Windrush Scheme

Henry Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

If the right hon. Gentleman is referring to cases in which someone does not have—to use his own words—precisely the right documentation, of course that should be looked at very carefully. The whole purpose of the taskforce is to work with such individuals to make the process as easy as possible, and to ensure that issues such as incorrect documentation are sorted out.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

As we have already heard, it was a Labour Government who started destroying the landing cards of the Windrush generation. It was also a Labour Government who, under the Harold Wilson regime, forcibly exiled the Chagos islanders from the British Indian Ocean territory. As a result, members of the second and subsequent generations of the Chagos community do not have British citizenship. Will my right hon. Friend commit himself to looking into that as well?

[Sajid Javid]

I commend my hon. Friend for taking up this issue so energetically on behalf of the Chagos islanders, and I should be happy to discuss it with him further.

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

Sir Tim Berners-Lee is ultimately right in the sense that, yes, if communications service providers fail to respond to abuse of the internet, they will need to see an increase in existing regulation. We are considering a full range of possible solutions to address the issue, including a regulatory framework as well as broader legal and regulatory changes, where necessary.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

19. What steps he is taking to tackle serious violent crime.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

We launched the serious violence strategy last year; it has culminated in detailed work, stretching across Government. It includes the Offensive Weapons Bill and the serious violence taskforce. In addition, we want to build resilience for young people into the future, so we will be launching a £200 million youth endowment fund to intervene on children and young people at risk of serious violence. Shortly, we will consult on a new duty to underpin the multi-agency approach on public health.

[Henry Smith]

Sussex police and crime commissioner Katy Bourne was recently successful in getting a grant of almost £1 million from the Home Office—I thank the Department for that—to specifically address serious offences among young people. May I have an assurance that Crawley will continue to remain a focus of such support to combat serious offences?

[Victoria Atkins]

I congratulate police and crime commissioner Katy Bourne; it is always a pleasure to work with her. That was one of 29 projects awarded a total of nearly £18 million from the early intervention youth fund. The project in Crawley helps engage positively with children under 18 at risk of committing serious violence. The project will establish a network of coaches, drawing together the various agencies working with those young people—again, very much underpinning our approach to tackling serious violence: that we should all be concerned about this matter and working together on it.

Future Immigration

Henry Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I am pleased that the hon. Lady has raised this important issue of fairness. The Home Office makes millions of immigration decisions, whether on visas or otherwise, each year and we cannot pretend that every single decision is going to be right. Earlier, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) raised the issue of Windrush, which was a problem under successive Governments, and we need to learn the lessons from that, and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Dame Louise Ellman) raised a live case from her constituency that the Minister for Immigration will be happy to meet her to discuss.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I welcome the proposal set out by the Home Secretary to have an immigration system that gets the best talent from around the world for our economy and public services. Will he also undertake to cover in this legislation the loophole of descendants from the British Indian Ocean Territory, whose rights have been abused for the best part of half a century?

[Sajid Javid]

I know that my hon. Friend is passionate about this issue. He has championed it for a while and we have discussed it. It is not specifically addressed in the White Paper in terms of a future immigration system, but he is right to continue to raise the matter, and we are right to continue to work with him and to look at it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I, too, pay tribute to the Sussex PCC, Katy Bourne, who has successfully recently bid for almost £1 million of youth intervention funding. That is really important for my Crawley constituency, which has seen an increase in drug and knife-related crime. May I have an assurance that this partnership working with the Home Office will continue to tackle this issue?

[Mr Hurd]

I assure my hon. Friend that partnership working is absolutely at the heart of this Government’s approach to tackling serious violent crime and the running of drugs outside our major cities. Everything we have learnt from the examples elsewhere shows that effective multi-agency partnership works, and the Government are actively supporting that through funds such as the early intervention fund.

Immigration: DNA Tests

Henry Smith Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Thursday 25th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I thank my hon. Friend for her comments. She is absolutely right about the importance of that wider review of the structures and processes. She refers to cases that she has had to bring to the attention of Ministers. Although it seems from what she said that those have been resolved, Members should not feel that they must keep bringing cases to Ministers’ attention. I should like to see a system in which the vast majority of cases are sorted out properly in the first place, and that is the kind of system that I am trying to build.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I welcome the comprehensive review of the immigration system that the Home Secretary has announced. In that fair and humane spirit, will he incorporate the provisions of my British Indian Ocean Territory (Citizenship) Bill, which is on the Order Paper for consideration tomorrow, in the provisions of the new nationality legislation? They would give British citizenship to people descended from British subjects who were forcibly removed from the Chagos Islands in the late 1960s.

[Sajid Javid]

I commend my hon. Friend for spotting this opportunity. He has brought forward a Bill that I know that he has thought long and hard about, and we have discussed it. It might be helpful—if he feels that it would be helpful—for him to have a meeting with the Immigration Minister to discuss the matter further.

Salisbury Incident

Henry Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 12th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Salisbury incident.

Let me underline your comment, Madam Deputy Speaker, about the ongoing case. This is a very important case, with two suspects who have been named, and you are absolutely right that we must maintain caution throughout our discourse inside and outside the House to ensure that we do not undermine it. I ask colleagues engaging in today’s debate to remember that. It is of course a challenge that the individuals we seek are in a difficult jurisdiction, but nevertheless our rule of law is what we set our values by and that is the difference, perhaps, between us and many others.

On 2 March, two individuals, using the aliases Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, flew into Gatwick airport on flight SU2588 from Moscow. They mingled with other passengers, travelling on business visas and genuine Russian passports. Police have confirmed that the suspects had travelled to the United Kingdom before. The suspects then travelled by train into London and stayed at the City Stay hotel in Bow Road, east London on 2 and 3 March.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I apologise for intervening so early in my right hon. Friend’s speech. He mentions Gatwick airport and the rail route the suspects took into central London, which are in my constituency. I appreciate that almost 50 million throughput passengers a year travel through Gatwick airport, but what assurances can be given that passengers and, indeed, my constituents who work at Gatwick airport will be kept safe from this appalling rogue and reckless action of foreign agents?

[Mr Wallace]

The assurance I can give my hon. Friend about this incident is that, throughout the whole process of the investigation as it has unfolded, we have sought expert scientific and public health advice to ensure that people who could have been at risk were not disregarded, whether or not they were in the threatened area. We felt that at Gatwick, for example, there was no threat to his constituents or the people who work there, but we made our decision by seeking the advice of our world experts in places such as the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and Public Health England.

This also underlines an important point: when a hostile state is determined to try to use its full resources to penetrate another state, the challenge is much greater. The logistical support of that state in assisting its agents is significant. For example, these two individuals travelled on genuine Russian passports, making them harder to spot. There was clearly some attempt to create a legend to ensure that they circumvented our checks. This is only speculative, but at the other end of the aeroplane journey the baggage checks were probably not, I should think, as good as they might have been.

Cannabis-based Medicines

Henry Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The current rules are clear. We have discussed today and debated in Parliament how we would like to see a change in the process, but until those rules change, they would have to be applied. The hon. Gentleman raises a perfectly good point about working with law enforcement agencies and making sure that they are taking emerging policy into account.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I have long advocated the use of medical cannabis and therefore very much welcome the Home Secretary’s announcement of a review. May I have assurances that that review will be very much patient-centred and led by evidence of how the use of medical cannabis can help those with chronic conditions?

[Sajid Javid]

I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that reassurance. The review must have the patient at its very heart and must be driven by medical evidence.

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I am glad to have the opportunity to answer the hon. Gentleman’s question. The settled status application process will be very straightforward and very swift, with an assumption that people will get their status when they apply for it. We need to recruit many people and expend money to get this right, precisely because we need to make sure that we have the resources and facilities available for people who are not comfortable going online. We are aware of that and will be getting advice, and we will make sure that we have a system that works for everybody.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

EU citizens have a clear pathway to British citizenship, but British Indian Ocean Territory nationals, many of whom were exiled and denied citizenship, do not. I would be grateful if my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary could consider my private Member’s Bill, to ensure that justice is restored to those British nationals, for whom we are responsible.

[Amber Rudd]

I know that my hon. Friend has taken a particular interest in that. We spoke about it when I saw him in his constituency, and of course I will engage with him carefully on his private Member’s Bill.

Police Grant Report

Henry Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady join me in welcoming the policy of Katy Bourne, the Sussex police and crime commissioner, who is recruiting an extra 100 officers?

[Louise Haigh]

If that is the case, I am delighted for Sussex police that it is recruiting additional officers, but that comes in the context of severe cuts and a fall in police officer numbers over the past seven years.

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

Henry Smith Excerpts

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

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for kindly calling me. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) on introducing this important Bill. It is a bit of a smorgasbord of issues that are all important in their own right. It may not come as a surprise to the House that I want to touch on clause 3 on the registration of pregnancy loss occurring before 24 weeks and clause 4 on investigations by coroners into stillbirth.

I have huge amounts of time for the aim of clause 3, and I recognise the huge inequality in the particular case that my hon. Friend raised of the poor mother who lost twins, one born before and one born after the 24 week cut-off date. Only one of them was recognised by the law. That is why the review set out in the Bill is so important.

I am immensely proud to co-chair the all-party group on baby loss, which the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis)—I am pleased to see them both in the Chamber—helped to set up. With my hon. Friend, I remember collaring the former Member for Ipswich, who was then the Care Quality Minister, at about 1.30 am during a Finance Bill. We sat him down and discussed how we were to take our work on baby loss forward, and how we would address some of the big issues.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) on his Bill, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince) for his work on baby loss. I lost my son, Ethan, to stillbirth in 2004, and—it might sound strange to say this—I was fortunate to get a stillbirth certificate, because the incident occurred post 24 weeks. I commend my hon. Friend and others for everything they are doing to further this important cause.

[Will Quince]

I am very sorry to hear of my hon. Friend’s loss, and I thank him for his campaigning on this issue. He makes an important point about the discrepancy in our law, and the time has come to address it.

The all-party group on baby loss has two fundamental aims. The first is to reduce stillbirth and neonatal death, and the Government have been hugely supportive on that aim. We now have a target of halving stillbirth and neonatal death by 2025. When I first arrived in Parliament and we raised the issue in late 2015, the aim was to achieve that reduction by 2030, but the date has been brought forward. That is fantastic news, because we lose between nine and 15 babies every day. We have one of the worst records in the western world, and it has to change. The Government have put in place a number of steps to make that happen, and I am hugely positive and optimistic about the future.

Even if we meet the aim of reducing stillbirth and neonatal death by 50%, however, 2,500 to 3,000 babies will be stillborn every year. That does not even touch on the huge number of parents who suffer what we define in law as a miscarriage, and the Bill will give us the opportunity to look at registration and recognition in that area. Even if we achieve all our aims, there will still be parents who go through this emotional and personal tragedy. That is why bereavement care and support are so important. The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West was right to mention cold cots, because we need such facilities—and, indeed, bereavement suites—in every hospital in the country.