Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

Under the Proceeds of Crime Act, police and prosecutors have the power to recover either profit or money accrued by those criminals from those processes. When they take that money, under ARIS—the asset recovery incentivisation scheme—50% of it or more will be released back to law enforcement prosecutors so that they can invest.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

18. What steps his Department is taking to improve religious literacy among UK Visas and Immigration staff.

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

The UK Government value the role of faith in public life in the UK, and protecting religious freedom abroad is important, including in achieving the UK’s vision of a more secure and prosperous United Kingdom with its overseas partners. Within UK Visas and Immigration asylum casework, we continue to engage a range of faith groups to improve our policy guidance and training provided to decision makers, so that we approach claims involving religious persecution and conversion to a particular faith in the appropriate way.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Will the Minister set up a specialised unit in the Home Office so that we can have some religious literacy on this matter? Nuns and priests seeking to come from Iraq have been asked why they do not have a bank account, with officials seemingly unaware that they have made vows of poverty. A sister from Qaraqosh in Iraq is a perfect example: seeking to visit her sick sister, she was asked why she had not visited her since 2011. Officials were seemingly unaware that ISIS had forced her to flee from her convent and to flee for her life. Please may we have more religious literacy from our officials?

[Caroline Nokes]

When it comes to visitor visas, it is of course important that each case is decided on its own merits, but my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I am very happy to work with him, so that there can be better training for visa caseworkers so that they understand the specific points he makes about those from religious communities who may have taken a particular vow of poverty.

Rural Crime and Public Services

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend knows, as I do—it was my first ever campaign as a candidate—that the challenge of improving broadband in rural areas is always there. By and large, more urban areas have excellent coverage, although there are blackspots. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has announced a scheme whereby we can use some technology at parish churches, and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has a keen interest in the issue and is acting accordingly.

Let me turn to funding. We have continued to listen to the police. Last year, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service spoke to every police force in England and Wales about the changing demands on the police and how they could best be managed. We have acted on the basis of that consultation and announced an increase in overall investment in the police of £460 million from April for this financial year. That includes a £50 million increase in counter-terrorism funding, and it enables police and crime commissioners to raise up to £280 million of local funding through council tax, protecting the police grant in cash terms and increasing funding for national priorities by £130 million. I am delighted that most police and crime commissioners have accepted the Government’s challenge to make that change to their policing precept and are consequently able to decide for themselves how that money is best spent in their local area.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is right to make the point that there is no such thing as Government money, only taxpayers’ money, but my constituents in Lincolnshire, and hers, think that although it is okay to talk in these overall terms, there is a fundamental unfairness against council tax payers in rural areas, in terms of the services that we receive—our policing, NHS and broadband. We pay far more in council tax and get infinitely less than people get in urban areas. The Government have to grasp the nettle and get fairer funding for rural areas.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for raising that point. I extend that challenge to Opposition Members. If they are able to find themselves in a position where they can look at fairer funding and how it may have an impact on rural areas, I am sure that is something we would be content to consider.

Taken together, public investment in policing has grown from £11.9 billion in 2015-16 to £13 billion in this financial year.

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[Peter Grant]

I do not doubt that at all. Indeed, I am about to say something about crimes committed in rural areas. First, there is the problem of definition: how do we decide what is rural and what is not? I would never consider myself to represent a rural constituency, and I would not be considered to do so in the House, but about 3,000 of my constituents undeniably live in rural areas, and probably another 5,000 live in villages and towns that are so small that, while their residents experience many of the benefits of living in small isolated communities, they also experience many of the challenges.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Grant]

May I just finish making my point? I did promise to speak for a fairly short time, but that will be difficult if I am too generous.

A finding that appears regularly in the Scottish crime and justice survey—I do not know whether it is reflected in other parts of the United Kingdom—is that people living in rural areas are less than half as likely to become victims of crime as those living in urban areas. While people living in isolated areas undoubtedly feel more vulnerable in respect of some kinds of crime that are more likely to be committed in rural areas, overall, it is the case that rural areas in Scotland—and, I imagine, rural parts of England, relatively speaking—are safer places in which to live. It is also the case, however, that for a victim of crime, the crime rate on that day is 100%.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

When I and my rural constituents travel to the most remote areas of Scotland, we are struck by the difference between the quality of the roads there and the quality the of roads in Lincolnshire. There are no potholes, and there is wonderful broadband and wonderful public services. Is the hon. Gentleman grateful to my Lincolnshire constituents who, through the Barnett formula, are subsidising his own constituents to such an extent, and would he not be sorry to see that go after Scottish independence?

[Peter Grant]

What I am grateful for is the fact that the hon. Gentleman has completely contradicted his Scottish Tory pals, who seem to be away enjoying the sunshine at the moment, but who tell us almost every day of the week that the Scottish Government’s performance on broadband is useless and the UK Government’s is great. One of the things I have learnt today is that even Tory Back Benchers think that the Government are making a complete hash of providing broadband in rural areas. I look forward to hearing the hon. Gentleman contradict his Scottish pals the next time they raise that particular myth, both when it is relevant to the debate and, more often, when it is completely irrelevant.

Let me return to the comment made by the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock). According to the latest figures from NFU Mutual, in some parts of the United Kingdom, there have been staggering increases in rural crime levels over a fairly short period. I take that to mean that organised gangs have been targeting an area until it gets too hot for them, and then moving on. That is why co-operation and the sharing of intelligence between police forces, and between the police and other agencies, are so vital.

In 2015 the Scottish Government helped to set up the Scottish Partnership Against Rural Crime—a partnership between the Government, Police Scotland, NFU Scotland, NFU Mutual, which, obviously, provides much of the insurance cover for rural businesses, and other key stakeholders. In its first full year of operation, recorded rural crime in Scotland fell by 21%. I said earlier that recorded crime figures came with a lot of caveats, but during roughly the same period, NFU Mutual reported a 32% reduction in a single year. This is perhaps not the place to go into detail about what might be done well in Scotland that could be copied or examined in other parts of the United Kingdom, but I simply read those figures to indicate that although people living in rural areas and rural businesses, as the Minister referred to—

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) for introducing this debate, the subject of which is important to me and my constituents. In fact, I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on rural crime. Coincidentally, we had a meeting last night at which we discussed a number of topics, such as the theft of heating oil and diesel, the benefit of drones—drones have already saved lives in Lincolnshire and elsewhere—the use of WhatsApp groups in policing rural areas, the theft of rural machinery, the fear of isolation among those living in isolated areas, and the National Police Chiefs Council rural and wildlife crime strategies, as described by the Minister. I invite Opposition Members, as well as any more Conservative Members who wish to join, to come along and join our APPG so we can tackle rural crime together.

One of the main areas of discussion yesterday evening was hare coursing, a cruel crime in which lurcher-style dogs chase after a hare. Often there are bets on which dog will catch the hare first, as part of which gangs of mostly men in 4x4s and other heavy vehicles traipse across farmers’ land in pursuit of the animals to make sure they see which dog catches the hare in order to secure the bet.

Hare coursing is a disgusting crime, and it has a huge impact on farmers that is not well understood. Some who see the tyre tracks going across fields and the torn up crops might not think it important, but it is important. The farmer has invested in those crops, which they have nurtured to provide that year’s income for their family. The crime is essentially the same as going into John Lewis, or a similar store, on Oxford Street and destroying every item of merchandise, and then preventing the shop from restocking for the next 12 months. This is a serious crime, which has a huge impact economically and on a farmer’s lifestyle. I should mention at this point that although I have not been a victim of hare coursing crime, my husband is a farmer.

Hare coursing is not just a criminal pastime, but a pastime of criminals. One thing Lincolnshire’s police and crime commissioner has made clear to me is that the vast majority of the people the police catch for this crime come not from Lincolnshire, but from elsewhere. They have come across county lines to commit crime in Lincolnshire, perhaps because they feel it gives them the best chance of not being caught. It is fear of being caught that will stop them doing these things.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

There is hope, because our PCC is making huge strides by using drones. It is important in these debates that we are not miserable the whole time. There are technological ways in which we can combat crime with great success.

[Dr Johnson]

My hon. Friend is right, and I shall come on to discuss that shortly.

The crime of hare coursing also involves a fear of violence, because when farmers catch these people many of them threaten the farmer with violence then and there. Sometimes when the crime is reported to the police the farmer is threatened with having their sheds burned down. In some cases pets or livestock have been injured deliberately to try to frighten farmers into not reporting the crime or not pursuing a prosecution for it. Once prosecution occurs, we encounter an issue with sentencing, as it does not reflect the severity of this crime, with an average fine of £250.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The Metropolitan police does a fantastic job and its officers are incredibly dedicated. Over the past few weeks that I have been in this role I have had the opportunity to meet many of them. We must ensure that they have the resources they need. That is why the Metropolitan police received a record increase in the recent financial settlement, which has been welcomed.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The Policing Minister is sitting next to the Home Secretary and will be able to brief him on the crisis in police funding in Lincolnshire. He will tell the Home Secretary that we are one of the bottom three authorities in the entire country for funding, so what is the Home Secretary going to do to try to resolve this matter? It would take relatively little and relatively few steps, and it would be cost-effective to ensure that we were fairly funded in Lincolnshire to help to resolve rural crime.

Salisbury Incident

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his carefully thought-out and considerate comments. I am delighted to hear such unity of purpose across the House on this matter. He referred to the great cathedral city of Salisbury, and I share his views on that city and on the people of Salisbury, who have reacted so well. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen), who is with me here on the Front Bench, for his consideration and support over the past four days.

Yes, I can reassure the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) and the House that the police and the emergency services have the necessary resources. That is always one of my first questions, and they have been reassuring on that matter. On his point about keeping the House updated, of course I will do that. I thank him for his consideration and understanding that there might be limits to that, but when I can, I will of course take the opportunity to come here to discuss the matter with the House. Partly because of the severity of the situation, I recognise the need to do that whenever possible. Members are rightly keen to find out what is happening.

The hon. Gentleman also referred to the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill. We are of course engaging with the Members of Parliament who are proposing additional amendments. There have already been amendments to the Criminal Finances Act 2017 that reflect the sorts of initiatives he is asking for. There are additional proposals relating to the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill, and we will be considering them carefully.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The circumstantial evidence against Russia is strong—who else would have the motive and the means?—and I will put the same question to the Home Secretary that I put to the Foreign Secretary earlier this week. Those of us who seek to understand Russia know that the only way to preserve peace is through strength. If Russia is behind this, it is a brazen act of war and humiliates our country. I echo the remarks of the junior Defence Minister last week: defence is the first duty of the realm and spending 2% on defence is now not enough.

[Amber Rudd]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. My first concern must be the incident in hand and the safety of the people in the area around the incident. There will come a time for attribution, and there will be further consequences and further information to follow. Now, however, I am concerned about the incident and its consequences.

Police Grant Report

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

We said that we would publish it in the spring. It comes on top of regulations to ban the sale of zombie knives, and a consultation on a range of new offences around the sale and possession of dangerous weapons.

In addition to the changes in demand I have outlined, there is the escalation and evolution of the terrorist risk. In the context of police resources, the point is that demand on the police has risen, which has put more pressure on our police—there is no doubt about that.

The second message we got from many PCCs and chiefs across England and Wales was a request for greater flexibility regarding the precept. PCCs are, of course, elected by their local populations, and many want a greater ability to determine how much local funding they can raise to deliver for their communities. The third message was a request for greater certainty over future funding so that PCCs are able to plan more effectively and free up reserves for investment. I am pleased to confirm that the Government have proposed a funding settlement that responds positively to all three messages.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I hope that my right hon. Friend will give me a nice answer, because I will be voting tonight as well. He knows that Lincolnshire police force has been historically very badly underfunded, and we are grateful to him for visiting Lincolnshire and taking an interest. What steps is he taking to improve the situation in Lincolnshire and support our excellent police and crime commissioner, Marc Jones, who is having to use funding flexibility to protect police numbers and effectively put up council tax. What is the Minister doing to help us in Lincolnshire?

Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill

Edward Leigh Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 2nd February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

It is good to see you in your place for this debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. In proposing this Bill, I have not made things easy for myself. It contains four separate main proposals spanning four different Government Departments and potentially four different Ministers. It is not a Government handout Bill, and to complicate matters, three of the four original Ministers involved were moved as a result of the recent reshuffle. It has been a stressful few weeks. I know how hard it is to get a private Member’s Bill on the statute book, even when it contains a straightforward single measure, let alone four, so on the face of it I am being greedy—but for good reason.

In more than 20 years of entering the private Members’ Bill ballot at the start of the Session, my name has never once come out of the hat, and it probably will not again in whatever years or months I have left here. So as this is likely my only opportunity, I have been ambitious in trying to include as many of the good causes that I have tried to promote in this place, in two cases through ten-minute rule Bills in recent years. So I am a private Member’s Bill novice after almost 21 years in this House and I ask the House to be gentle with me.

It has not been easy to keep all the ducks in a row across four Government Departments, but I am grateful that they have all in turn met with support from Ministers such that the Bill can now proceed into Committee, with the will of the House. I freely admit that it has not been an easy process and at times it has been a very frustrating one. I place on record my thanks for the advice, support and patience of Farrah Bhatti in the private Bill Office, which has been invaluable.

The frustration has been that, from the very start, I offered to be as flexible as possible with Ministers with the wording of the Bill, and to sit down with departmental officials to agree on the terminology so that we could make progress with a Bill that had Government support. While at various times I secured agreement in principle to the main contents of the Bill from the revolving cast list of Ministers, it has literally been only in the past week that officials have sat down with me to talk turkey and final details have been thrashed out. Hence my apologies for the very late publication of the Bill just in time. It is only in the last week that we have secured the lead Minister, and I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), to the Dispatch Box; I am sure that all is going to end well.

The upshot of all this is that there is not as much detail and commitment in the Bill as I would originally have liked. There will be much work to be done in Committee and thereafter, but I am confident that we have a Bill containing robust principles that we can pass on to closer Committee scrutiny, with the will of the House. Notwithstanding those reservations, I am grateful to all those who have helped to produce the Bill today, especially those individuals and organisations outside this place who have campaigned long and hard on the various issues, based on powerful and often heartbreaking personal experiences.

To summarise, the four component parts of my Bill are as follows. The first is a provision intended to undertake further work on how the Government can extend civil partnerships to opposite sex couples as per my previous amendments, ten-minute rule Bills and presentation Bills. Equal civil partnerships are unfinished business from the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, and change requires only a straightforward amendment to the Civil Partnership Act 2004, which this House enthusiastically passed, with my support.

The second is a provision that mothers’ names, or second parent names, should be included on marriage and civil partnership certificates, based on previous Bills introduced by a number of hon. Members, which would bring England and Wales in line with Scotland and Northern Ireland, for the first time in about 180 years.

The third is a provision on the registration of stillbirths. My previous ten-minute rule Bill would have amended the definition of a stillborn child in the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 to include the formal recording of a child who is stillborn in the usual way but before the current threshold of 24 weeks’ gestation. The fourth is an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 to give coroners the power to investigate late-stage stillbirths if, for example, there is suspected medical negligence.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

If the Bill makes progress, people will be able to get married to, or have a civil partnership with, anybody of any sex. I have been written to by two sisters—this is also a long-standing campaign of my own—about the burning injustice in this situation. The two sisters have lived together all their lives, but when one of them dies, the other one will have to move out of their home because they will not be able afford the inheritance tax. Only the Treasury stands in the way of righting this injustice; it is about money. I hope that when my hon. Friend works on the detail of the Bill, he will try to ensure that it helps siblings to stay in the homes in which they have lived all their lives.

[Tim Loughton]

I understand my hon. Friend’s concern, which has been raised on several occasions. It is not my intention, at this stage, to extend civil partnerships to people other than cohabiting couples who are in a relationship. I want to mirror the existing terminology in the Civil Partnership Act 2004. I hope that we will entertain proposals such as my hon. Friend’s in Committee and on Report, and I have no doubt that he will want to raise the matter.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that it is an injustice for everyone apart from siblings to be able to have whatever legal relationship they want? I am not asking him to say now that he will include the matter in the Bill, but does he at least accept that this is a worthy cause, on which I have campaigned for many years?

[Tim Loughton]

I understand that it is a worthy cause, but it is different from enabling people to have their relationship recognised by the state. There are clear financial disadvantages and implications in the situation that my hon. Friend describes. I entirely sympathise with his view and I think that the injustice needs to be dealt with, but I do not propose to deal with it at this stage in my Bill. Doing so would make the Bill even more complicated than it already is. In addition, it is highly likely that the long title of the Bill will need to be amended in Committee, particularly to reflect the change that will be required to the electronic record of marriage certificates.

Let me start with the extension of civil partnerships to include opposite-sex couples. The 2004 Act was long overdue, and it was enthusiastically supported by me and the great majority of hon. Members from all parts of the House. At its heart, the Act tackled a clear obstacle to equal rights for loving couples who just happened to be of the same sex.

Subsequently, the House decided in 2013 that it was time for equal marriage. That has happened, the skies have not caved in and we have moved on. I certainly do not want to reopen the bruising debates that we had at the time, especially across my party. However, the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 gave rise to an unintended new inequality, and it is surely time for equal civil partnerships—a natural extension that was supported across all parties when the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill was introduced and that has just as much support now. In the consultation that the Government conducted before the introduction of that Bill, 61% of respondents were in favour of extending civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples. Alas, for some inexplicable reason, the proposal never made it into the Act. If it had done, the Act would have been better; that is why change is necessary today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

Funding for fire services is basically being held flat against a backdrop of a welcome decline in fire incidents. At the same time, the single fire authority system is sitting on hundreds of millions of pounds of public money in reserves, so we still believe that fire services are adequately resourced.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

T5. Will the Home Secretary confirm her commitment to the right to peaceful protest in this country? Given that there have been no successful prosecutions for harassment outside abortion agencies in recent history, will she resist the campaign to set up buffer zones? Does she accept that if peaceful protest outside abortion agencies is banned, the Government will also have to ban it, for instance, at hunts and outside animal life laboratories?

[Amber Rudd]

My hon. Friend and I have already met to discuss this, and it was a pleasure to meet him and various colleagues to discuss their concerns about the continuation of peaceful protests. I hope that I was able to reassure him that it is this Government’s plan always to ensure that peaceful protests can continue, wherever that is. It is also this Government’s commitment to make sure that women can access abortion safe from harassment and intimidation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

I am slightly surprised by the right hon. Gentleman’s closing comments because I had not actually answered that question yet. I thank him for his question, which gives me a chance to highlight the excellent work done every day by the team at UK Visas and Immigration. I can confirm that UKVI processes 99.5% of all cases within the service level agreement of six months. The just under 0.5% of cases that take longer are those very complex cases, and we liaise with people on that. I simply do not recognise the picture he just painted.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I encourage the Minister to redouble his efforts. Everybody knows the Government’s difficulties with immigration from the European Union, but what we cannot understand is why, after seven years of a Conservative Government, we have still not got to grips with immigration from the rest of the world. We need more police officers, more border officers and quicker decisions, and these people who have no right to stay here must leave, otherwise it undermines the whole system.

[Brandon Lewis]

UKVI decides 99.5% of cases within the timetable set out in its service level agreement. All of us in this House should be very clear that, if people are here illegally, we want them to return to their homes. Under the compliance environment, the ability to work and to employ people should be restricted. We are very clear that people who are here illegally will be removed.

Family Planning Clinics: Public Order Legislation

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) for how she has spoken on this very difficult and sometimes emotional issue, but I believe that it is my duty to offer another point of view, so that Parliament hears both sides of this difficult issue. I would hope that the hon. Lady would listen to women who have benefitted from help from groups outside abortion clinics, who would be denied that help if buffer zones were imposed around those abortion facilities. I want to ask the hon. Lady whether she has talked to those women who say that they have benefitted from the offers of help by those groups outside the Marie Stopes abortion facility. If not, surely both sides of this story deserve to be listened to. It is very important that we listen to both sides. How does the hon. Lady account for the fact that if harassment were really occurring outside these facilities, it would be perfectly possible for Marie Stopes to call the police, yet we see no ongoing prosecutions for harassment or instances where police powers to disperse crowds have been used? I would have thought that it would surely be easy and common for the police to intervene if harassment were indeed occurring.

[Paula Sherriff]

The hon. Gentleman is very generous in giving way. Has he considered that the women going into those clinics will have spent many weeks, and potentially months, making their minds up? I am not aware of any specific help that they are given outside those clinics by people holding things such as rosary beads or giving them pictures of dismembered foetuses and things like that. I would be surprised if that would aid them in coming to a different decision.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is a perfectly fair point. I know that it is an agonising decision for women. I remember talking to one of the women who stands outside those clinics. She was an elderly lady, the kindest, most gentle person that one could possibly consider. So many children call her granny, because they feel that this lady, who is the kindest and gentlest person—admittedly, a religious person; there is nothing wrong with that—would never hurt a soul. She is simply trying to express a point of view.

I agree that harassment is quite wrong. Given that the current law allows for individuals who harass others to be reported to the police, yet does not affect others who protest peacefully, does the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton not think that it is unwisely illiberal to introduce a measure that would simply exclude all vigils of this sort, regardless of individual behaviour? Surely, that is a sledgehammer.

In the case of Annen v. Germany—I know that the hon. Lady dealt with this point, but I am not sure she did so adequately—a pro-life advocate, Klaus Annen, engaged in peaceful protest outside an abortion clinic and was found by the European Court of Human Rights to have a right to engage in such activity under article 10, the right to freedom of expression. If so, and given the precedent, how does she expect the European Court of Human Rights, which we are fully signed up to and continue to support, to treat a legal challenge to buffer zones?

I want to end by reading out the testimony that was given to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who cannot be here, from Kate—she does not want to give her full name, which is fair enough, for fear of retaliation. This is her testimony:

“I never wanted to go through with an abortion but I felt a lot of pressure from people around me who offered it as a no brainer solution.

On the way into the clinic at the Marie Stopes clinic at Ealing I was offered a leaflet by a woman who I spoke to briefly. She just told me she was there if I needed her. I then went into the clinic, still not happy about being there for an abortion, but under immense pressure from a group of people that were with me to go through with it.

Once in the clinic, while the group were distracted I leapt out of the ground floor window and cleared 3 fences to escape. I talked to the woman on the gate again, who offered any support I needed to keep my baby and this gave me the confidence to leave where I was supported by the group that this women worked with.

I didn’t find any aggression from the people offering support outside the Ealing clinic at all. They did have leaflets documenting the development of a baby, a fetus, in the early stages.

The potential introduction of buffer zones is a really bad idea because women like me, what would they do then? You know, not every woman that walks into those clinics actually wants to go through with the termination. There’s immense pressure, maybe they don’t have financial means to support themselves or their baby, or they feel like there’s no alternatives. These people offer alternatives.

I had my baby who is now three and a half years old. She’s an amazing, perfect little girl and the love of my life. I want MPs here today calling to introduce buffer zones to realise, that she would not be alive today, if they had their way.”

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[Mr Hurd]

Let me push back on that gently. As the right hon Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, who speaks for the Opposition, said, we have a settlement in this place that we have come to. We have found a balance and a compromise, and I think any shift in that will be subject to personal votes in the future. To the point about the funding for the charity Life, that falls outside my Department, so the hon. Lady will forgive me if I read from the brief. It is basically set out in the grant agreement that Life will not be able to use the tampon tax grant of £250,000 to fund its counselling service or its Life Matters education service, and it is prohibited from spending the money on any publicity or promotion. The grant—as I think the hon. Lady mentioned—is for a specific project in west London to support vulnerable, homeless or at-risk pregnant women who ask for its help. All payments will be made in arrears and on receipt of a detailed monitoring report, but I will make sure that the hon. Lady’s concerns are expressed directly to the Minister responsible.

I will say something about public spaces protection orders because, as the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton says, the local authority in Ealing has decided to consult on issuing such an order outside the Marie Stopes UK healthcare clinic in the borough. Public spaces protection orders, under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, can be used by councils to stop people committing antisocial behaviour in a public place, applying restrictions on how that public space can be used. I apologise for the dryness of the prose, but there are clear legal tests that must be met. In particular, the behaviour that the order is seeking to stop must: have had or be likely to have a detrimental effect on the quality of life of those in the locality; be likely to be persistent or continuing in nature; be or be likely to be unreasonable; and justify the restrictions imposed.

It is for the London Borough of Ealing to determine, in consultation with the local police and any other community representatives, whether a public spaces protection order is justified. The Home Secretary and I will watch developments, and the response to them in the consultation, with interest.

I would like to give the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton a chance to respond and close the debate, so I will conclude. It has been a good debate on a highly sensitive issue. As I have made absolutely clear, the right to peaceful protest should not extend to harassment or intimidating behaviour.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

We all absolutely oppose harassment, but the Minister is defending the right to peaceful protest.

[Mr Hurd]

I think I have made that clear. The right to peaceful protest is incredibly important and is fundamental to our democratic process, but it cannot extend to harassment. The hon. Gentleman said so in his remarks, and there is agreement in this place. It is unacceptable that women seeking their legal right to healthcare, advice and support encounter such situations, and I expect any such cases to be robustly investigated and dealt with by the police.

The bottom line is that we are talking about vulnerable women at a point of very high vulnerability. The last thing we should want or accept is for them to feel any more vulnerable at that point in time, and when protest creeps into harassment, that is completely unacceptable. As I said before, it is essential for any democracy that individuals have the right to peaceful protest and freedom of speech, but with those rights comes a responsibility to ensure that individual views and protestor actions do not cross the boundary into criminal acts.

Finally, I assure hon. Members who have taken part in the debate that both the Home Secretary and I will carefully consider the important points made. We will monitor developments in Ealing to see the outcome of the decision to grant a public spaces protection order. I will ensure that the national policing leads responsible for the issue are made aware of the concerns expressed, and ask that they and local authorities make full use of their existing powers to prevent that kind of behaviour. I will also explore with my officials and the police whether any further action needs to be taken to ensure that clinic staff and patients can go about their lawful business free from harassment, offence or alarm.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Ah, another knight popping up—or perhaps I should say “languidly rising.” I call Sir Edward Leigh.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

There has been a lot of reportage and worry in this country about the number of EU nationals coming here perfectly legally. I am much more worried about what the Home Affairs Committee was told last week by David Wood, former head of immigration: there are 1 million illegals here, which the Home Office knows nothing about. Will the Minister’s Department focus on fast-tracking our friends and relations who are here legally from the EU so it can concentrate on the illegals?

[Brandon Lewis]

We are very much focused on dealing with people who are here illegally; that is what the compliant environment work is all about. Obviously our friends and partners and citizens from the EU are, under free movement, here entirely legally. I encourage them to remain, as we value what they do for our society and economy, and we will remain focused on dealing with the illegal immigrants, who should be in their home countries.