say that the matter should be put to a referendum. The situation is so complex, and running so far into the sand, that it would be a good idea, in these very special circumstances, to discuss the question of a block opt-out. It is very important that Parliament should be given the opportunity to vote on an amendable motion before the negotiations are concluded. It is particularly important as we get down to discussing the finer detail of precisely what should be done in the interests of fairness, liberty and justice for individual citizens, who will be bound by these Court decisions against which there will be no appeal. Unless this is subject to an amendment of the 1972 Act, there will be no way of retrieving the situation to protect those citizens.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
That was a good joke at the end.
It seems to me that there are an awful lot of ironies in this debate. The biggest irony of the lot must be that last week the Deputy Prime Minister and the leader of the UK Independence party got themselves all in a lather about the European Union, as apparently the whole country is fixated on this issue, yet the attendance in the Chamber this afternoon is remarkably poor, considering that this is an issue that many have described as vital to British liberties and so on.
The second irony is that even as we are talking about democratic accountability, as the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) just did, the Government have tabled a motion on the Order Paper which will mean that Mr Speaker cannot call an amendment to the Queen’s Speech. The hon. Lady may want to sign an amendment to that motion later today—[Interruption.] I am sure that the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), if he has not signed it yet—[Interruption.] He has signed it.
It is an irony, is it not, Madam Deputy Speaker—I do not expect you to answer this rhetorical question—that these two things are being debated at the same time? We are condemning Europe for not being an elected organisation and for the democratic unaccountability of the Commission and all the rest of it, even though we have Members of the House of Lords who have never put themselves up for election—except when they were Members of the House of Commons, before they went down there to take the Whip. We condemn the European Union for its lack of democratic accountability, and then the processes we use in this place to debate precisely what we should do about opting in or out of the justice and home affairs segments are put forward in a way that is wholly undemocratic and are used as a means of the Government trying to mask the fact that they cannot unite those on their Benches.
There is a third great irony that I have really loved. It is fascinating to watch so many Conservative Members of Parliament holding their noses throughout their speeches on the European Union. There is a permanent state of holding one’s nose exercised by Conservative MPs around the country. I was in High Wycombe last week, and the hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) held his nose magnificently throughout all the discussions of the policy on the EU. The first question was about whether there was any real chance of renegotiating the treaties with the EU, and he started off by saying, broadly speaking, “Well…um…it is…um…I support the Government’s policy—until such time as I shan’t.” As I understand it, that is basically the speech made by all the Conservatives who have spoken thus far, apart from the hon. Member for Bury North, who did not go that far. He is not even holding his nose; he is just announcing that there is a smell out there and that he does not support the direction the Government are going in.
I do not start from an ideological position on all this. It seems to me that there is a pragmatic question about whether it is in the interests of pursuing justice for the people of our country that we should associate and co-operate and to what degree we should do so with other countries in the European Union. That pragmatism must be informed by the fact that it is now far easier for people to travel abroad within the European Union. One in four Brits goes to Spain every year and one in six goes to Greece every year. The number of British people who come into contact with the criminal justice system of other countries within the European Union has therefore dramatically increased.
One statistic that is not often mentioned by Mr Farage is that the country with the largest number of its citizens living elsewhere within the European Union is not Poland, Germany or France, but the United Kingdom. Anything we can do to ensure that justice is available in other EU countries and that justice is secured for people in this country must be to their benefit.
Andrea Leadsom
The hon. Gentleman must accept that that argument does not stack up. Let us look at the number of people who travel to the United States or Mexico every year. Is he seriously suggesting that there ought to be some common justice system among those states as well? He is arguing from a weak position.
Chris Bryant
No, I am not. The hon. Lady complained that the Government and Members of the House of Lords advanced their argument on the European arrest warrant only because it was more convenient and practical. I am trying to suggest that convenience and practicality are three quarters of the point. In the end, it is in the interests of British people.
I shall take the American point as an example. When the new extradition treaty was agreed between the UK and the United States of America, despite the fact that the American Government—the President—had negotiated the treaty, it was a significant problem that the legislature had to put it in place. We moved much more quickly in this country to ratify the treaty than the Americans, and there was a period when the provisions were not perfectly equal between the two countries and when people such as the hon. Lady who argued that there was an imbalance were right. That is no longer the case, because both countries have implemented the measure.
My point to the hon. Lady is that long before we had the European arrest warrant, a Conservative Government under Mrs Thatcher were painfully aware of the problems of not having a proper extradition system across the whole European Union, where most British people do most of their travelling. That is why we had Ronnie Biggs and many others stuck on the costa del crime in Spain. Franco would not extradite anyone.
Chris Bryant
I shall give way to the 16th century in a moment.
I wholly support the European arrest warrant on the same basis that Mrs Thatcher supported the European convention on extradition.
Chris Bryant
I cannot give way to the hon. Lady because I have to give way to the 16th century.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman is extremely kind. I was going to point out that Ronnie Biggs was in Brazil which, as far as I am aware, has not applied for membership of the European Union.
Chris Bryant
I realised that there might be some clever soul in the Chamber. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, but there were plenty of other British fugitives from justice who only had to go abroad to evade justice in this country, and we needed a better system of extradition to be able to get British nationals back to the UK to face justice and, for that matter, to do something similar for nationals of other countries.
I would say to Members who regularly say that this is about protecting British people from poor judicial systems in other European countries that, in the main, we bring non-UK citizens back to the UK to make sure that there is justice for families who have lost a loved one or who face some form of injustice. I wholly disagree with the ideological position adopted by some Government Members, because it is pragmatic to have a single system that works across the whole of the EU. I also think that it is a triumph that, despite the fact that the Napoleonic code and English common law are completely different systems, we can work, broadly speaking, in a united way.
Andrea Leadsom
My point was not that we should not be party to the European arrest warrant; nor was it about the convenience of being in or out of it. It was about the method by which we are party to it. In other words, do we do it via a bilateral treaty which, as the hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out, we have with the United States, or should we opt in to justice and home affairs, which come under the jurisdiction of the European Court and can be changed under qualified majority voting without any say-so from the House?
Chris Bryant
I understand the point that the hon. Lady makes, but the problem for her argument is that that option is not available. For that matter, why would we want to say that members of the European Union, which includes two members of the Commonwealth, can all sit around a table and discuss the European arrest warrant, but we will only be able to sign up to it on a bilateral basis? That makes no sense and it is not a system that other members of the European Union will sign up to.
There is a further point, which is my concern about the process that the Government have adopted: we may get to December and not have any new agreed system in place. I know many members of the European Commission want a new system. Some countries in Europe are so profoundly irritated by the way the United Kingdom has been playing its hand over the past few years and are so concerned about the long-term direction of Conservative members of the Government in particular that they would quite like to punish Britain. I fear that we will not have the opt-ins in place by the time the opt-outs have come into force, and as the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) said, we may well have a substantial period when there is nothing in place. That could raise very significant legal issues about how we would subsequently resolve that, and it would also put us in the difficult and embarrassing position of having to say to our citizens, “We’re sorry. We are not able to extradite back to this country because we opted out and we have not managed to get the opt-in back in place.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The treaty provides for transitional arrangements if an opt-in has not been agreed, so the fear that the hon. Gentleman proposes is not a real one.
Chris Bryant
The provisions on opting back in are not very clear. The one thing that is clear is who has to pay, which is the United Kingdom. That is the one thing that is absolutely clear. We do not even get to decide how much—the costs are decided by the European Commission.
My anxiety is that the Commission could well say, and has effectively said in some of its public pronouncements thus far, “Well, it’s very interesting that you are interested in 35 opt-in measures, but those 35 are contingent upon at least 18 others”—some of which have been listed in the Home Affairs Committee report. The European Commission may at that point come back to us and say, “We’re sorry. It’s 53 or nothing.” Then we will face a difficult problem, especially as we enter a general election.
The main point that I want to make is about process. As I said, it is somewhat ironic that many Government Members have, for understandable reasons, argued the issues surrounding democratic accountability. The problem is that I do not know what the Government are going to allow us to vote on. The Secretary of State said that it would not be legislation, so we know that it is not going to be a Bill that goes through two Houses, and it is not going to be a statutory instrument either. I do not think it is going to be a treaty, unless she brings us a treaty that has already been signed, but that seems extraordinary to me. I therefore presume it will be some kind of motion.
We have already seen what the Government are trying to do in relation to the Queen’s Speech by not allowing the House to consider an amendment other than one tabled by the Leader of the Opposition. I presume that is largely because any other amendment that was tabled might relate to the European Union and a referendum. I am suspicious about what the Government are going to present to us and the timeliness of that.
There is probably broad agreement about the number of measures that we would like to opt back in to. It is probably slightly bigger than the Government’s list—about 45 or 50—but the House should take a view before the Government start their negotiations. The worst of all possible situations would be the Government coming forward with an unamendable motion which we simply voted on, almost like a statutory instrument. That would unite both ends—the people who would like to see more opt-ins and those who would like to see no opt-ins. In a sense, that is exactly what happened after the American war of independence, when the Earl of Shelburne lost the treaty negotiations on the preliminaries for the treaty with the Americans. My anxiety is that then the Government do not have a leg to stand on in their negotiations with the European Union.
I hope that the Government will make it clear that we will have a debate in the House before the summer recess in plenty of time for them to negotiate with the European Union. That would not tie their hands. They should make sure that the motion is amendable, so that if people want to vote on whether the European arrest warrant is in or out, they can do so, or on any of the other measures, perhaps packaged in some way—I do not mind. A clear list should come out of the House. How can we possibly preach to Europe about democratic accountability and the importance of what happens in this House if we have not done properly in this House what we should have done in the first place? I will vote for a longer list than the hon. Member for Bury North. I may vote for the same list as the Lord Chancellor—I am not sure—but certainly for a shorter list than the shadow Lord Chancellor. But in the end that should be a decision for the whole House. It should not be stage-managed and organised in backroom deals by the Whips so that the House cannot make a proper decision.
UK Citizenship
Chris Bryant Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
It is even worse, is it not? Potentially, the only countries that would offer nationality to a person reckoned to be a suspected terrorist would be countries where we probably would not want that person to end up, because they would by definition be countries that sponsor terrorism. We would end up with people in this country who we would simply be keeping completely stateless, without any role or standing. We cannot simply banish them to France as we would have done in the middle ages.
Ms Abbott
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. In saying that, I am accepting an argument that I do not really support, namely that somehow, because someone is alleged to be a terrorist, that makes them a terrorist. Even if we accept that logic, we will not be making the country any safer, because we cannot move such people on anywhere.
Statelessness is a notion that the British Government were trying to move away from for a long time. In 1930, Britain was among the first to ratify the convention on certain questions relating to the conflict of nationality, which included a protocol relating to certain cases of statelessness. The universal declaration of human rights, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly with UK support as far back as 1948, says:
“Everyone has the right to a nationality…No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality”,
yet that is what clause 60 of the Immigration Bill seeks to do.
Deprivation of citizenship is a severe sanction and statelessness is a separate and even more brutal punishment with unique practical and legal consequences. Although it is an aspiration of human rights activists that fundamental rights such as the right to life and the prohibition on torture should attach to all human beings, the reality is that we live in a world deeply divided along national borders, in which it is notoriously difficult to access redress for, or protection on, human rights matters without nationality.
Going further forward, the UN convention on the reduction of statelessness, which is where we are supposed to be going, was adopted in 1961 and ratified by the UK in 1966. It stipulates that, absent circumstances of fraudulent application or disloyalty toward the contracting state, deprivations and renunciations of citizenship will take effect only where a person has or subsequently obtains another nationality in replacement. The clause moves away from that. This country has spent a generation trying to move away from statelessness, but we are now going in reverse.
We may not have seen the end of this matter; that is why the other place should look at the provision. We had the Home Secretary saying that citizenship was a privilege, not a right, but citizenship is a fact. During the same debate, Alok Sharma MP—
Immigration Bill
Chris Bryant Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Mrs May
It might be helpful, before I comment on new clause 11, to set the context in which the amendments and new clauses are being moved.
This is an important Bill. It has, I think, widespread support outside this House, and will ensure that the Government have greater ability to make it harder for people to live in the United Kingdom illegally. It will make it easier for us to be able to remove people who are here illegally and will streamline the process for appeals, reducing the number of appeals from 17 to four. It will also, crucially, enable us, in certain circumstances, to deport individuals before they have their appeals, so that their right of appeal is outside of this country. It also introduces a variety of measures, one of which I will be coming on to speak to, because it relates to some of the technical amendments ensuring that people who come to this country for a temporary period contribute to our public services, as I think every hard-working family would expect them to do. It is this Government who are putting that through in the Bill.
The Bill is important because it will enhance our ability to deal with a number of immigration matters, although that is against the background of our success in reducing net migration into this country and particularly in dealing with the abuse of certain immigration routes, notably student visas. That is the context of these amendments. I take the point made by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) about the number of amendments, but many of them are very technical and minor amendments.
Government new clause 11 is intended to ensure that the marriage and civil partnership provisions work as effectively as possible. Importantly, part 4 of the Bill will establish a new referral and investigation scheme to prevent sham marriages and civil partnerships from gaining an immigration advantage. Increasingly, sham marriages are being used as a back-door route around immigration rules. The ability to do that has been extended by the Metock case in the European Court, which has enabled people from outside the EU married to someone within the EU to gain free movement rights. There is concern about sham marriages not only in the UK, but in other parts of the EU, and the UK is leading work across Europe.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The right hon. Lady is right about sham marriages, which are an issue I tried to raise last summer. It is crazy that the law does not allow registry offices to provide information on all marriages being sought, where immigration might be an issue, directly to the Home Office. At the moment, Home Office officials have to go and look at the board on the wall in the office. Could we not change the law?
Mrs May
To clarify, the Bill increases the marriage and civil partnership notice period from 15 to 28 days in England and Wales for all couples, and allows it to be extended to 70 days where there are reasonable grounds to suspect a sham. But we will be retaining the ability in emergency cases such as those set out by my hon. Friend to require the notice period to be shorter than is being provided for.
Chris Bryant
I am trying to help the Home Secretary. She referred earlier to clergymen. Will she confirm that she is not changing the law in relation to clergy at all, which actually will still be the weak point in the system?
Mrs May
I accept that we are changing the law in relation to the state obligations of civil registrars, which is part of the state apparatus in relation to this matter. There is not a requirement on clergy to report in this way. With his background, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will share with me a desire to give a clear message that we have considerable concerns where we see clergymen indulging in the practices that I referred to earlier. We have discussed new measures with the Church of England and the Church in Wales and will continue to involve them in our plans for implementation. We are removing bands on the common licence route for non-EEA nationals to ensure that couples within the scope of the referral scheme are correctly identified. I hope that that gives the hon. Gentleman some comfort.
Mrs May
Perhaps hon. Members will have some patience and let me set out my points.
I will not to go into too much detail about the case of al-Jedda, but he was an Iraqi refugee who was granted British nationality in 2000. In 2004, he was detained by British forces in Iraq because of his suspected involvement in terrorism. In December 2007, the then Home Secretary made an order depriving him of his British citizenship.
Chris Bryant
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. As far as I can see, there are no copies of the manuscript amendments on the Table. It seems bizarre, on the matter of whether people should be deprived of their citizenship—[Interruption.] The Minister for Immigration can keep quiet for a moment. The reason we need manuscript amendments is that the Government tabled their new clause only at the very last minute to try to shove other measures off the agenda. Can we ensure that the manuscript amendments are available to everyone so that we know what we are debating?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
I understand that copies of the manuscript amendments are available in the Vote Office—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I have not finished my sentence yet. It would be helpful if that could be checked, although I am assured that they are available, and if copies could be made available in the Chamber for Members who feel unable to get to the Vote Office because they wish to hear the debate.
Mr Raab
I will just expand on this point. I have quoted the advice that I have received. If anyone thinks that the new clause has been tabled with the aim of flouting UK law or engaging in illegality, as opposed to doing something that might be incompatible with the wider, opaque obligations of the ECHR, they misunderstand the point. It is wrong to say that that is what the Home Office’s advice states, because I deliberately sought its advice.
Even if we face a longer-term claim to Strasbourg that is not based on injunctive relief, the new clause remains faithful to the convention. We must not forget that for a second. Paragraph 2 of article 8 on the right to family life provides a list of grounds for curtailing the right to family life, including law enforcement, crime prevention, public protection and protecting the rights of others, which is what the colleagues from both sides of the House who support the new clause care so deeply about.
Chris Bryant
I understood the hon. Gentleman to mean that he had sought the same legal advice as the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary said clearly that the Attorney-General had said that new clause 15 was incompatible with the European convention on human rights, but the hon. Gentleman says that he has seen the same advice and that the new clause is compatible with the convention—or have I got that wrong?
Mr Raab
Very briefly, that is not what I was saying. I think that the hon. Gentleman has added one and one and made three. I have received a memo from the Home Office team that sets out the position on rule 39 in relation to article 8 cases. Precisely because of the concerns that are shared across the House, I asked whether we were likely to see a deportation process gummed up by a rule 39 injunction.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware that the simple method of clarification is to look at the list, which is on the amendment paper. I will not take up the time of the House by checking whether his name is on it, but he might wish to do so himself.
Chris Bryant
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Just to help the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), may I point out that he is not on the list? However, there are amendment papers all around the building, and to be honest, he could do his own homework.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. We will not take up the time of the House in this important and short debate by discussing the composition of the amendment paper. It is in order and not a point of debate.
Chris Bryant
It is a great delight to follow the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) although I would like to correct him on a few details. Although Palmerston thought that Don Pacifico was undoubtedly a British citizen, merely because of his birth in Gibraltar, that would not necessarily apply today in the same way because he was actually a Portuguese Jew who therefore had more than one nationality at the time. I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman’s point applies reliably to the debate.
I entirely agree with everything the Home Secretary said about sham marriages. They are a real problem and in certain places in the country—most notably around London and the west midlands—there is a real issue to be tackled. I warmly commend Ministers who have taken the right actions in the Bill to deal with that. I am concerned, however, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) said earlier, about the business of removing people’s citizenship, not least because the way the proposal has been drafted gives a phenomenal degree of Executive power to the Secretary of State. I worry about that, as do several other Members, including the hon. Members for North East Somerset and for Brent Central (Sarah Teather).
Two years ago I remember going to the deportation centre at Heathrow and seeing a young man whose state we do not know. He refuses to say where he is from because he thinks he will be deported to that place. He had then been in that deportation centre for four years because for him, that half life in a sort of prison was better than the danger of being deported back somewhere. Some think the best way of dealing with the problem of deporting foreign criminals involves measures to change the rules on article 8. The biggest problem lies not with that, however, but with an awful lot of people who get to this country and instantly abandon their paperwork, either because that is what they intended to do from the beginning, or because they are from countries to which we simply cannot deport people. Again, I commend those Ministers who have worked—as Labour Ministers did in the previous Government—to try to ensure that people will not be subject to torture if they are returned to their country of origin, and that they will have a fair trial and so on There are, however, many countries around the world where such things still do not apply, and those cases make up the largest number of people, let alone those whose paperwork has been lost by the Home Office—also a substantial number. Of course I want foreign criminals to be deported and sent back to their country of origin, but I also want their human rights to be protected. I still believe in the right to a fair trial and am opposed to torture. I believe in all the things we have signed up to as a country. Let us not pretend that the Bill will sort out the bigger problem.
Jeremy Corbyn
Does my hon. Friend accept that one problem is the number of countries that have not signed the convention on torture? We should not deport anyone to a regime where no convention on torture is applicable, and we should not rely on dubious one-off agreements, which is what we have been doing.
Chris Bryant
I completely agree, and anyway, if we sought to deport anyone to such a regime, we would face the courts, which is a very expensive business in this country, and we would be certain of failure. It would be a nugatory exercise.
I worry about creating more stateless people, which is effectively the intention of the Home Secretary’s proposal. I can see an argument for making someone stateless when they are abroad—we can say that a person who has done something appalling, perhaps in another country, is longer welcome in this country and remove their citizenship—but I have a much greater problem with making someone stateless when they are in this country. What would we do? We make them stateless and deprive them of citizenship, but then what? Do we banish them? Do we pronounce exile? Does the Speaker demand that they leave the country? Do we march them to the airport if they refuse to go themselves? In any case, where will they go? What country will take them? That is my problem with the proposals being advanced. There is a mediaeval element in the Bill and it will not help us one jot.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
I have been thinking about the question of where we might send people. Michael Howard, a previous Home Secretary, tried to send people to other parts of the world and President Obama sent Uighurs from Guantanamo to Bermuda. Perhaps we could consider sending people to some of the British overseas territories. St Helena comes to mind.
Chris Bryant
I do not know whether my hon. Friend is angling for a visit to St Helena.
My point to the Home Secretary is this: hon. Members know that there is an issue to be addressed and a legitimate question to ask, but this is not the way to advance legislation. The Government are introducing a significant change to the law on British citizenship at this late stage—on Report—and tabled the measure the day before the debate. If anybody wants to amend it, they must table manuscript amendments. If we are going down this route, it is important at least to have the safeguards the Opposition have tabled, but I wish we were doing this in a different way.
Yasmin Qureshi
On sending people away, if we take someone’s citizenship away and they are taken to the airport, where do we send them? They need travel documents. If they do not have them, no country will take them. The Government’s measures are completely impractical.
Chris Bryant
That is my problem. Sometimes legislation seems like a good idea but ends up being completely and utterly impracticable and making little difference. I suspect that that is the problem we will face with the Bill.
I know the Government are not seeking to do this, but my memory of countries that regularly took people’s citizenship off them in the 20th century is not a good one. It is a list of fascist countries. That is why I get very nervous about such moves. I am not saying that the Home Secretary is engaging in that, but when we give an arbitrary power and significant discretion to a Home Secretary to exercise it, there is a danger.
Chris Bryant
I am keen to finish because I know that many hon. Members wish to speak, but I will give way if the hon. Gentleman promises to be swift.
Chris Bryant
I fear that that often happens in passing legislation. I have never known so many manuscript amendments as there have been this year. In the previous 13 years maybe two were accepted and we have had six or seven this year. I just do not think it is a good way of doing business.
The hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) is not in his place, which is a shame. I respect a lot of the issues he raised. There is an imbalance in the way the law relating to article 8 is constructed. Ultimately, the absolute core and rock on which our personal freedoms in this country are based is the rule of law. Because of habeas corpus nobody can be arbitrarily arrested. The law will determine, not party politics or a vote in the House of Commons. To those who regularly trot out the argument that the House of Commons must always have its way, I say, yes, but there are also the courts.
The rule of law, through the courts, argument and precedent developed over time, is a vital part of ensuring our ongoing freedom. That is not just about UK national law, but international law. I have a profound respect for the European convention on human rights. I thought the Home Secretary referred earlier to the Attorney-General having given the advice that the amendment was incompatible. I do not mind which lawyer it was and I am not urging her to publish it or anything like that— I take her at her word. If she believes that it is incompatible with the European convention on human rights, I cannot vote for the amendment and do not want to see it going forward from this House as part of the Bill. Why on earth would we want to do something that the Attorney-General, or whoever was masking for him to provide that advice, had said is incompatible? Every other lawyer I have spoken to, or that we on this side of the House have spoken to, has given exactly the same advice.
The hon. Member for Esher and Walton suggested that there are balancing issues and questions on whether there would be section 39 complaints or not. That is not my issue. All we have to do is look at the amendment, compare it with the European convention on human rights and see that the one does not match the other. That may be an inconvenient fact, but it would be illegal under our present treaty obligations. I do not want this country to renege on the European convention on human rights. We were right to bring it forward. David Maxwell Fyfe, who later became a Conservative Home Secretary—a nasty Home Secretary, I think—effectively drafted it and we should abide by it. We would be utter fools and disloyal to our treaty obligations if we were to support the amendment from the hon. Member for Esher and Walton.
UN Syrian Refugees Programme
Chris Bryant Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Mr Harper
As I said in my statement, we granted refugee status to 1,100 Syrians in the year to last September, and we will continue to grant such status if we receive asylum applications. We should consider how we can help the largest possible number of people, including those who are vulnerable. As I said in answer to questions from Liberal Democrat Members, one of the programmes that we have been supporting is the UNICEF programme, which has been championed by my right hon. Friend the International Development Secretary and which has helped 15,000 of the most vulnerable Syrian children, and I think that that is the right thing to do.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
This is rapidly becoming one of the largest humanitarian crises of the last 50 years, and it is producing a phenomenal problem politically in that very complex country, Lebanon. Surely the answer in every country must be “both…and”, not “either…or”. Would we not have much more moral authority if we argued to the French that we are doing “both…and”, not “either…or”, and would it not therefore be a good idea for us to start taking more of these children?
Mr Harper
There are 2.4 million refugees in neighbouring countries, and about 6.5 million displaced people in Syria. Arguing about helping a few hundred people misses the point. [Interruption.] We have put £600 million into the region—the hon. Gentleman is right: this is the biggest humanitarian crisis, which is why our response is the biggest humanitarian response that this country has ever mounted—in order to help hundreds of thousands of people there. That is the right thing to do, and we are helping an enormously larger number of people than any of our European partners.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Bryant Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Vaizey
I have frequent engagement with Manchester Camerata and I commend its imaginative approach in engaging other parts of local services, particularly the fire and rescue service and the health service. The arts can not only engage young people and children in education, they can also help to engage adults in a whole range of other local services.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
This is a very convoluted question, so I hope the Minister will bear with me. I just wonder whether he has had an opportunity to see the National Youth Theatre production of “Tory Boyz”, which I am told is about a lot of homosexual Conservatives. They, among many others, might want to ask the Government why they are taking such a long time to allow the upgrade of civil partnerships to full same-sex marriages. He is having plenty of time to ask the Secretary of State now. Will he bring it forward a bit faster?
Mr Speaker
That question suffers from the disadvantage of having nothing to do with children’s participation in the arts.
Mr Speaker
Well, I thought it was not orderly, but the Minister can offer a very brief reply, which I feel sure he will do with skill and alacrity.
Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed
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Mrs May
As I said earlier, national security and the protection of the public are always at the forefront of the Government’s mind when we are considering these issues.
I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for enabling me to clarify something that I said earlier, which his question suggests may have led to some misunderstanding. The review in the case of Ibrahim Magag was undertaken by the Home Office, but it was overseen by the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation. It is not in his remit actually to review, but he looked at the Home Office review and said that it was thorough, and I expect him to look at the review that will be undertaken in this case as well.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
To be honest, it is not that easy to balance the conflicting interests of security and individual liberty and freedom, but what really worries me about the attitude the Home Secretary has presented today is that she seems to think that these two men came up with some phenomenally cunning plan. One of them jumped in a black cab and the other slipped on a burqa. Surely she understands that the others will probably be laughing in her face.
Oral Answers to Questions
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
This is not just an issue for rural areas. Semi-rural areas often fall between two stools. It is difficult for people to get broadband to their home, either because they are too far from the final mile or because the bung that has been given to BT to roll this out across the country and make it almost impossible for anybody else to compete has made it difficult for other operators to get into areas such as the Rhondda.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the Minister for explaining the greatness of that particular James Blake, because I had in mind a very distinguished black American tennis player of the same name. I am obliged to the Minister for educating me.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
T1. Perhaps you should write a book on tennis, Mr Speaker. Numero uno: if she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Maria Miller)
I should also say happy Halloween, if that is indeed appropriate, Mr Speaker.
We recently announced a £10 million fund dedicated to celebrating some of our nation’s most important anniversaries. Visits to museums and galleries are at their highest ever levels. The merger of the Gambling Commission and the National Lottery Commission has now been completed, saving the taxpayer £1 million a year.
Chris Bryant
I was going to say that the Secretary of State is an absolutely wonderful woman, and then she went all American by referring to Halloween—I would prefer us to stick with a British institution. May I say to her that she did a wonderful thing yesterday, I am very proud of her and I hope she will stand firm on these issues? The hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) was right earlier when he said that it is now for the industry to come to terms with what the public want in this country, which is a fair system of redress—nothing more, nothing less. Will the Secretary of State tell us when the body that will be able to regulate the body that is going to be doing the regulating will be set up?
Maria Miller
I will resist saying, “With friends like the hon. Gentleman, who needs enemies.” I thank him for his kind words and, I am sure, the sentiment in which they were meant. Obviously, he is right to say that we have made very good progress, and I hope he will join me in now resisting all calls for any form of statutory regulation of the press, which some others have been trying to impose. He asks me about the timing, and I can tell him that the panel will be set up in the next six to 12 months.
Oral Answers to Questions
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James Brokenshire
I know that my hon. Friend spoke in the Second Reading debate on the Bill and underlined those points. I was closely involved in the deportation of Abu Qatada, an important success for this Government, which was not achieved by the previous Government. That case showed the number of appeals that are possible and the slowness of the process. That is why it is right that we tackle the number of appeals. Seventeen potential appeal routes are available. We want to reduce that to four and to cut down on the abuses of the system.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The changes in the Immigration Bill will mean that those who are caught trying to enter a sham marriage will be deported from this country. I wholly welcome that, but when the Minister eventually answered some questions from me three months late, he revealed that the number of occasions when a registrar has written to the Home Office under section 24 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 to notify it of significant concern about a possible sham marriage has risen dramatically since 2010. There are measures to deal with that in future, but why has that happened?
James Brokenshire
It is important to tackle sham marriages, and that is why the Bill has specific measures to address that. The Government are very focused on deporting those who should not be in this country. That is why we are taking the steps we are in the Bill.