Diane Abbott
Main Page: Diane Abbott (Independent - Hackney North and Stoke Newington)Department Debates - View all Diane Abbott's debates with the Home Office
(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
I thank the hon. Lady, whose question bore no relation to my answer. Let me be absolutely clear: the reason we are having a consultation on Leveson is to make sure that we get this right. Of course, if journalists or anybody else have broken the law, we take that incredibly seriously. That is why I am sure the hon. Lady will be pleased to hear that all eight of Sir Brian Leveson’s recommendations covering police and press are well under way to being implemented. The consultation was completed on 10 January and, after a pending court case, the Government will, of course, make their position clear.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
The entire House knows that the Leveson inquiry was always meant to have two parts, but the Government seem poised to break a promise, hiding behind a completely gratuitous inquiry. The whole House knows about cases such as those of Milly Dowler and the totally innocent Christopher Jeffries in Bristol, whose photo was plastered all over the tabloids as a murder suspect, as a consequence of collusion between the police and the media. Why cannot the Minister see that it would be nothing less than a betrayal of the victims of phone hacking, such as Milly Dowler and Christopher Jeffries, if this Government block the second half of Leveson?
Mr Wallace
The hon. Lady will know that the consultation finished on 10 January and there were 140,000 responses to it. I do not know about her, but it takes time to go through them. The Government also have to deal with a current court case, which makes it much harder for us to respond to the consultation until that hearing is complete. Once it is complete, I assure her that we will be happy to meet her and discuss further the Leveson recommendations.
Mr Goodwill
I agree with the hon. Lady absolutely. As I mentioned, there is no limit on the number of students who can come here. Since 2010, we have seen a 17% increase in the number of university applications from outside the EU, while the Russell Group has seen an amazing 47% increase.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
The whole House knows that it is vital to maintain our global reputation as an open and fair place to study, but in mid-December last year the Home Office lost a major test case against international students. The Home Office claimed that the students had made bogus claims about English language skills. What were the total legal costs in this test case against Sharif Majumder? How many other cases were initiated and had to be dropped? What estimate has been made of the potential liability arising from students who were deported on the basis of evidence-free claims, but might now have a right to sue for wrongful deportation?
Mr Goodwill
I am slightly surprised that the hon. Lady has the brass neck to refer to bogus students in bogus colleges. We had to take away the sponsorship licence from 920 colleges that were recruiting students to take bogus courses. I will certainly get back to her in writing if I can provide some of the information she asked for specifically on that legal case.
Amber Rudd
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important matter, particularly during Holocaust Memorial Week. As he will know, the Government published a hate crime action plan to drive forward action to tackle all forms of hate crime, and to enable Departments across the Government to work with police and communities. However, I completely agree with him that all organisations, including universities and political parties, have an obligation to stamp out anti-Semitism wherever it is encountered.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Recent revelations from the Public Law Project indicate that country guidance in Eritrea was altered to suggest diminished risks of human rights abuses when there was no evidence to support that, solely in order to lower the number of refugees allowed entry. In a significant case in the upper immigration tribunal last October, it was found that the new Home Office guidance on Eritrea was not credible. We know that the guidance has since been withdrawn, but was the then Home Secretary involved in the issuing of that wholly misleading guidance, and can the present Home Secretary say how many refugees may have been wrongly denied entry and how many of them were children?
Amber Rudd
The hon. Lady has raised an important part of our immigration policy, whose purpose is to ensure that we keep all countries to which we are returning people under review. Quite rightly, Home Office staff will visit appropriate countries—and, indeed, they visited Eritrea in 2014—to make their country assessments. I am confident that Home Office processes are delivered in the correct way, but the hon. Lady can rest assured that we will always keep the position under review.