Windrush Compensation Scheme (Expenditure) Bill

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2020 Commons Chamber

In conclusion, the amendments and new clauses contain suggestions that seek to enhance the compensation scheme, not to undermine it in any way at all. I will not be pressing any of the amendments or new clauses to a Division, but I hope the Minister will engage with the ideas on that basis.

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

We are debating this important Bill in the shadow of the terrible existential crisis of coronavirus. However, it would be wrong to let the debate go past without sharing the perspectives of large numbers of the Windrush cohort on the arrangements for compensation. As was said in the Windrush lessons learned review:

“Members of the Windrush generation and their children have been poorly served by this country. They had every right to be here and should never have been caught in the immigration net.”

When we talk about compensation for the Windrush cohort, it is important to note that we are not talking about an act of charity; we are talking about people who were always entitled to be here and are owed an apology, as Wendy Williams said, as well as compensation.

I begin by making the point that it is important in going forward with Windrush compensation that we look beyond the Caribbean. In the lessons learned review, Wendy Williams pointed out that the Department’s historical cases review focused solely on people from the Caribbean and excluded anybody with a criminal conviction and a sentence of more than 12 months. We have seen that the legislative changes that apply to the Windrush generation also apply to other nationalities from the new Commonwealth. While the Windrush scheme is open to all Commonwealth nationalities, the narrow focus of the historical cases review means that the taskforce did not proactively contact non-Caribbean nationals in the same way that it did Caribbean nationals. I will return to the question of the Windrush compensation scheme and its outreach in a few minutes.

The Windrush compensation scheme is to be applauded in principle, but its record in practice, I am afraid, is lamentable. The scheme was unveiled in April 2019. By most estimates there is £200 million in the scheme and no upper limit on claims. That is to be welcomed, but since it was unveiled in 2019, only 1,108 claims have been made and only 36 people have received money. I could probably find 36 members of the Windrush cohort in my own borough of Hackney, let alone the country as a whole. Only £62,198 has been paid out. Those are shameful figures, and in their response to the new clauses, I want to hear from Ministers what they intend to do about the shamefully low pay-out.

As was said earlier, it is not surprising that people are reluctant to come forward, because their experience of the Home Office has been a punitive one. Some of them may be frightened that they could end up in a detention centre or worse. We in the Opposition believe that the Windrush compensation scheme needs a proper national campaign to encourage engagement among possible Commonwealth claimants. After all, I think £4 billion was spent on the EU settlement scheme. We need to spend comparable sums on outreach for the Windrush compensation, because this is a cohort of persons who came to this country quite a few years ago, and unless we do the outreach—positively, and with more resources behind it—and encourage them to claim, the danger is that they may never get the compensation to which they are entitled. Although of course their heirs and estates may get some of it, that is not the same as people getting an apology in their lifetimes, but also compensation.

I have said to the Minister and officials that I am happy to help with that outreach work—not as an apologist for the Government, but as someone who is very anxious that people should get what they are entitled to. The reason I think it is so important that people get what they are entitled to is not the money. As I have said before in the House, in the end, the cruellest thing for the Windrush cohort was not the problems, the difficulties, the possibility of deportation and all those practical things. The cruellest thing for the Windrush generation was the humiliation of being told by the British state that somehow they were not British or were trying to mislead the state in that matter.

This is a generation—I know something of it as my own parents were part of it—who came here with their UK and Colonies passports and believed that they were British. I will argue that it is the humiliation that cut to the quick. I have had various meetings in this House with members of the Windrush cohort, and that is the thing I come up against time and time again: how humiliated and hurt they felt to be, as it were, rejected by what they had always regarded as the mother country—a country they came to after the war to help to rebuild.

It is important to stress how poor the take-up has been and to say that Ministers must do more to encourage better take-up. We think that Ministers should consider putting the compensation scheme on a statutory basis. We also think it is important to stress that it applies not just to persons from the Caribbean but to people who came from other Commonwealth countries before January ’73 and people who had a right of abode or settled status and arrived to live in the UK before 31 December 1988.

We also think it is important that, in moving forward on the compensation scheme, which is so important to the people who have suffered, we look at all the important aspects of family life that were severed by the Windrush scandal, whether that was people being deported, people’s children not being able to establish their right to be here or the misery of people seeing their parents thousands of miles away, having been consigned to deportation by what seemed to them a very cruel state. I remember visiting Yarl’s Wood detention centre last year. There were women there who were married to British men and had British children but who, because they were caught up in the Windrush scandal, found themselves quite unfairly, having committed no crime, in a detention centre, and there were very many such cases.

We will be supporting the compensation scheme, because we think it is important that the money gets to the victims as soon as possible. The Opposition are happy to help in any way with outreach to encourage people to claim. Clearly, with the current public health situation, we cannot have meetings about it and so on, but there are other means—provided, possibly, by new media—by which more could be done on outreach.

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

I thank the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) for their constructive speeches and thoughts. As the shadow Home Secretary just reflected, we are talking about people—particularly those who came here before 1973—who are British. They are British, they viewed themselves as British, and then they had a reminder of some of the prejudices they experienced when they first arrived. The scheme is not about granting people citizenship but confirming the status they always had. When we debate this issue, we always need to make the point that we are not granting them citizenship; they had it and have done for nearly 50 years.

I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss the amendments and new clauses, which I will go through in turn. I hope to give clear assurances to the Members who tabled them on some of the issues raised and how they formed part of our thinking during the development of the compensation scheme. I will start with those tabled by the Scottish National party before turning to the official Opposition. Amendment 1 would pave the way for the new clauses that would modify the Windrush compensation scheme before final payments are made. I also recognise that amendment 2 intends not to prevent any interim payments from being made. It has always been our priority to ensure that payments are made as quickly as possible rather than only at the final resolution of a case.

New clause 1 would move the operation of the Windrush compensation scheme out of the Home Office. I understand hon. Members’ well articulated concerns about the Department that caused the issues facing these individuals deciding on their eligibility to receive compensation. The Home Office is determined to learn the lessons and right the wrongs experienced by the Windrush generation. I reassure the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East that the compensation team is working hard to ensure that people get the compensation they deserve. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said to the House last week, we will continue to do everything possible to ensure that the Home Office protects, supports and listens to every single part of the community it serves.

I also noted the request for a substantive debate on the lessons learned review. If I recall correctly, when the Home Secretary was at the Dispatch Box last week, she indicated that we would almost certainly look to do that at future moment when we are not constrained by the circumstances around this debate.

[Ms Abbott]

Is the Minister happy with the very low level of pay-out from the Windrush compensation scheme thus far?

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[Ms Abbott]

Does the Minister not accept, though, that because the scheme is called the Windrush compensation scheme, some people might assume that it is only for people from the West Indies?

[Kevin Foster]

I very much understand the shadow Home Secretary’s point. Windrush is the name we have for the generation. It is the name that has been in the press. It is the name that the media know, and the name that many of the public would identify with—even though it is a ship that the vast majority of people in the Windrush generation would never have seen, yet alone sailed upon. It has become common parlance. I agree that we need to get the message out there that, although it is called the Windrush compensation scheme, it is not just about those who came from the Caribbean; it is wider. It is for Commonwealth citizens who settled or had the right of abode in the UK before 1 January 1973, plus any person of any nationality who arrived in the UK before 31 December 1988 and is lawfully in the UK or is now a British citizen, and estates of the deceased and others. We intend to continue to promote the scheme and to make sure that more people come forward.

I move on to amendment 5, which seeks to ensure that the impact on family life of people who have difficulties in demonstrating their lawful status is taken into account. There is the ability to award compensation for impact on life, which is awarded on a series of levels, with payments ranging from £250 up to £10,000, where the effect on the claimant was profound and likely to be irreversible.

I hope I have been able to reassure the hon. and right hon. Members who have tabled some well-intended and well-thought-through amendments. I hope they will understand why it would be appropriate to withdraw the amendments.

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[Stuart C. McDonald]

I am grateful to the Minister for addressing some of the points raised. Through our interventions, I think the shadow Home Secretary and I have made it clear that we accept what the Minister has said, and we have asked him to go away with one or two points and ask further questions. In the meantime, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

[Ms Abbott]

I just want to confirm that it is not our intention to vote against the Bill, and it is our intention to not press our amendments.

Just before the debate comes to a close, I would like to express, on his behalf, the regret of my colleague and right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) for not being here. He is in self-isolation due to the current public health problems.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair.

Bill reported, without amendment.

Third reading

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.—(Kevin Foster.)

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[Ms Abbott]

As I said in Committee, the Opposition support the Bill in principle, but it is unfortunate that we have had to discuss it before we have had a proper debate about the lessons learned review. One thing that that review said was that this was not a mistake: there were problems in the whole culture and leadership of the Home Office. I understand why, given the public health tragedy in which we are engulfed, it has not proved possible at this point to have a serious debate on the lessons learned review, but until we have done that and absorbed some of the lessons that Wendy Williams was at such pains to set out in her review, we cannot have complete confidence that the compensation scheme will, even with all the best intentions of Ministers, go ahead at pace and that people will get what they are entitled to.

Finally, I want to talk about the people in the community who campaigned long and hard on this issue, notably Patrick Vernon, a Hackney resident who is well known to me. All sorts of people in the community understood there was a scandal, even before Amelia Gentleman’s articles, and they continue to campaign. The compensation Bill means nothing unless there is delivery as well as intent.

Oral Answers to Questions

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

As the hon. Gentleman reflected, we are making funding available, and the current grant-funded organisations will continue until the new funding comes in, one of which is Fife Migrants Forum in his constituency. As with any Member, I invite him, once the current situation is over, to visit the team in Liverpool who are dealing with the European settlement scheme to see at first hand the lengths to which they go to ensure that everyone gets the status they are entitled to.

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

On behalf of Opposition Members, I offer my profound sympathy to the families of the 289 persons who have died in this unheard-of pandemic.

On the settlement scheme, we obviously welcome the fact that 3 million persons have been successfully processed, but Ministers will be aware that the number of rejections is on a rising curve, with 300 last month. That is increasingly because of problems with documentation. Last week, the House debated the Windrush lessons-learned review and one of the problems at that time was documentation. Is it not time that the Government ended the uncertainty hanging over the heads of EU citizens and guaranteed the rights of EU citizens in the UK?

[Kevin Foster]

A very small number has been rejected—just 300 out of over 3 million applications—and the core reason for rejection, for saying no to someone, is criminality. Where there are eligibility issues, people can make a free re-application but the evidence levels are quite basic. People must prove their identity; they must prove that they have residence in the UK, particularly for pre-settled status; and they are subject to the eligibility and suitability checks around criminality. Actually, the system is working very well, and again, I extend an invitation to the right hon. Lady to come to meet the team and see at first hand the work that they are doing and why this has been such a success. It is the biggest documentation of immigration status in history and it is going well.

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[Kit Malthouse]

I wholeheartedly endorse my hon. Friend’s remarks. He is right that when we emerge from the crisis that is engulfing our country, there will be a general reassessment of who is important in this country and what a “key worker” means. He is right that those on the frontline, delivering, stacking shelves and taking money at tills, are as much part of the national effort to beat this coronavirus as a police officer or NHS worker, and we thank them for it.

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

On the question of protecting shop workers and owners, as was referred to earlier, we have all seen the unfortunate recent scenes of disorder in supermarkets when persons attempt to stockpile in response to the coronavirus. We have seen shelves swept clean just hours after the shops open, the apparent shortages of very basic products such as paracetamol, and the elderly being unable to purchase their basic needs. A number of measures are being taken to deal with the situation, but we note that even when supermarkets tried to set aside hours at the beginning of the day for the frail, elderly and NHS workers, others just barged them aside. No one on the Opposition Benches wants to see police officers in supermarkets, but if the situation remains unmanageable, will the Minister consider talking to the shops, the supermarket owners and their security officers to see whether patrols by police community support officers in the vicinity of some of the larger supermarkets might play a role?

[Kit Malthouse]

The right hon. Lady is right to raise this issue. I hope to reassure her that we are in very close contact both with the police about the patterns of behaviour they are seeing, and with representatives from the food industry, particularly from the supermarkets, which I know are meeting regularly with the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to monitor the situation. We hope and believe that, over the next few days, things will settle down. Our food and supply chains in supermarkets are extremely strong, and we are reassured by those companies that they can fulfil the demand as it comes, but she is right to hold us to the challenge of monitoring the situation. If we need to take further steps, obviously we will. As the Home Secretary said, we are also talking closely with the Security Industry Association about the welfare and capability of its staff in these circumstances. We want to ensure that this is managed proportionately and calmly, but we are keeping an eye on it.

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[Priti Patel]

I have daily conversations across the entire policing network across the country with regard to the resources that they need at this incredibly challenging time. The Government are, of course, working closely with all partners, including the emergency services, on a range of issues, including suitable PPE and the development of suitable testing. Those are the things that our police officers and police chiefs are asking for right now, and we are working with them to co-ordinate supplies and the policing response.

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

I wish to return to the subject of that category of person under immigration legislation who has no recourse to public funds. Because of the coronavirus epidemic and the consequent shutdown of large parts of the economy, these persons will not be able to work. We welcome the help for workers through bank loans and the benefit system that the Government have brought in, but the category of person to which I refer are not entitled legally to benefits of any kind. I note that the Home Secretary is talking to the Department for Work and Pensions about this matter, but when can she give some assurance to people who are literally facing destitution that this matter will be resolved and that there will be a way of offering them some measure of financial support?

[Priti Patel]

Let me repeat to the right hon. Lady the comment that I made earlier. This is work that is taking place across Government, and not just in the Home Office. We are engaging with the Treasury and with the DWP. It is vital that, at this particular stage and given the really significant challenge that our country finds itself facing, we provide resources and support for people at all levels, and that is something that the entire Government are committed to do. I would be very happy to come back to her on this specific point in due course.

Windrush Lessons Learned Review

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2020 Commons Chamber

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

We meet as a House of Commons at a time of unprecedented national crisis—a national crisis that none of us has seen before in our lifetime—but I am sure the Home Secretary will agree that we should not allow the fact that the review has been published at a time of national crisis to mean that the review and its recommendations are buried. The Windrush generation deserve better than that.

As the Home Secretary will know, the recommendations in this review have three main elements: that the Home Office must acknowledge the wrong that has been done; that it must open itself up to external scrutiny; and that it must change its culture, to recognise that migration and wider Home Office policy is about people, and whatever the objective, it should always be rooted in humanity.

The Home Secretary will be aware that the review points out:

“Some ministers and senior officials spoken to in the course of this review do not appear to accept the full extent of the injustice done to the Windrush generation”,

and that they say

“the situation was unforeseen, unforeseeable and therefore unavoidable.”

More than one Member of this House foresaw the consequences of the hostile environment legislation years ago.

The review goes on to say that other Ministers and senior officials

“have expressed the view that the responsibility really lay with the Windrush generation themselves to sort out their status.”

Will the Home Secretary agree that, whichever politicians or officials said those things—Wendy Williams quotes them in the review—they were disgraceful things to say?

The review has many important and detailed recommendations. I cannot touch on them all, but I wish to draw the Home Secretary’s attention to a few. The review wants the Department to publish a comprehensive improvement plan within six months. Is the Home Secretary willing to assure the House that there will be such a plan? The review asks that the Home Office run a programme of reconciliation events with members of the Windrush generation. Does the Home Secretary commit to that?

Very importantly, the review says that the Home Office must look beyond the Caribbean, because persons from all over the Commonwealth who came to this country at that time would have been caught up in the same issues that the Windrush generation were caught up in. In fact, persons from the Caribbean are as anxious as anybody that persons from other parts of the Commonwealth—Africa, south Asia—also get the fairness and justice that they deserve. Is the Home Secretary willing to commit to reviewing data on other Commonwealth cases, as well as those from the Caribbean nations?

Is the Home Secretary willing to commit commission officials to undertake a full review and evaluation of the hostile or compliant environment policy and its measures individually and serially? Such a full review should assess whether they were effective and proportionate. Given the risks inherent in the policy that are set out in the report, the review must be carried out scrupulously, designed in partnership with external experts and published in a timely way.

Sadly, the Home Secretary did not feel able to share a copy of the review with the Opposition Front-Bench team. I have never before been in the situation in which a Home Secretary brought forward a major report of this kind and did not want to share it with the Opposition Front-Bench team—obviously that would have been under complete discretion. As it happens, I had to go into the Home Secretary’s office in Parliament to obtain the copy I have. It is almost as if the Home Secretary did not want full parliamentary scrutiny.

This is a detailed report that deserves detailed scrutiny. It is coming forward at a very difficult time for the nation as a whole, but the Opposition will be coming back to the issues raised in the report, because the Windrush scandal was not just a mistake; it was not just something that happened because people did not read the rules properly. As Wendy Williams points out, it was rooted in the systemic culture of the Home Office and the failure of Ministers to listen to the warnings they were given about what the effects of the hostile environment could be on people perfectly legally entitled to be here.

I have heard the Home Secretary’s apology, but people will believe her apology when they see her genuinely seek to implement the recommendations in this review. My mother was a member of the Windrush generation, so I know that one of the aspects of the Windrush generation was that they really believed they were British. They had no reason not to believe that they were British when they came here with their passports, UK and Colonies.

Let me assure the Home Secretary that, for the Windrush generation, it is not necessarily the money, or the loss, or the inconvenience, or even the tragedy of being deported. It is the insult to people who always believed that they were British, and who came here to rebuild this country, but who, because of the insensitivity and the structural issues in the Home Office, were treated in an utterly disgraceful and humiliating way. The Home Secretary should be assured that we will return to these issues until the Windrush generation gets the justice to which it is entitled.

[Priti Patel]

First of all, let me say in response to the right hon. Lady’s point about the publication of the review that this is an independent review. I received a copy of it yesterday from Wendy Williams and I have, through all the due process in the House, laid the review this morning, in a timely way, in the Vote Office, using all the procedural routes that are normal to this House. I know that the right hon. Lady came to my office and picked up a copy, but copies were also available earlier on this morning—we checked that, and as she knows, I also gave her sight of my statement earlier, prior to coming to the Chamber.

I made a commitment to publish the report as soon as possible. It came to me yesterday, and I have done that, primarily because of the nature of the response and the concerns that this House has consistently and rightly raised when it comes to the Windrush generation. That, in my view, was the right thing to do, and I would not have been able to publish the review any earlier, because obviously it came to me from Wendy Williams yesterday. The timing of the report was decided by Wendy Williams, as the independent reviewer. Let me assure the right hon. Lady that I discussed with Wendy Williams yesterday how I will work with her on the recommendations going forward. I will be doing that over the coming months, in the way in which Wendy has asked and alluded to in the report. I will ensure that this issue continues to get the national prominence that it rightly deserves.

I also think, on that point, that this is the time for us all across this House to come together to right the wrongs. I have made it clear in my statement already that not only will I review Wendy’s recommendations on how the Home Office operates as an organisation, looking closely at, yes, the leadership, the culture, the practices and how it needs to put people before process—I cannot emphasise that enough—but I will also look at how we review policies and cultural change going forward. That is absolutely the right thing to do, but I emphasise that, in many of the measures and recommendations, and in the extent of the review—I have no doubt that when the right hon. Lady has the opportunity she will go through the review and read it, as I have—Wendy Williams is very clear that lessons must be learned at all levels, by all political parties. She describes the set of measures that evolved under Labour, coalition and Conservative Governments, and is clear those are lessons that we should all be learning, as politicians and as society, but also as Members of this House.

Policing (England and Wales)

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

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

I listened with interest to the Minister’s presentation. In particular, I listened when he described the Conservative party as the natural party of law and order. Not all of our constituents would agree with that, having seen the relative cuts in funding and the spike in violent crime. I shall return to that later.

I wish to say at the outset that the Opposition will not be opposing the police funding settlement, but we remind the Minister that it is not just about the total settlement but about the police funding formula. For five years Ministers have been promising to revise the police funding formula, and I argue that that is a concern not just for Opposition Members but for Members of all parties. Ministers have had five years. Perhaps they can make greater haste in something that is so key to the effective fighting of crime in all parts of our country.

Although we are far from satisfied with the Government’s plans for policing overall, the Opposition believe that this is the first time since the Labour Government that there has been a funding settlement for the police that does not in real terms undermine them further, so in the circumstances it would be wrong to oppose this particular funding settlement. Let me be equally clear, though: I do not want to be cruel, but the Opposition have no confidence in this Government to restore policing to its proper strength or to tackle serious crime. I strongly doubt—I shall explain why—that the Government will even meet their own pledge to recruit an extra 20,000 police officers. I see Government Members who are new to the House looking shocked, but I remind them of this Prime Minister’s track record on policing and police recruitment.

When the current Prime Minister was Mayor of London in 2012—those of us who are London MPs remember that well—he sent a list of nine promises to every household in London. His political marketing claimed that it was his “nine-point plan for Greater London”. No. 4 on the list was:

“Making our streets and homes safer with 1,000 more police on the beat”.

I have to tell the House that this pledge was never met, even though it was signed by the current Prime Minister himself, so I do not think that his record on policing provides much confidence that he will meet his manifesto commitment to recruit 20,000 extra police.

Secondly, I want to turn to an issue with the funding settlement, which is inadequate even in its own terms. When the Minister announced the funding settlement, the Home Office claimed that it was the biggest for a decade, but that was a decade of cuts in police funding—cuts made by Ministers now on the Government Front Bench. It is not much of a boast when the settlement represents an uplift only when compared with the cuts made in previous years.

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

Does my right hon. Friend agree that what the settlement actually means for West Midlands Police—the second largest police force in the country—is a funding gap of about £10 million, so it will have to make savings despite the settlement?

[Ms Abbott]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing some reality to the discussion.

The Opposition have learnt that police chiefs have also recently been told to find another £165 million in 2019-20 and up to £417 million in 2020-21 as a result of the overhaul of pension schemes recently announced by the Treasury. We of course support better police pensions, and indeed better public sector pensions in general, but we do so by arguing that they should be properly funded, whereas Ministers want the money to support them to come out of the extra moneys that they are announcing today. The amount provided in the funding settlement to cover the pension changes is nowhere near the amount it will cost the police. There is a real risk that, with this poor beginning, the Government will fail to meet their total recruitment target. I hope that Government Members are taking due note.

Thirdly, I want to question the Government’s entire approach to this matter, because although police numbers are a key factor, they are only one aspect of combating serious and violent crime. The Government’s goal must be to keep our citizens safe, but their track record is abysmal. I know that this set of Ministers like to pretend that the record of the past 10 years has nothing to do with them, but most of the Ministers now in office voted for the police cuts that have been made. This is continuity Toryism, and they are continuity Tories.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

Is the right hon. Lady very proud of the Labour Mayor’s record on tackling crime in London?

[Ms Abbott]

As we know, the Labour Mayor is ultimately dependent on funding from the Government. Given the funding available, I am confident that Sadiq Khan has done the very best he can. The issue comes back to the totality of funding and the police funding formula.

The Tories cut the police and they should own it—cuts have consequences. But they also did much worse: they presided over soaring serious and violent crime, and an abysmally low detection and sanction rate—cautions or charges—even for some of the most serious crimes. The latest crime data for the year ending September 2019 was recently published. It shows a 7% rise in offences involving knives or sharp instruments recorded by the police. That is 46% higher than when comparable recording began—in the year ending March 2011—and the highest on record. That is the Government’s record.

Offences involving firearms hit a low in March 2015 but have risen since. Robbery offences are at a 10-year high. Fraud incidents are up sharply and now there are almost 4 million fraud crimes a year, often impacting on some of the most vulnerable members of our communities. Over the long term, the trend in total crime had been downwards, but under successive Tory-led Governments since 2010 that overall progress has stalled. A key part of this is the fact that central Government funding for police and crime commissioners has fallen by 30% in real terms since 2010-11.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is also moving money from the most deprived areas to some of the wealthiest? For example, 50% of properties in County Durham are in band A, so the ability to raise a great deal of money locally is quite limited, unlike in Surrey or Woking, where, given the larger council tax base, further money can be raised. This is moving money from poor areas and giving it to wealthier areas.

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[Ms Abbott]

My right hon. Friend raises a key point about the precept. Ministers like to claim that by generously allowing PCCs to raise a greater precept, they are somehow doing them a favour. The truth is that reliance on money raised by the precept hits poorer communities that have lower house prices harder. It is not equitable to be endlessly praying in aid the precept, rather than providing proper funding from the centre.

[Matt Western]

My right hon. Friend is being generous in giving way. To elaborate on her point, in Warwickshire there was a 12% increase in the precept last year, and I think we are now seeing an increase of another 5%. Of course, wages increases are way off those increases, so the public are facing a really regressive tax. It is unfair, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) explained.

[Ms Abbott]

The precept is a regressive tax, and the Government should think twice before making out that their increasing reliance on precept-raised funds is some sort of progressive move.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

With a 6.6% increase for Surrey and a 7.9% increase for County Durham, does the right hon. Lady not agree that this is a down payment on the Government’s levelling-up agenda for police forces across the country?

[Ms Abbott]

What can I say—nice try?

The National Audit Office recently said that the Home Office

“does not know if the police system is financially sustainable.”

That is the National Audit Office talking about Home Office Ministers.

However, the Government did not confine austerity to police officer numbers; they also cut thousands of police community support officers and thousands of police support and administrative staff. That has had two consequences. First, there has been a huge detriment to community policing, which is often the first eyes and ears on everything from vandalism and petty crime all the way through to terrorist threats. Secondly, the cuts to admin staff, often dismissively called “backroom staff” on the Government Benches, have meant that police officers have had to do more of their own admin work, so less time is available for police work as such.

The consequences have been terrible, as most of our constituents know. Compared with the previous year, the proportion of crimes resulting in a charge or summons fell by one percentage point, from 8.7% to 7.4%—the lowest ever recorded. That continues a downward trend since March 2015, when 15% of crimes were resolved with a charge or summons. No category of crime registered a majority of prosecutions. The sad fact is that too much crime goes undetected, largely because of a shortage of police officers, and therefore unpunished, and the public are all too well aware of that. It is truly shocking that the very lowest prosecution or summons rate was in cases of rape, with just one in 70 cases leading to charges. In all cases of violence against the person, just one in 13 cases led to charges or summonses. As we have argued consistently, cuts have consequences.

[Alex Cunningham]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. She is outlining the things on which all this extra money needs to be spent. In his response to me, the Minister suggested that the extra £10 million for Cleveland—that is half of what we have lost since 2010—should be used to tackle violent crime, but other areas where violent crime is actually lower get specific targeted resources from a separate fund. That is not fair. Does she share my bewilderment as to why Ministers seem to be blind to the needs of Teesside?

[Ms Abbott]

I entirely share my hon. Friend’s concern that the people of Teesside do not appear to be treated fairly. Cuts have consequences—in Cleveland as well as everywhere else. Over the past 10 years, almost every conceivable social factor has contributed to rising crime. Ministers did not mention these things, but let me remind the House that youth services have been slashed, schools have been encouraged to exclude pupils, inequality and poverty have been made worse, some of our young people have become resigned to a life of zero-hours contracts, and drug and alcohol rehabilitation funding has been slashed. Mental health funding has been decimated, as, too, has the probation service, which we have seen in the probation activities in relation to recent terrorist activity. The criminal justice system is in crisis. Our prisons have become places where a person is more likely to become a hardened criminal, a drug user, or radicalised.

It is an abysmal record of failure. Ministers cannot expect their claims of being the natural party of law and order to be taken seriously when they have allowed the criminal justice system to fall into this state. It is no use these Ministers simply partially making good some of the police cuts that this Tory Government have made—that is all that has been claimed of this policy. They are not even restoring all the cuts that they have made since 2010. Effectively tackling crime is not just about funding the police properly, but about funding all those services, such as the youth service, education and the NHS, which help to bear down on crime. The Government do not intend to do that, and we on this side of the House believe that without a proper level of funding for the police force, for schools, for youth services and for the NHS, we will continue to see the negative consequences. There will be a spiral of violent crime, which causes so much fear in all our communities.

Windrush Compensation Scheme (Expenditure) Bill

Diane Abbott Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Money resolution & Programme motion
Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

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

My mother, like that of a number of Members, was a member of the Windrush generation, so I know as well as anybody in the House the patriotism of the Windrush cohort, their commitment to this country, and their deep sense of hurt about the Windrush scandal. It is a scandal that continues to cast a shadow over our country’s reputation for fairness and for just public administration. Ministers may believe that the Bill will draw a line under the Windrush scandal, but I have got news for them: the Bill will not do that, and I will explain why.

First, though, let me say that the Opposition will not oppose the Bill. It is a money Bill, and it is necessary that some legislation be passed so that the Windrush victims, or at least some proportion of them, can finally receive some long-overdue compensation, however inadequate. We obviously do not oppose the payment of compensation, but through our experiences with our own constituents we are completely opposed to the way the Government are going about this. It is shoddy and inefficient and it adds insult to injury.

The Windrush compensation Bill will not end the Windrush scandal, as the scandal itself arises because British citizens—people who came here believing that they were British—were treated so appallingly by this Government and their predecessors. It is fair to say that treating migrants shoddily did not start in 2010. On the contrary, there has been discrimination and a denial of rights over the decades, but something new and far worse was set in train by the Immigration Act 2014, which many of those on the Government Benches personally voted for. In fact, there are very few of us still remaining as Members of Parliament who voted against that piece of legislation.

The 2014 Act encouraged the presumption of illegality directed at migrants and, just as some of us warned at the time, that presumption was very frequently and incorrectly directed against those with black and brown skins. It also obliged doctors, nurses, teachers, bank clerks and employers to act as internal border guards—to inform the authorities if they believed that someone was in this country illegally.

Ministers knew that that would lead to a huge wave of false allegations because we told them so at the time, but they pressed ahead regardless. The Government have signalled no intention of repealing the 2014 Act, so it gives me no pleasure to predict that this scandal will not go away. Unless and until that Act is repealed and the Government end their hostile environment, this scandal will grow.

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

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way and for all her brave and principled hard work in this area. As has been pointed out in this place and beyond, the Government’s divisive, draconian and oppressive hostile environment for migrants is at the core of the treatment of the Windrush generation. Does she agree that although this scandal has disproportionately affected people from the Caribbean, it potentially impacts on all people from across the Commonwealth, including migrants from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh?

[Ms Abbott]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention. I was going to come to the point that although people talk about the Windrush scandal in terms of migrants from the Caribbean, it actually affects people from Africa, from south Asia and anyone from a then Commonwealth country who came in at the time. I point out to the House that there is also another, perhaps larger, scandal waiting in the wings. This, too, arises because of the 2014 Act and the hostile environment. I am speaking, of course, about this Government’s treatment of the EU 3 million. The EU settlement scheme does not confer new rights, but instead removes them. EU citizens will then potentially risk being charged that they are here illegally, and will face the burden of proof to show otherwise, and the legal status of British citizens now abroad is also bound up with how fairly this Government treat EU citizens here.

I previously stated that the Opposition will not vote against the compensation Bill, because otherwise there will be no compensation paid at all, but we on the Opposition Benches must insist that the Home Secretary look again at the introduction of a special hardship scheme. There are people who have died. There are people who are still in debt, because of the slowness in dealing with their claims for compensation.

[Meg Hillier]

My right hon. Friend will have noted in the letter that we have seen from the second permanent secretary at the Home Office that of the more than1,000 claimants, only 36 have been settled to the tune of just over £62,000. Does she not agree that, although extending it is not a bad thing in one way, it is in danger of delaying the very vital payments that so many of our constituents deserve?

[Ms Abbott]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention. The amount and the quantity of the payments are pitifully small, and do not show that the Government have administered the scheme well. We on the Labour Benches believe that the entire scheme for compensation should be like the funding for criminal injuries. First and foremost, compensation should be placed on a statutory footing, as that would allow the compensation to be comparable to awards in civil cases—that is reasoned and reasonable compensation.

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

The right hon. Lady will know of many cases like that of my constituent who, owing to his inability to work because he could not produce a passport, ended up over £50,000 out of pocket. Also, as a result of that, he could not claim employment and support allowance, because he had not made contributions in the previous couple of years. The amounts paid out in compensation come nowhere close to the financial losses individuals have suffered.

[Ms Abbott]

The amounts being paid out are indeed pitiful. They do not compensate for material loss, or for the misery, the fear and the uncertainty under which too many people have laboured for too long.

There is no justification for the smallness of the amounts payable under the Government’s scheme. With criminal injuries, the state has no liability; these are serious injuries done to ordinary citizens by criminals, and we as a Parliament have rightly decided that assistance should be given to the injured. There is clearly Government liability in the case of the Windrush scandal; it was caused by Government policy, but in this case the compensation is lower. What is the rationale for that? Among other things, there should be due compensation for all the legal advice that sufferers from the Windrush scandal may have required. Also, it is wholly unacceptable that people wrongly deported or refused re-entry will apparently not be compensated for that.

We also learn that only slightly more than 1,000 people have applied for compensation. Obviously, that is the reason why Ministers decided to extend the scheme, but what assessment has the Home Office made of the reasons for such low numbers of applications?

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

What struck me is how constituents of mine whose lives have been profoundly affected by this issue are quite nervous about this process, because of all they have suffered. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government have to get it right quickly and do far more to reassure people who have suffered such shocking injustices and have little trust?

[Ms Abbott]

I agree with my hon. Friend that much more needs to be done to reassure people who are, rightly, worried about engaging with the Home Office at all because of previous experiences.

[Meg Hillier]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the big problems is that the Home Office systems are not up to scratch? To cope with both Windrush and the potential non-Caribbean Commonwealth applications as well as EU citizens, whom she rightly highlighted, the Home Office systems need to be improved.

[Ms Abbott]

I agree with my hon. Friend.

Since the previous Government were first obliged to apologise for the scandal, in April 2018, there have been more than 8,000 applications from people seeking the necessary documentation to establish their legality —8,000 applications for documentation, but only 1,000 applications for compensation. What has happened to the other 7,000? Why have they not come forward? Will the Home Secretary tell us what steps her Department is taking proactively to engage with them? Is she aware of any factors that might be inhibiting legitimate applicants? Is it possible that fear of the hostile environment is a factor?

How large is the publicity budget for the scheme? The House would like to know how that budget compares with the £46 million reportedly spent on the “Get ready for Brexit” campaign, which was criticised by the National Audit Office as having not made the slightest difference to public awareness. The House is entitled to know more details of the effectiveness of the publicity campaign. I understand that Home Office officials have visited Afro-Caribbean churches. That is good, but I hope Ministers understand that potential claimants may have difficulty approaching officials about their immigration status if they know that those officials are from the very Department that might seek to deport them, or might have deported someone they know.

Another issue is the extent of the Windrush cohort. As I said earlier, it is not just about people from the Caribbean: it affects all those Commonwealth and former empire citizens who came here legally before 1973, which includes people from west Africa, south Asia and elsewhere. It also includes their daughters, sons, grandsons and granddaughters, because the failure of their parents and grandparents to establish their citizenship may have affected their children’s and grandchildren’s immigration rights. It may be that people who have been rounded up for that flight to Jamaica tomorrow fall into that category. Will the Minister confirm that it is the case that many people originally from south Asia are also eligible for compensation? What will the Government do to ensure that all of them are approached about the compensation they are due?

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way: she has been very generous with her time. Does she agree that it is unclear what the appeals process will be for the compensation scheme? Can people appeal against a compensation claim being turned down, and if so, can they receive legal aid for that appeal?

[Ms Abbott]

There are too many things that remain unclear about the compensation scheme, but I am sure the Minister will respond to my hon. Friend’s comments.

In conclusion, the Windrush scandal was seen and noted around the world. The current Prime Minister talks about reaching out to friends old and new in the new post-Brexit world, but unless and until this scandal is actually ended, do not be surprised if friends old and new treat those claims of amity very cautiously. No money can compensate for the sense of humiliation that members of the Windrush generation felt at being told, perhaps for the first time, that they were not actually British. This is not about the money: it is about making good that unhappiness, humiliation and fear. I urge Ministers to listen carefully to what Members say about their individual constituents’ experiences, because it will shed a lot of light on where this scheme is currently going wrong.

Oral Answers to Questions

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady will be more than aware of the work that we do to provide safe and legal routes for family reunion, and for vulnerable persons and children. She has heard me say that we are fully committed to supporting the most vulnerable children and the principle of family reunion. It is a fact that we are about to negotiate with the European Union. I set out the Government’s position clearly in communications and correspondence with the European Commission at the end of last year, and that is the route we will be pursuing.

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

The Home Secretary will be aware of the conditions that many refugee children endure in refugee camps all over Europe. She will also be aware that the public do not want us to let these children down. Will she confirm that unless law and practice are changed, we run the risk of breaking up families and leaving children abandoned with no relative to care for them?

[Priti Patel]

The right hon. Lady has touched on a very important point, namely the conditions that children and families endure in refugee camps outside the United Kingdom. That could be in Europe, but also in countries outside Europe. It is important that we reflect on the priorities and standards that we, as a country, provide for those refugees through our work in international development and aid. We should not overlook the fact that there are a great deal of associated issues—reunion, the protection and settlement of refugees, and vulnerable children—that come together internationally, but we are leading the way on this in the UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend is right to point out that through our points-based system we are introducing new routes to attract the brightest and the best. Our fast-track immigration scheme will facilitate entry to the UK for more people with skills, including scientists, researchers and mathematicians. This is just the first phase of our reforms to send a signal that the UK intends to remain at the forefront of research and innovation.

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

Does the Home Secretary appreciate the widespread concern about the Jamaican deportation flight due tomorrow? Is she aware that Stephen Shaw, in his review of detention, suggested that we should not be deporting people who came here as children, but that many of the proposed deportees came here as children and have no memory of Jamaica? Does she accept that these deportations constitute double jeopardy, because the persons have already served an appropriate sentence for their crime? Is she aware that more than 170 Members of Parliament from all political parties have written to the Prime Minister calling for the deportation flight to be halted?

[Priti Patel]

I am sure that the right hon. Lady is aware that under the UK Borders Act 2007 a deportation order must be made in respect of foreign criminals sentenced to 12 months or more in prison. Every person on the flight was convicted of a serious offence and received a custodial sentence of 12 months or more. That means that, under the Act, which was introduced by the Labour Government in 2007, a deportation order must be made.

Deportation Flight to Jamaica

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

Yes, I do. Given the provisions of the law that have been in place for the past 13 years, many will expect that when someone is convicted of a type of offence that many of those on this flight have committed, deportation may well proceed. Let us be clear: drugs are not a victimless crime; we need only look at the death rates, particularly the tragic figures we had last year in Scotland, to see their impact. As I say, the law is there and the law is clear, and it is not a “might”, a “may” or a “could”; it was legislated in 2007 that it was a “must” issue a deportation order.

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

The public will note the very dismissive attitude that the Minister has taken to the serious urgent question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). One problem with this deportation flight is that it is not clear how many people on it came to this country as children. The Minister said he will not comment on leaks from the Windrush lessons learned review. Will he accept that the Stephen Shaw review of detention suggests we should not deport people who came here as children? Is the Minister aware that some of the proposed deportees have, in effect, been held incommunicado because of problems with the mobile signal in their detention centre? Is he aware that one thing the Windrush scandal teaches us is that, when we deport people in this way, we need to be absolutely certain about their immigration status? Clearly, none of them are of the Windrush cohort, but some of them may be the children and grandchildren of the Windrush cohort, which would have made it difficult for them to establish their nationality. Is the Minister aware of the very real concern in the community about this mass deportation flight? His dismissive attitude suggests an altogether dismissive attitude to the concerns of the community and what is problematic about this mass deportation flight.

[Kevin Foster]

I agree with the shadow Home Secretary that it is right that extensive checks are made before people are listed for deportation on a flight such as the one we are discussing. Let us be clear: these are offenders who have been through the courts and sentenced. There will have been opportunities to make representations against their removal and, as the right hon. Lady will know, there are exemptions in the 2007 Act that apply in respect of, for example, the refugee convention or the European convention on human rights. Those matters have been considered and many of the offenders have lodged appeals. Again, I am clear that the public would look at this debate and say that these are persistent or serious criminal offenders. The law is clear and it is a statutory “must” that the Home Secretary make a deportation order. The law is applied based on the criminality, not the nationality, of the offender. There are regular deportations to many other countries around the world. We will consider the review, but we will also be clear that victims and the public have a right to be protected from serious criminals.

Policing and Crime

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move,

That this House notes that since 2010 police officer numbers have been reduced by almost 21,000; further notes that some violent crime, including knife crime, has risen to record levels; notes that youth services, including early intervention, have been decimated by a decade of austerity; notes that prosecution rates have fallen sharply; notes that on current plans many police forces will still be left with fewer officers than in 2010; and therefore calls on the Government to recruit 2,000 more frontline police officers than they plan and re-establish neighbourhood policing.

There is no more emotive issue than crime and punishment. We have asked for this debate today because these issues matter so much to all our constituents, and because the first duty of every Government is to defend the safety and security of their citizens. Of course, that does not mean there will be no crime. What it means is that every Government should use their best endeavours to ensure that safety and security. That does not mean dog-whistle rhetoric on law and order; it means genuinely making people safer. Ministers like to trumpet their enthusiasm for stop-and-search. Labour supports evidence-based stop-and-search, but random stop-and-search can poison police-community relations, rather than necessarily making anybody safer.

Instead of fulfilling their duty, the Government have tried to ensure safety and security on the cheap. Labour Members have repeatedly warned that cuts have consequences.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

On that point, does my right hon. Friend agree that the public value safer neighbourhood policing above almost everything else? They like to see the police out and about, building good community relations. Does she share my regret that a five-ward cluster in my constituency, which had 30 police on duty a few years back, recently had as few as seven? No wonder the public no longer feel that the police are present on our streets.

[Ms Abbott]

I am familiar with my hon. Friend’s part of London and I share her regret that the amount of visible policing on the ground has lessened because of Government cuts.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that violent crime, particularly knife crime, is now at a record high—in my constituency we have recently had two fatalities—and that this is a direct result of the huge cuts, including more than £1 billion to our youth centres and more than £1 billion to our police force? It is about time that the Government stop their austerity, which is decimating our communities.

[Ms Abbott]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The figures for so many categories of crime, including knife crime, show how right we were to warn of the consequences of austerity in relation to law and order and policing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Abbott]

I have to make some progress.

The Government decided in the last election that their policing pledge was crucial. Their manifesto uses the word “police” a couple of dozen times—not as many times as “Brexit”, but enough to suggest that this was a major plank of their platform. We will see whether they can actually get Brexit done before the end of the year, but there must be doubt about whether they will be able to get the central pledge to recruit 20,000 extra police done, given the poor start on police funding. In the light of their overall policies, I am even less convinced that we will see a fall in serious violent crime.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Ben Bradley]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Abbott]

I have to make some progress.

During the debate, we will undoubtedly hear Government Members boast about how many police officers they are going to recruit. In their recent announcement about police funding, Home Office Ministers claimed that this is the biggest funding settlement for a decade. They would know, because they have been cutting police funding for a decade—the Conservatives have been responsible for funding over the past decade. The truth is that the Tory party and Tory Ministers damaged our police when they took an axe to the numbers. It is widely known that they cut more than 20,000 police officers, so to boast that they are putting the numbers up now when they cut them in the first place will not sit well with our constituents.

Along with the cuts to police numbers—this is important, so I ask the House to listen—the Government also cut thousands of police community support officers and police civilian support staff, and the effect was devastating. Having fewer PCSOs is a terrible thing because communities rely on them to maintain community links and help with low-level policing.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a stark contrast with the policy of the Welsh Labour Government in the Senedd, who have kept and funded PCSOs in Wales? That has made a huge difference in my community, despite the cuts we have seen. Our Welsh Labour police commissioners in Gwent and South Wales have made such a difference with an evidence-based policing policy.

[Ms Abbott]

I thank my hon. Friend for reminding me of the progress that the Labour Government in Wales has made on this issue.

Fewer support staff means that police are doing more of their clerical and admin work. That is not pen pushing, but vital work—for example, preparing a case for court. I am not aware of any plans by this Government to restore the numbers of either PCSOs or admin staff, but I am very happy to give way to the Minister if he wishes to tell me about that. Police officers will still be burdened with non-police and non-crime-fighting work. This Government have also created a huge shortfall in funding for the police pension fund. The police deserve decent pensions—as do all public sector workers, who have seen their pensions frozen under this Government.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way on that point?

[Ms Abbott]

I have to make some progress. The Government need to provide funding for police recruitment and police pensions; otherwise, the funds for one will come out of the other.

I remind Government Members that what they actually inherited in 2010 was police officer strength at a record high and a long-term downward trend in total crime, which began in the early 1990s and continued through Labour’s years in office. Labour in office was tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime, but this Government squandered that legacy. In its most recent publication on crime, the Office for National Statistics states:

“Following a long-term reduction, levels of crime have remained broadly stable in recent years”.

Under the Tories, the downward trend in crime halted and total crime has stopped falling. In the past 12 months, well over 10 million crimes were committed. There was a 7% rise in offences involving knives—all of us in this House know the fear and concern in our communities about knife crime. That level of knife crime is 46% higher than when comparable recording began. This Government have presided over the highest level of knife crime on record. Of course, all of that increase occurred under Tory or Tory-led Governments. [Interruption.] As for Mayors, their resources come from Government.

The crime survey of England and Wales states:

“Over the past five years there has been a rise in the prevalence of sexual assault…with the latest estimate returning to levels similar to those over a decade ago.”

I hope the Minister takes that point seriously. Sexual assault is a concern for all people and all communities. Ministers should be ashamed that sexual assault is returning to levels seen over a decade ago. Each of those stats, whether for knife crime, violent crime or sexual assault, is terrible, and the House should pause and think of the individual victims behind those statistics.

Taken together, those stats are a damning indictment of this Government’s failures, but their record is even worse when it comes to actually apprehending criminals. Of course, how could it be otherwise when they have decimated the police and trashed the funding of our criminal justice system? The Home Office’s own data shows that just one in 14—I repeat: one in 14—crimes lead to charge or summons. While crime has risen, the charge rate for crime has fallen. The charge rate for rape is just 1.4%. I invite all Members to stop and think how appalling that statistic is. It is shameful. Government Members may claim that some of this is because police are recording crime better. It is true that recording is improving, but the police are not just there to record and report crime; they are there to prevent it, detect it and bring the perpetrators to justice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Ms Abbott]

I have to make progress.

The response of the Government, which no doubt we shall hear from Ministers today, is to talk tough on crime—to talk about draconian measures—and to criminalise law-abiding citizens who are upholding their rights. This Government threaten to criminalise trade unionists who are engaged in legitimate strike action, and they have been forced to admit an “error” in listing campaign organisations such as CND and Greenpeace as extremist. Their discredited Prevent programme has been politicised because this Government and these Ministers confuse extremism and disagreement with them.

Research funded by the Home Office says that the Home Secretary’s approach to young people in danger of radicalisation is “madness”—the opposite of what is required to prevent radicalisation. I have to tell Government Members that they will not tackle crime by criminalising lawful activity by campaigners such as CND, they will not tackle crime by imposing ever longer sentences whereby inexperienced, first-time offenders become hard cases or drug addicts in prison, and they will not tackle crime by cutting the police so much that they cannot catch the criminals in the first place.

As everyone knows—[Interruption.] The behaviour of Government Members suggests a contempt for the issues I am talking about, whether violent crime or rape. Labour’s promise in the 2017 election and its pledge to increase policing after years of Government cuts resonated with the public. I take the current Government’s pledge as something of a tribute to our work and the Leader of the Opposition’s leadership of the Labour party. We always understood, however, that increased policing would not be enough. As many senior police officers have told me, we cannot arrest our way out of a crime problem. We have to take an integrated approach—more and better policing, treating crime as a public health issue, drawing in all the public services and funding them properly. The Government have paid lip service to the idea of a public health approach, but many of the services that have to come together to make that work—schools, youth services, housing—are funded by local authorities, and the Government have no intention of funding those properly.

[Emma Hardy]

I am really pleased that my right hon. Friend is drawing attention to the role that local government can play. I hope she will join me in recognising the work that Labour police and crime commissioner Keith Hunter and Hull City Council are doing to tackle the problems of city centre crime by creating a crime hub and working with city centre businesses. This is due to the huge increase in crime we have seen at the same time as police officer numbers have been cut.

[Ms Abbott]

I thank my hon. Friend for that important intervention.

The Government have said they will establish violence reduction units, which is another Labour policy, but in their repeated announcements of the same money they have demonstrated that they are not committed to long-term funding for these units. We will hold them to account on this and on all their pledges—to recruit 20,000 additional police officers, to tackle violent crime, to make our streets safer.

[Gary Sambrook (Birmingham, Northfield) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Abbott]

I am coming to a close.

Crime, particularly violent crime, is a tragedy for the victims of crime but it is also traumatic for the mothers and families of the perpetrators of crime. [Interruption.] If Government Members, like me, had had to visit the families of young people who have been the victims of crime, they would not be making a joke of this. The Opposition, knowing how seriously our constituents take this issue, are pledged to hold the Government to account on all their pledges. They must live up to what they have promised. The public deserve no less.

Automated Facial Recognition Surveillance

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

In his usual pithy manner, my right hon. Friend puts his finger on the button. As Members will know, the police have used facial recognition since their establishment. There is an analogue version—a wanted poster. We will have seen those and they crowdsource the identification of wanted criminals. The only question here is whether a human being does it, such as a spotter at a football match, or a machine does it. We acknowledge that if a machine is doing it, more circumspection and democratic control are required, and that is what we will be providing.

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

Facial recognition technology is potentially an important crime-fighting tool, but not without the correct safeguards, and the Minister has failed to persuade the House thus far that all the correct safeguards are in place. Does he accept that the random use of facial recognition technology requires not just a High Court judgment, but a specific legal framework and specific arrangements for scrutiny? After all, when blood, saliva or hair samples are provided, they are done voluntarily or under compulsory detention and charge. Facial recognition evidence is given involuntarily. He will have heard different reports about the unreliability of the evidence. Does that put people at risk of being wrongly accused of a crime? He will have heard the reports that the facial recognition technology finds it difficult to recognise black people and women, and that the technology deployed is often inaccurate. To bring in technology that might be inaccurate and mean that the guilty go unapprehended and the innocent are wrongly identified would be a spectacular own goal, leading to a breakdown of the bond of trust between the police and public.

[Kit Malthouse]

The right hon. Lady is right to say that the police must deploy technology so as to increase the trust of those they seek to protect, rather than to diminish it. We certainly believe that the use of this technology could, as she said, have enormous potential for crimefighting, if deployed in the correct way. She asked whether the random use of facial technology could undermine that confidence. It might, but of course we are not intending to use it in a random way and the police are not doing so. In effect, they will be operating it in a very specific intelligence-led way, with lots of notification in the area in which it is to be deployed against a known list of wanted suspects or criminals; a specific area will be identified where the police have intelligence that that person might be passing through. Those very specific and focused arrangements will be authorised by a very senior officer above commander rank.

As for unreliability, as technology is rolled out it obviously becomes more and more effective and reliable—[Interruption.] Well, I am the lucky owner of a telephone that allows me to make banking payments on the basis of recognising my face. That technology was not available in the last iteration of the phone—it is an iPhone—which used my thumb instead. So there are developments in technology. South Wales police found in trials that there was a 1:4,500 chance of triggering a false alert and more than an 80% chance of a correct alert. It is worth bearing in mind that even when the system does alert the police to a possible identification, the final decision as to whether to intervene with an individual is still taken by a human being.

Prevent Programme

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Commons Chamber

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

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department to make a statement on the Home Office’s oversight of the police in their operation of the Prevent programme.

[The Minister for Security (Brandon Lewis)]

Counter-terrorism policing in this country is operationally independent, and that is an important principle. The operational independence of our police from Government is integral to our democracy. The Home Office does, however, carry out oversight of the police on behalf of the Home Secretary.

We are clear that the right to peaceful protest is a cornerstone of our just society and an indispensable channel of political and social expression. Counter Terrorism Policing South East has, for example, stated categorically that it does not classify Extinction Rebellion as an extremist organisation, and that the inclusion of Extinction Rebellion in its guidance to frontline officers was an error of judgment. The police have recalled the guidance and are reviewing it.

I want to reiterate that Extinction Rebellion is in no way considered an extremist group under the 2015 definition of extremism; the Home Secretary has been clear on that point. The police have also made it clear that they regret any offence caused by the inclusion of the Ukrainian tryzub symbol in their internal educational document. That document was produced to help frontline officers and staff recognise and understand a wide range of signs and symbols that they may come across while on duty. As the police have said, the document explicitly states that many of the symbols are not of counter-terrorism interest. Unfortunately, far-right groups do have a history of misappropriating national symbols as part of their identity, and that was the reasoning behind the inclusion of several symbols. We recognise that the tryzub—Ukraine’s state coat of arms—carries constitutional importance as well as both historical and cultural significance for the people of Ukraine, and we sincerely regret any offence caused to the Ukrainian nation or its people.

[Ms Abbott]

The Minister will be aware that guidance issued by the counter-terrorism police on extremist ideologies as part of the Prevent programme did include Extinction Rebellion. He is telling the House now that it was an error of judgment; the Opposition argue that it was a very serious error of judgment. Can he tell the House whether he agrees with Sir Peter Fahy, the head of Prevent from 2010 to 2015, who said that Extinction Rebellion

“is about lawful protest and disruption to get publicity…very different from terrorist acts”?

We also understand that in the guidance document, there is mention of organisations such as Greenpeace, the “Stop the badger cull” campaign, the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and of vegan activists. Can the House be provided with a list of the organisations mentioned in the counter-terrorism police guidance? What is the basis for the inclusion of groups such as vegan activists? Will the Secretary of State accept that in a democracy there is a fundamental right to disagreement and non-violent campaigning, and that interfering with or denying that right—even through an error of judgment—is a fundamental breach of the democratic contract between the Government and the governed?

Finally, there is supposed to be a review of Prevent, which we understand will report back in August. Can the Minister tell me who the leader of the Prevent review is, now that Lord Carlile has stepped down? Can the Minister also assure the House that the review will indeed report back in August?

[Brandon Lewis]

The right hon. Lady outlined the importance of protest groups and their ability to raise the profile of the issue they are protesting about. We absolutely agree with that. As I said, we are very clear that the right to peaceful protest is a cornerstone of our just society, and an indispensable channel of political and social expression. The police have recalled the guidance and are reviewing it, and both we and the police have said that protest groups are not extremist groups, and that membership of a protest organisation is not—nor should it ever be—an indicator that an individual is vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism. It is important that protest groups have that space. We believe in, defend and fight for freedom of speech, and will continue to do so.

The statutory deadline for the review to be completed and its findings shared remains 12 August 2020. The next steps are being considered right now and will be announced in due course.