Windrush Compensation Scheme

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

The Windrush generation was the generation that came from across the Commonwealth, but largely from the Caribbean, to help to rebuild this country after the war. The point about the Windrush generation—a point that may not be understood by Government Members—was that these people thought they were British. They thought they were coming to the mother country. Many of them had pictures of the Queen in their living rooms. The way they have been treated, first in the Windrush scandal itself and then in the debacle of the compensation scheme, could not be more unfair or more cruel.

The lawyers and many of the people who gave evidence to the Select Committee talked about money and compensation, but for the people of the Windrush generation the real scandal was the humiliation at having it brought home to them, by the many aspects of the Windrush scandal, that this society did not consider them British. They were not treated with the fairness and dignity that they would have liked. For the Windrush generation—I cannot stress this enough—this was not about the money; it was about being respected and being genuinely accepted as British. They were treated completely unfairly, in practical, emotional and subjective ways.

The thing that should have struck the Government about the workings of their scheme was that in 2020 Alexandra Ankrah, who worked as head of policy in the Windrush compensation scheme team, resigned because she lost confidence in a programme that was

“not supportive of people who have been victims”

and

“doesn’t acknowledge their trauma”.

It is their trauma that I want to try to convey in this debate.

The head of the scheme resigned, and they paid no notice—they carried on as before. In that same year, nine law firms wrote to the Home Secretary explaining the complex nature of the Windrush compensation application process and asked that claimants be given access to funded legal assistance. The Government’s response was to say, “Well, the scheme was designed so that people could apply without legal assistance.” What people? People who are known to Government Members, and people who are known to Ministers—not ageing members of the Windrush generation. They cannot deal with the scheme without some kind of legal assistance. I put it to Ministers that it is the complexity of the scheme that has meant we have not had the number of applications that we should have had, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) set out.

In the Select Committee’s hearings, we heard evidence from distinguished practitioners, such as Martin Forde QC, who had been the independent adviser to the scheme and also advised on its consultation and design, and Holly Stow, a senior caseworker at North Kensington Law Centre. The significance of that law centre is that the earliest generation of Caribbean migrants lived in that area long before it was as expensive to buy a home there as it is now, and I knew that area well as a child. Another important person we took evidence from was Jacqueline McKenzie, who at that time was assisting with approximately 200 claims and is probably assisting with more by now.

The policy head of the scheme resigned because she was so appalled at the way the scheme was functioning. Lawyers and others went to the Government to talk to them about the complexity of the system. Above all, given the Government’s original estimate for the potential number of claimants—I think it was 15,000—the number of people applying to the scheme, certainly when the Committee did its inquiry, was relatively tiny. Yet the Home Office has been quite brazen in rejecting the analysis of people who had worked for the Home Office on the scheme and of lawyers and potential claimants.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North pointed out, the Home Office rejected many of our key recommendations, and its response demonstrated that the Department was not engaging with the issues. Above all, the Department’s response to many of our separate recommendations was that it would conduct a review. On almost everything we raised, the Home Office said it was conducting a review. It is all well and good that it is conducting a review on all those separate issues, but it should not need to have a review; it should be prepared to listen to the lawyers, claimants and people working with the community and to look at its own figures. It should be prepared to listen to its own staff members who have worked on the scheme. It should not need to launch a series of reviews.

Meanwhile, because those who came over on the Windrush are an ageing generation, many of them have died or will die before they get the compensation they are entitled to, and I consider that quite shameful. It is hard to believe that the Department does not understand that the more the process is prolonged; the less willing the Department is to take up practical suggestions made in good faith by not just my Committee, but others; and the more the Department is unwilling to listen to people, the longer it will all take and more people will have passed away without justice.

As my right hon. Friend said, many people have argued that the Windrush compensation scheme was inadequate. We know, as my colleague said, that the number of people who have applied for compensation is paltry compared to the number the Home Office originally said were entitled to it. The experience of applying for compensation is traumatic in itself. As I have said, one of the things that is not necessarily factored in when people talk about the Windrush generation is their sense of humiliation, as people who came here to the mother country, at being treated the way they were and having to go through the scheme at all.

As my right hon. Friend said, people have been put off from applying for the scheme partly because of its complexity, which Ministers have been told over and over again. Seeing what happened, seeing how people were treated originally and seeing how some even ended up being deported—seeing all that—the potential claimants of the Windrush generation lacked all trust in the Home Office. That is why one of our key recommendations was that this scheme should be passed to an independent organisation.

The Home Office said, “Well, that might introduce delays,” but it could not have introduced more delays than the Windrush generation are experiencing now. It could not be any slower than what is happening now. There could not be more people dying than now, while the Home Office is processing what it is supposed to be doing. It is preposterous for the Home Office to argue, “We don’t want to pass it to an independent organisation because of delays.” With this scheme, those at the Home Office are the masters of delays.

We called for an independent organisation because we felt that it would be more efficient and that—I come back to this question of confidence—applicants would have more confidence in an independent organisation and would be more willing to come forward, so that we could increase the number of people applying and getting justice before they pass away, as they continue to do. At the time of the Committee’s report, 23 individuals had died without receiving compensation, and I have no doubt that even more have passed away by this point.

Among other things, we pointed out the excessive burden on claimants to provide documentary evidence of the losses they have suffered. That is a burden. Somebody might have worked hard in the NHS or elsewhere in the public sector, or in manufacturing as my father did, but they are not used to handling that level of paperwork, so it is a burden. In a way, that insistence on finding all the documentary evidence just compounds the pain and misery they have gone through in the Windrush scandal.

Then there are the delays. Like I said, how can those at the Home Office complain that passing the scheme to an independent organisation would cause delays when they themselves have presided over inordinate delays in processing applications and making payments? They themselves have staffed the scheme wholly inadequately. We pointed out the failure to provide urgent payments and the delay in launching and adequately supporting grassroots campaigns, and I think something has been done about that.

It is frustrating for the Committee even to have had to write the report, because many of the systemic faults were highlighted first in the Home Office’s own lessons learned review by Wendy Williams. It is not that we are bringing the Home Office’s attention to such things for the first time; Wendy Williams had set out many of them. The title of her document was “lessons learned”, but the only thing that one can conclude at this point is that the Home Office has learned nothing—lessons have not been learned at all or, if they have been learned, they have not been implemented.

Where do we go from here? It would be good if the Home Office, even at this late stage, listened and implemented some of the findings of the Wendy Williams review, listened to what lawyers and claimants themselves are saying, and listened to the findings of my Committee’s report. The Windrush compensation scheme has to go to an independent organisation, for reasons of increased efficiency and so that people can have some confidence; the Home Office has to look at the level of documentation being insisted on; and, given that Martin Forde QC, has said that applications being completed with legal assistance would speed things up dramatically, the Home Office should guarantee access to legal assistance for all claimants who require it.

It is important that the Home Office understands that what Home Office Ministers and officials see as a minor administrative challenge, as they have so many more important things to do and to think about, is, for the Windrush generation, their lives. This is a signifier of the care and respect that this society holds for that generation. For Ministers to ignore what is said to them, year after year, about the complaints process and to ignore the suggestions that people make in good faith, suggests to me that they do not respect that generation or understand the humiliation that the generation feels. As I said earlier, it is as if they are waiting for this generation to pass away.

Finally, the Windrush generation came not just from the Caribbean, but from other parts of Commonwealth, as we pointed out in our report. They did not all come on the Windrush or on other boats either. My own father came on an aeroplane, which was very dashing of him at the time. He was an impetuous person; no doubt, that is where I get it from. As I said, they came in good faith and I believe that the Home Office should deal with them in good faith. It is not too late for Home Office Ministers and officials to pay attention to our report, and to other statements that have been made and issues that have been raised, including the view of its own head of policy for the scheme. It is not too late for the Home Office to listen to criticism and finally give justice to the Windrush generation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Foster]

We hope it will be quicker than the right hon. Lady has just suggested, and potentially a lot quicker than one of the timeframes that she suggested. I am not in a position today to give a specific date, but we are making excellent progress towards finally resolving this issue. We accept that we need to bring certainty to people, particularly given the age of many of those we are talking about, as touched on by the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. Even the children of that generation are well into their 50s and 60s, given that, in many cases, we are talking about people who arrived in the UK before 1 January 1973. We are conscious of the urgency of resolving this issue. I do not want to make a misleading statement today and give a specific date by which it will be resolved, but certainly we believe we are making excellent progress and getting close to resolving it.

The changes we made to the scheme in December 2020 have significantly increased both the amount of compensation awarded and the speed at which awards are made. Since December 2020 we have paid out over £33 million, in contrast to a total of just under £3 million prior to those changes. We now frequently pay out over £1 million a month in compensation, and we recently paid out one of our largest awards to date—a single award in excess of £260,000 to one individual. I hope that Members will understand why I will not give further details of that case, which may identify the person concerned, given the sums involved.

[Ms Abbott]

The Minister has helpfully told us the total sum that has been paid in compensation, but how many claimants does that represent?

Oral Answers to Questions

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I have committed before, and I am happy to do so again, that before the end of the Parliament we will produce a new funding formula to ensure that my hon. Friend’s constituency gets exactly what he deserves, as indeed he should.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Does the Home Secretary accept that many Members of this House are dismayed that she did not make a statement in the normal way, so that she could have been questioned in the normal way? Does she further accept that that is not just disrespectful to the House of Commons, but it shows a lack of real concern for those desperate people escaping Ukraine?

[Priti Patel]

I completely reject the right hon. Lady’s latter point, and naturally I will always be happy to return to the House and take questions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

We could rerun the debate on the Nationality and Borders Bill, which I would happily do. This Government are determined not just to reform what is a broken asylum system—we are lifting up every aspect of the dysfunctionality of the system—but to tackle the root causes of illegal migration. In March 2021 the new plan for immigration was published, and we had the Nationality and Borders Bill in this House last autumn. The Opposition seem to be on the wrong side of the argument. They do not really want to support an end to illegal migration or stop the people smugglers.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Is there any truth in the reports that the Government want to have asylum seekers processed offshore in countries such as Gambia? Has any such country actually agreed to this? Does the Secretary of State accept that having people processed hundreds or thousands of miles away might meet the letter of our obligations to asylum seekers but certainly does not meet the spirit?

[Priti Patel]

I absolutely disagree with the right hon. Lady’s question. Had she read the new plan for immigration—the policy statement published for the benefit of all Members in March 2021—she would know that this Government are considering all options for outsourcing processing and for removing people with no legal basis to be in our country. I completely recognise that she disagrees with the policies of this Government—[Interruption.] It matters not which countries. We will continue to discuss this with a range of countries, because I, as Home Secretary, and this Government are determined to fix the decades-long problem of a very broken asylum system. Frankly, under successive Labour Governments there were mass failures to remove people with no legal basis to be in the country.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)]

I wish to speak to new clause 8 about child citizenship fees, which I am grateful has been signed by a number of Members. The children in question are not migrants. I repeat that they are not migrants, because every time this issue is raised, there is some suggestion that there is something slightly illegal behind this, which is disgraceful. On the contrary, the large majority are exactly like me and the Prime Minister, and have every right to British citizenship. This Government, and all successive Governments, accept that, but the issue is that they are being priced out.

We in this country charge British children—children!—up to 10 times more to claim their citizenship rights than their counterparts in Spain, France, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden. The fee is the most expensive in Europe. If the £35 fee introduced back in 1983 had risen in line with inflation, it would be only £120 today. Instead, we charge £1,012—a fee that has doubled in the past decade, and which the Government have the ability to increase at will. It is a fee that far too many cannot afford, and a fee the level of which neither I nor the Prime Minister had to pay.

Why do I keep mentioning myself and the Prime Minister? It is because the circumstances of our births are no different to those of the children in question today. Indeed, many Members across the House were not born here or were born to migrants, and none of us faced such barriers to claiming our citizenship. No one questions our rights, and our British citizenship gives us the right to sit as Members of this House. I repeatedly mention myself and the Prime Minister because I believe that neither of us should be in a position to make things difficult for those children born after us. I certainly did not come to this House to do that.

Like the Windrush generation, through no fault of their own, and often with no idea of what is to come, these children go on to face real difficulties with everyday life and with things that we take for granted, such as travelling, getting a job, renting a home or going to university without being asked to pay international fees. That is in the country they were born in or have lived in their whole lives. Make that make sense.

Citizens UK, Amnesty International, and the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens, which has led on this campaign, have estimated that between 85,000 and 215,000 children with a legal entitlement to British citizenship have ended up undocumented due to the extortionate registration fee. Imagine how many children have never had the opportunity to reach their full potential because they spent the end of their childhood, and the beginning of their adulthood, fighting to prove that they have rights in their own country, or fighting to prove that they belong in the only place they have ever called home. It is exactly what happened with the Windrush generation.

We must understand that the harm of being denied citizenship rights in the only country you know cannot be overstated. It is not just about societal barriers; it is the psychological impact of being constantly treated like a second-class citizen. Why do I continually compare them to the Windrush generation? That is because, just like the Windrush generation, a piece of legislation or policy that attempted to dissuade migrants and make the environment more hostile for them is impacting on a group of people who have every right to be here. Just like the Windrush generation, this policy disproportionately affects those of black, Asian, and minority ethnic heritage.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that to make children bear the burden of this Government’s hostile environment policy must be wrong?

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend, and I am sure she will agree with me that, clearly, no lessons have been learned.

New clause 8 does not even ask the Government to scrap the fee, which is my personal preference; it just asks them to reduce it to cost and examine its impact on the rights of children. The new clause does, however, ask for the fee to be scrapped for children in care, for the obvious reason that children in care are the responsibility of the state. As we approach Christmas and we are thinking about families and home, with all the disadvantages that children in care face, the Government seem all too at ease with telling these children that they have no country to call home unless their local authority is willing to pay for it.

I spoke to children who were Lambeth care leavers and they told me horrific tales of threats of deportation to countries they have never been to because they cannot prove their link to their citizenship due to issues with their relations with their parents. Our cash-strapped local authorities cannot afford to keep paying these fees, and they are not border guards or immigration specialists who understand exactly what is happening.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) is absolutely right that there are parts of the citizenship section of the Bill that we appreciate, and things have been corrected. I spoke to the Immigration Minister earlier this week, and I was grateful for his time—I promised I would say something nice, and I did. If we are correcting all these other things, why would we not correct this policy now? We know exactly what the issue is. We know that the courts ruled, the Government appealed, and the courts ruled again that these fees are not in the best interests of children. This Bill is so horrible in so many other areas; is there not just one thing that we can all agree on? Just like with the Windrush scandal, why do the Government want to be dragged screaming into submission on something that they know is absolutely right?

I am glad to be standing here today, because I get to keep the promise that I made just before my election to a group of students from St Gabriel’s College who, along with Lambeth Citizens, explained to me their plight as children who were suffering in this way. I am proud to be a governor at their school, because they are what I call citizens. They are affected by this issue. Some of them have moved on, but they continue to fight for others in their place. I promised that I would stand up in the House and try to show that these young people are valued by their country—because this is their country. I hope that, when new clause 8—hopefully—goes to a vote, every other Member of this House will walk through the Lobby with me and show those young people that they have every single right to be here, that we will not continue to price them out, and that they should be able to access every single right, just like myself and the Prime Minister have been able to do.

Channel Crossings in Small Boats

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

Let me put my hon. Friend’s mind at ease and at peace: I have done exactly that.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary spoke earlier about the importance of viable plans; does she still consider the use of wave machines in the channel to turn back small boats to be a viable plan? Does she still consider the sending of desperate asylum seekers to a third country, such as Albania, to be a viable plan? When will she stop using desperate asylum seekers as pawns in this Government’s culture wars?

[Priti Patel]

I categorically reject that notion and the right hon. Lady’s points. She mentioned wave machines; I have never ever suggested or recommended them. I say that for clarity and on the record for the House. As for the other matters, the right hon. Lady has heard me say this afternoon—I refer her to my earlier comments—that her party objects to changing our asylum system, fixing a broken system and, actually, improving the processing of asylum claims, which would, by the way, be of benefit to the individuals who have come to our country illegally. We want to make sure that we have a differentiated approach so that those people who are in genuine need get the support they need and those who have no legal grounds to be here are removed.

Afghanistan Policy

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

May I thank my hon. Friend, who is an absolute stalwart in speaking up not only for his constituency, but his local council? He is very much putting his constituency on the map. I am delighted to support the great offers of Darlington Borough Council and other councils across the country. I encourage them to do whatever they can to help. We should not forget that we can all play our part, because we have the portal open on gov.uk, where we can register offers of donations, volunteering, English language lessons—whatever we can manage. Also, for those who are able, there is the specific accommodation portal, where people can offer accommodation.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I have listened with care to the Minister’s statement. Is she aware of how many British residents and passport holders will be very shocked to learn that the Government can offer them no information on their relatives trapped in Afghanistan, let alone help them get their relatives to safety? Perhaps she should write to us and say she has no information. At least that would help us shed some light for our constituents. On the question of bridging hotels, many of them are entirely unsuitable, such as business hotels that have one single member of a family in every room. Can she assure the House about the maximum length of time individuals will be in this bridging accommodation?

[Victoria Atkins]

Again, I regret that the right hon. Lady did not hear what I said earlier, which is that for those people in Afghanistan at the moment, it is a very fast-moving situation. At this point in time, I am not able to signpost constituents and parliamentarians in the way that I would normally be able to do, and that is one of the tough messages I have had to deliver today from the Dispatch Box. That does not mean that that will remain the case forever, and that is why the work of the FCDO, the Ministry of Defence and others in trying to secure safe passage out of Afghanistan is so critical.

In terms of bridging hotels, we have yet to complete the transfer of everybody from quarantine to bridging hotels, but the more offers of permanent accommodation we have, the sooner we will be moving people out of bridging accommodation. This is why we have to do things methodically, and this is why we are being very careful about the numbers of people we can welcome in the future.

Policing and Prevention of Violence against Women

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. To be very frank, I was quite surprised when I heard that was the position that the Opposition were taking. This is a criminal justice Bill. It will increase sentences for individuals and perpetrators who perpetrate the most horrendous, appalling sexual offences and crimes against women, children and citizens. It is an important Bill, as I have already said. It was key to our manifesto, and the British public voted for it. This Government and our party in government are absolutely determined to strengthen our laws and the criminal justice system so that we can put away those individuals who cause harm to individuals and increase sentences.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab) [V]]

Our thoughts and prayers are with Sarah Everard’s family. The Home Secretary will be aware that the whole nation was upset by the images of women who had come to a peaceful vigil about violence against women finding themselves wrestled to the ground and handcuffed by police officers. The statement by the Metropolitan police sought to justify what happened on Saturday by talking about

“the overriding need to protect people’s safety”.

Is she aware that some people are puzzled by the idea that you can make people safe by manhandling them and handcuffing them?

In relation to the policing Bill, which the House will be debating later, the Home Secretary herself has made it clear that it is expressly designed to crack down on peaceful protests by groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter. She described the peaceful protests by Black Lives Matter as “dreadful”. Can she understand why many people in this country believe that giving the police even more powers to crack down on peaceful protest can only lead to more distressing scenes like those the nation witnessed on Saturday at the vigil on Clapham common?

[Priti Patel]

With respect to the right hon. Lady, I urge her not to be so judgmental with regards to the events on Saturday evening until we see the report that comes from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary. She will have plenty of opportunity to discuss protest and police powers during the passage of the Bill, but I would like to say this: in recent years, we have seen a significant change in protest tactics, which has led to disruption and also to violence and people’s lives being endangered. I look forward to the debate with her on this particular point later on, but she is absolutely wrong in her characterisation of the measures we are introducing.

Scheduled Mass Deportation: Jamaica

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend, speaking as a magistrate, hits the nail exactly on the head. The principal concern of Members of Parliament should be protecting the victims of crime and protecting our constituents from the harm that might otherwise be done to them by foreign national offenders. That is precisely why it is right to remove foreign national offenders—so that they cannot commit any more offences against our constituents.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab) [V]]

Does the Minister accept that many people feel that this mass deportation is both cruel and potentially dangerous: cruel because he is separating, just weeks from Christmas, families of people who have served their sentence; and possibly dangerous because he is deporting vulnerable people—communities that we know are particularly vulnerable to coronavirus—in the middle of a pandemic?

[Chris Philp]

The right hon. Lady asks whether this is the right thing to do. The answer to that question is categorically yes—an answer that she herself gave when she voted in 2007 for the Act of Parliament under which the Government are required to carry out these deportations. The right hon. Lady voted for this measure herself. In relation to coronavirus risks, as I said already, we have been carrying out these flights throughout the entire summer and autumn period, using methods that the High Court has found to be covid-safe in immigration removal centres, such as reverse cohorting, distancing, frequent testing, temperature checks and so on and so forth. I therefore do not accept the right hon. Lady’s point. Let me say this again: the overwhelming consideration for Members of this House should be the protection of our constituents.

Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Conor McGinn]

The overriding priority of this Labour Opposition is and always will be to keep the public and our communities safe. I want to concentrate on the three amendments that our Front Benchers have tabled on behalf of the official Opposition, conscious of the fact that we have little time and I wish to hear from colleagues on the Back Benches who did not have the opportunity to discuss these issues in Committee.

As we—including me, as shadow Security Minister—said on Second Reading and in Committee, the tragic events at Fishmongers’ Hall and Streatham showed that there was a clear need for legislation, and subsequent events in Reading have only affirmed that. We on the Opposition Benches are committed to being forceful and robust in the fight against terrorism, so we welcome the Bill and in principle support its introduction. We have also sought to thoughtfully scrutinise the Bill, both to gain assurances on concerns and to attempt to improve it and ensure it is up to that most important task of keeping people safe.

To delve into new clause 8, following the shocking and tragic incident in Reading on Saturday 20 June, my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary called for a judge-led review of the Government’s strategy for tackling the dangerous and growing menace of lone attackers. Reading was the third time in seven months that such devastation had been witnessed on UK streets, with lone attackers responsible each time. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda), who showed such leadership and thoughtfulness in the days after the appalling attack on his community.

We on the Opposition Benches have no doubts as to the immense skill, bravery and dedication of our police and security and intelligence services. New clause 8 is fundamentally about supporting them as they tackle extremism from root to branch, because they cannot fight the battle alone. We need to look at the range of services we all rely on, particularly when we want to identify, monitor and treat subjects who pose such a huge threat to wider society.

Our proposals would make provision to assess the systemic response needed for the emerging and disturbing phenomenon of lone terrorists. A judge-led review of the effectiveness of current strategies to deal with them could effectively do that. It would address counter-terrorism policy and sentencing policy as it applies to terrorist offenders and the interactions and effectiveness of public services with respect to incidents of lone terrorist attacks. It would also undertake an analysis of a wide range of key public services, including our probation system, the prison system, mental health services, housing providers and local authorities, each of which can intervene at critical points.

The review would build on prior research and expertise, such as the extensive work carried out by Lord Anderson, the previous Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. That work has already provided insights into how we might better connect the current systems. His review’s proposal for multi-agency centre pilots would involve the identification of newly closed high-risk subjects of interest, the sharing of data by the Security Service and counter-terror policing with other agencies, such as local authorities and Departments, and the enrichment of that data using the databases of multi-agency partners. The review also highlighted barriers to local partners’ involvement in managing subjects of interest, including the challenges of resourcing.

Our public services must have the tools they need to intervene and work together in the most effective and efficient manner possible, particularly as many of the services have interactions with individuals who give them real concern. We need to undertake an assessment of the systemic response needed to confront the dangerous and growing threat of lone attackers, with all the necessary security safeguards in place, and I thank the Minister and the Security Minister for discussions on that.

Jonathan Hall, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, is looking at the issue in a review of the multi-agency public protection arrangements, which was commissioned by the Home Secretary. My understanding is that the review is currently with the Home Office. Can the Minister say a little bit more about that and perhaps commit to publishing it before the Bill reaches the other place, which I think would provide some assurance?

Turning to amendment 38 on TPIMs, we fully agree that the mechanisms must be robust and agile to help the police, the Security Service and their operational partners to do the job of keeping the public safe. As reflected by the amendments that the official Opposition has tabled, as well as those of the Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), and the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), it is fair to say that we feel the Bill’s proposed changes to TPIMs will have a profound impact on the regime, especially when taken together.

We want TPIMs to be as effective and efficient as possible, and when those on the frontline in policing and counter-terrorism say that the changes will be useful, we fully trust and support their assessment and will do all we can to assist them. We will also, however, seek assurances that proper safeguards are in place. We would all want and expect to see such safeguards on measures of such importance in a democracy such as ours. If the standard of proof is to be lowered while simultaneously making possible a potentially indefinite TPIM by removing the current limit, then scrutiny, oversight and safeguards will take on a new-found importance. 

We must remind ourselves that a TPIM notice can involve a wide range of measures: overnight residence requirements, relocation, police reporting, an electronic monitoring tag, exclusion from certain places, limits on association, limits on the use of financial services, and limits on the use of telephone and computers, as well as a ban on holding travel documents. Those are robust measures and, in my view, rightly so, but we must not forget that TPIMs are a restriction on rights for people who have not yet been convicted of any crime. It is not in the interests of anyone to allow such individuals to remain indefinitely on TPIMs, either for their own sake, for society’s, or, crucially, in terms of bringing them to justice.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that the concern about TPIMs is not just the breadth of measures available but their indefinite nature against people who have not actually been tried and charged?

[Conor McGinn]

I do, and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for the work she has done on this issue and her commitment to it. I am sure the Minister will have heard what she says. It is something I raised in Committee and I did receive some assurances from the Minister, but I think we would wish to hear—not just in the light of what my right hon. Friend says, but of what the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation said when he made a similar point—what the Minister is doing to ensure those safeguards are in place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. We are going to have to introduce a time limit of five minutes to get in as many as we can. The Minister will come in just before 5.50 pm

[Ms Abbott]

I rise to speak in support of the amendments. The stakes in any debate about terrorism and how to combat terrorism successfully are extremely high, because these are issues that involve the lives and liberties of all of us. Children as well as adults have lost their lives in some of these terrible incidents, particularly in the horrific Manchester Arena bombing. Police officers have been murdered. We were all shocked by the murder of a fellow MP, Jo Cox, and I was a Member of this House in the ’80s and ’90s at the height of the IRA’s mainland bombing campaign, so, please, there is no one on the Opposition side who does not take the threat of terrorism seriously. However, it is extremely appropriate that Parliament should not be nodding through counter-terror legislation but should be subjecting it to proper scrutiny, because that is in the interests of us all. At the heart of that scrutiny has to be: will this legislation help minimise terror attacks?

Governments of all parties, including my own, have tended to want to argue that measures that undermine civil liberties are the answer to terrorism, but sometimes such measures run the risk of being a recruiting sergeant for terrorism. It is in that light that I address my remarks to the Prevent programme. The Government previously committed to a review of Prevent. I can only ask: where is the review? My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), speaking from the Front Bench, described Prevent as controversial. It is not just controversial; it is a toxic brand, and I would argue it is increasingly counterproductive in the fight against terrorism that we all want to support. We should look at a replacement for the Prevent programme. It is not that good work has not been done in the name of Prevent—I visited some of those programmes in another role—but increasingly it is not doing the job it was established to do and, because its reputation is so toxic, it is not as effective as it could be in combating terrorism.

If we examine the terror incidents that have been inflicted on our communities in detail, we find that very few of the perpetrators have ever been in contact with a Prevent programme. At the same time, Prevent casts a hugely wide net over people, particularly in the Muslim community. In 2017-18, 7,300 people were referred to the Prevent programme, and the overwhelming majority of those were incorrect referrals. In fewer than one in five cases was there any discussion of these individuals at a Channel panel, and fewer than 400 people have received support from the Channel programme. No wonder, to many communities that find themselves targeted, it looks and feels like a trawling operation. I remember that in counter-terrorism debates with reference to the IRA’s mainland bombing campaign, it was former Army officers in this House—not people on my side of the Chamber—who argued against measures that could be a recruiting sergeant for terrorists.

As we know, when Ministers are challenged on Prevent, they respond as if any criticism of it is leading to an attempt to abolish our counter-terrorism efforts altogether. I want to nail that one. As Ministers know, Prevent is only one strand of the Contest strategy and we support the other three strands of pursue, protect and prepare. Serious consideration should be given to how all of those can be enhanced and made more effective. But, from all the evidence and all the people and communities I have spoken to, I conclude that Prevent is in danger of being counterproductive, alienating communities and ultimately making the fight against terrorism harder.

A more effective anti-radicalisation programme could and should be constituted. It would involve communities themselves. It would not be imposed on communities, but it would be working with communities, relying on people’s intelligence information, their sensitivities and their very real concerns, and the very real concerns of the overwhelming majority of people in this country who are opposed to terrorism in all its guises. Working with communities and relying on them, not demonising them and ostracising them, is the way forward.

In conclusion, all of us on both sides of the House have a great responsibility in fighting terrorism. The most important duty of any Government is to keep their citizens safe, and we on the Opposition Benches feel that very strongly, but the safety and security of our people in the fight against terrorism cannot be upheld by knee-jerk reactions, simplistic formulations or programmes that prove to be counterproductive. An impartial review of the Prevent programme is long overdue. The fear is that now there is too much political capital invested in the Prevent programme for it to change course, but the fight against terrorism is too serious to be taken lightly. If something is not working, we need to fix it. That is why the time is right to review Prevent and to start again with an entirely new programme with the same aims, but a programme that works with communities rather than demonising them.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Diane Abbott Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 18th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Like my good friend the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), I shall be voting against this Bill. It is a bad Bill. It is bad in principle, bad in practice and it sends a terrible message to migrants and the children of migrants. The Bill does indeed abolish freedom of movement—although once this country voted to brexit, freedom of movement would have fallen in any event—but the Government are doing it in such a way and in such a manner that it seems to ignore the effect of this on around 890,000 British nationals in the EU. We feel that there was a better way of achieving the same effect.

The Bill gives the Government a blank cheque to construct a new immigration system through statutory instrument. Anybody that has had to deal with the immigration system knows that one of the problems is ill-thought regulation piled on top of ill-thought regulation. The idea that the Government can construct a new immigration system without proper parliamentary scrutiny will make anyone who has ever tried to help anybody with an immigration problem fear for the consequences.

The Bill is a slap in the face for the thousands of migrants, including EU migrants, who have been working so hard for the NHS and the care sector in this time of covid crisis. The idea put forward by Ministers that £25,600 is somehow a proxy level for skill is absurd. We know that the skills, the concern and the devotion that migrants are currently showing at this time of covid crisis cannot be measured by money, but Ministers seem to think that we can measure somebody’s value to society by an arbitrary financial threshold.

EU migrants play a vital role not just in the NHS and the care sector, but in construction. In fact, they play a big role in construction, not because they are unskilled but because, as any developer would tell us, they have very important construction skills that developers are unable to recruit here. They play an important role in hospitality. They should have been granted settled status automatically. They should have physical documents, not a digital code, and we should not be moving towards extending the hostile environment towards EU migrants.

The Bill represents a missed opportunity. It is a missed opportunity on the NHS surcharge. It is quite wrong that migrants working for the NHS pay three times over: once through taxation; once through the surcharge; and, in some cases, with their lives. It should have ended the no recourse to public funds system. It should have brought in a 28- day statutory time limit for immigration detention. It should have brought back legal aid for article 8 immigration cases, and it should have reformed the law on deportations so that people who came here as children cannot be arbitrarily deported.

When the House debated Wendy Williams’ Windrush lessons learned review, there was a lot of hand-wringing on the Government side of the House about the Windrush scandal, but the review had some quite specific recommendations about immigration, including that the Home Secretary introduce a migrants commissioner; that the immigration department should re-educate itself fully about the current reach and effect of immigration and nationality law; that there should be a programme of training and development for all immigration and policy officials; and that Ministers should ensure that all policies and proposals for legislation on immigration are subject to rigorous impact assessments.

The Home Secretary has said that the Bill is about a brighter future. A brighter future for whom? For EU nationals, who face a period of great uncertainty? Is it a brighter future for the old, the sick and the infirm, because the institutions that they rely on will have enormous difficulty recruiting people when there is an end to freedom of movement? Is it a brighter future for society, when we pass a Bill that sends a signal to wider society—and to migrants in particular—that you are only as valuable as the amount that you earn, and that we will clap for you on a Thursday and put forward a Bill like this a few days’ later?