Immigration Bill

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I think that the concept of something that is seriously prejudicial to the interests of Her Britannic Majesty—to the interests of the United Kingdom—will be understood. There will of course be an opportunity for a review of that through a court process—a judicial review—so the definition would be tested. My hon. Friend might not choose to rely on the abilities or understanding of future Home Secretaries, but I hope that he will see that there is a further safeguard.

I wish to reiterate—this is an important point—that that is the position the United Kingdom had prior to 2003, when the law was changed. It is the position that we are required to have under the United Nations convention. All that we are doing is returning our position to the scope of our declaration under that convention. It goes no further.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

In response to an intervention, the Home Secretary said that at some point a stateless person’s position in the UK could be regularised, which is an interesting concept. If they became stateless, they would in the meantime presumably become destitute in this country, because they would not be eligible for access to any benefits or other aspects of society. Has she considered that, and are there any people in that situation at present?

[Mrs May]

The answer to the second question is that there are no people in that situation, because I have not been able to deprive anybody of their citizenship and therefore potentially make them stateless. That is the existing situation. If somebody is stateless and either does not apply for citizenship of another state despite having access or is denied permission to do so, but stays in the United Kingdom, we would have to look at the situation and at their immigration status. Crucially, their status would not attract the privileges of a British citizen—they would not be entitled to hold a British passport or to have full access to certain services—so they would therefore be in a different position from the one they were in when they held British citizenship.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hanson]

As a Minister in the previous Government who dealt with terrorist activity and looked at terrorist plots and the information to which the Home Secretary is now privileged, I know there are circumstances where the Government need to address serious issues. The question I put to the hon. Gentleman and the Home Secretary is this: new clause 18 was tabled 24 hours ago and there has been no consultation—[Interruption.] The Minister for Immigration says that it was tabled on Tuesday, but it was published yesterday morning; the first sight of it was then. A range of outside groups would like to examine the consequences of the proposed legislation, yet today the House of Commons is expected to approve it. The Opposition want to reserve judgment on some of the details that have been mentioned. We want to look at the measures, take advanced legal advice and consult outside bodies, which the Government should be doing, so we can consider the implications.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Is what my right hon. Friend saying on new clause 18 not indicative of the whole approach to the Bill? It has not been adequately debated anywhere. Most of it will be not be debated today and it will pass through this House unexamined. The Bill will have appalling consequences for an awful lot of things in society, not just the new clause he is discussing now.

[Mr Hanson]

I have to say to my hon. Friend, with the greatest of reverence for his long service in Parliament, that the Minister for Immigration and I spent far too long in Committee on this matter through most of October and November, and we are doing so again today. There has been discussion and division on some of the measures in the Bill.

New clause 18 was published yesterday morning. The Immigration Law Practitioners Association sent a brief at 4 am today. That was the first opportunity it had to put down its views on this matter:

“The amendment on the order paper on 29 January 2014 and on that date we first had sight of the Government’s European Convention on Human Rights Memorandum pertaining to the clause. We do not attempt to address herein the complex questions of the present day effects of the UK’s declaration”,

and in the light of that it will have to look at the matter when it comes to another place. The ILPA may or may not have valid points, but we are 24 hours from passing a serious piece of legislation. We had a long period in Committee. The issues relating to the al-Jedda judgment of summer to autumn 2013, which the Home Secretary mentioned, have led to her introducing these measures. We will have to look at them in detail. This is not a good way to place such an important issue, which has the potential to impact on people’s liberty and citizenship.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Teather]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. The law must have the flexibility to look at individual cases. If we draw bright lines in the sand, it becomes difficult for judges to take into account individual circumstances.

Automatic deportation goes slightly wider than the issue of children. Further to the discussion on new clause 15, I want to raise a constituent case. A young man came here as an extremely young child and was given refugee status. His parents then had some difficulties and he was taken into care. His mother had mental health difficulties. The local authority negligently placed him into the foster care of a couple who were drug dealers and continued to engage in significant criminal activity during the course of which the young child was profoundly damaged, as one might well expect. The local authority was found criminally negligent in this case.

By the time the child turned 18 he was convicted of a serious crime. He went to prison. He would have been in prison for long enough to quality for automatic deportation, but he had been in the UK since he was a very young child. He had been given refugee status. There was no family for him to go back to. By all decent recognition of what had happened to him, the state had been negligent in how it treated him. I cannot see any way in which that young man would have protection under new clause 15 as it is drafted.

I come back to the point about what is in the public interest. I do not want to live in a society where judges cannot look at the detail of cases such as that of my constituent. We have had some debate about whether new clause 15 is in accordance with the European convention on human rights. I have had advice from the Immigration Law Practitioners Association that the Home Secretary was unlikely to be able to sign up to saying that the provision was compatible with the Human Rights Act 1998, which would make it difficult for it to go into the House of Lords. There was a mischievous moment when I wondered whether, despite my abhorrence for the new clause, I should support it in order to destroy the Bill completely, given that I do not seem to be able find enough people to vote against the Bill to wreck it, which is what I would really truly like to do, as there is little in it that I like.

We have not had much opportunity to discuss amendment 60. It relates to limits on the use of force by immigration officers and tries to bring it back to the status quo. This seems to be another example of giving a blank cheque, and to an organisation that has hardly covered itself in glory where use of force is concerned. We have had issues with use of force against pregnant women—something on which Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons was extremely critical of the Home Office. We have had the death of Jimmy Mubenga. Those are just two recent examples. It seems to me that a failing organisation that is poorly managed should never be given increased power to use force, especially as many of the functions of immigration officers do not properly involve the use of force at all.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I commend the hon. Lady for tabling amendment 60. Jimmy Mubenga died in horrific circumstances. Is she aware that in many cases the forced removal is undertaken by contractors on behalf of the Home Office and those contractors are not necessarily trained in what they do? Appalling injuries take place and a large number of deportations are stopped because the airlines refuse to take people in an unsafe situation.

[Sarah Teather]

That is exactly the point. The Bill effectively gives all immigration officers retrospective freedom against any Act that has previously come into force, any power that immigration officers have and any future power that they have to use force to do what they want to do. Given the problems that we have already seen in making sure that contractors and immigration officers follow best practice, know what they are doing and are properly trained, how on earth the Home Office will be able to devise a training programme to cover every possible power that immigration officers have is beyond me.

I dare say that in most things that immigration officers can do, the reasonable force that is appropriate will be zero. Will the Home Office issue guidance for every possible power that an immigration officer has? I go back to the point I made earlier. The Bill goes against the agreement that we made in relation to treatment of children and families that we would end child detention. The agreement was much wider, I hasten to add, than families being kept in Yarl’s Wood. It was about working with children and families and the extent to which force would be used throughout the process. The power in schedule 1 is very worrying, and there has been no press scrutiny of it.

Labour amendment 1 would remove the provisions in the Bill that limit the right of appeal.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

I will address that point directly because it is at the heart of what we are debating and something that my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) mentioned. I am happy to ensure that people who have been found guilty of crime after going through the core judicial process are deported, but I am very unhappy about suspects being deported and facing the full force of the law. This is part of a trend. It was a theme of new Labour that a person needed to be only a suspect for things to be flung at them. Labour created a fantastic anti-civil libertarian state that the Conservatives, to their credit, dismantled quite effectively, but we will now have an anti-civil libertarian state—created by new Labour and continued by the Conservatives—that has the basic premise that it is all right to throw suspects out of this country and to treat them appallingly.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that if someone is deported but allowed to conduct an appeal in this country, it is almost impossible for them to do that? A deportation therefore effectively involves no real right of appeal nor any real access to justice, so it is a pernicious decision.

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Gentleman is spot on, and he gets to the heart of what we are debating. What is happening in this country—the fact that we are prepared to legislate in such a way—makes me feel ashamed. It is appalling that my country of Scotland is being dragged into this nasty, pernicious, appalling race to the bottom on immigration. It is such a shame that we are not independent yet to allow us to get out of this absolute nonsense.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

As always, the hon. Lady makes an excellent point, but it is a question about which bit of discretion would be taken away. The courts would retain discretion if there was a threat of harm or a threat to life and limb, as my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton pointed out. Discretion would be circumscribed only in very specific cases relating to article 8, and that would be done because the courts appear to have made some quite eccentric decisions. What has really brought this to the attention of the British public is the huge backlog of deportations—4,000 people are apparently waiting to be deported—and the fact that a very high number of challenges are brought purely on the basis of article 8 rights, which cannot therefore involve people in fear of torture or of harm to life and limb. I do not think that anybody in the House wants to deport people at risk to life and limb. As a nation, we believe in offering refugee status to people genuinely at threat, but we are not in favour of the exaggeration of spurious rights.

As I have said, the decision is a political decision, not a legal one. It is for this House to make a political choice about how our criminal justice system works, what rights belong to people who have committed very serious crimes and how far such rights should go. If it became a legal decision—if it were taken to the courts—we would find out at a later stage whether the European Court of Human Rights thought it was compatible with the convention. The House would then make a second choice, which would be whether to maintain today’s political decision or reverse it to be compatible with the convention. That is not the choice before us today. This is a routine exercise of parliamentary sovereignty in adding to a Bill a provision that may become law and be justiciable at a later stage.

I know that a lot of other Members want to speak, so I will be brief on new clause 18. I have some concerns about it. I am perhaps rather romantic in my view of what it means to be a British subject. I always thought that Palmerston got it right on the Don Pacifico affair—the “Civis Romanus sum” principle. Once any one of us has a passport that says we are British, we are as British as anybody else, whether they were born here or got their passport five minutes ago. It is incredibly important that there is equality before the law for all Her Majesty’s subjects who are living in this country and have right of residence here.

I worry that if we give the Government the ability to take passports away from a certain category of British subject but not from others, it will create a potential unfairness and a second category of citizen. There are Members of the House who were born abroad and have been naturalised and, on occasion, they may vote against the Government, which I hope the Whips will not consider serious enough reason to remove their passport. The fundamental underlying principle of equality of all Her Majesty’s subjects is important. I am always nervous about giving the Executive relatively arbitrary powers, because they are the ones that can be most misused. Once a passport is in somebody’s hands, they ought to be no different from anybody else in any legal respect.

Crucially, there may well already be laws that could deal with the problem in another way. If people have committed an offence so serious, important and threatening to the life of the nation that their passport should be confiscated, surely they have committed some other crime for which they could be charged, dragged through the courts, perhaps found guilty by a jury and then sentenced accordingly, with the penalty handed down in the right and proper way and their rights and liberties as subjects being maintained. They may have committed treason if they have done something so serious that they are to have their passport removed from them.

I will not oppose the new clause, but I wished to raise those concerns. I understand that the approach has been agreed because it will not affect many people. That is fine—I am glad it will not have widespread application—but what message does it send to the nation at large?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point in saying that not many people will be affected immediately, but once one gives a Minister an executive power to deny someone citizenship, who knows how many citizenships will be taken away in future?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The House may be surprised to know that I am in almost complete agreement with the hon. Gentleman, which is rare—I think unique. One should always be suspicious of the arbitrary power of the state. As we saw with today’s proceedings about whether there would even be a vote on new clause 15, the arbitrary power of the state can sometimes be misused. The Executive sometimes have to come under pressure before they give way and allow the proper proceedings to take place. I much prefer a legal process, and I do not want to make the statement that people who have got their citizenship more recently than I did are in any sense lesser citizens. I fundamentally do not believe that. Anybody who is fortunate enough to be a subject of Her Majesty is an equal subject of Her Majesty with all others.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

It is a great delight to follow the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) although I would like to correct him on a few details. Although Palmerston thought that Don Pacifico was undoubtedly a British citizen, merely because of his birth in Gibraltar, that would not necessarily apply today in the same way because he was actually a Portuguese Jew who therefore had more than one nationality at the time. I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman’s point applies reliably to the debate.

I entirely agree with everything the Home Secretary said about sham marriages. They are a real problem and in certain places in the country—most notably around London and the west midlands—there is a real issue to be tackled. I warmly commend Ministers who have taken the right actions in the Bill to deal with that. I am concerned, however, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) said earlier, about the business of removing people’s citizenship, not least because the way the proposal has been drafted gives a phenomenal degree of Executive power to the Secretary of State. I worry about that, as do several other Members, including the hon. Members for North East Somerset and for Brent Central (Sarah Teather).

Two years ago I remember going to the deportation centre at Heathrow and seeing a young man whose state we do not know. He refuses to say where he is from because he thinks he will be deported to that place. He had then been in that deportation centre for four years because for him, that half life in a sort of prison was better than the danger of being deported back somewhere. Some think the best way of dealing with the problem of deporting foreign criminals involves measures to change the rules on article 8. The biggest problem lies not with that, however, but with an awful lot of people who get to this country and instantly abandon their paperwork, either because that is what they intended to do from the beginning, or because they are from countries to which we simply cannot deport people. Again, I commend those Ministers who have worked—as Labour Ministers did in the previous Government—to try to ensure that people will not be subject to torture if they are returned to their country of origin, and that they will have a fair trial and so on There are, however, many countries around the world where such things still do not apply, and those cases make up the largest number of people, let alone those whose paperwork has been lost by the Home Office—also a substantial number. Of course I want foreign criminals to be deported and sent back to their country of origin, but I also want their human rights to be protected. I still believe in the right to a fair trial and am opposed to torture. I believe in all the things we have signed up to as a country. Let us not pretend that the Bill will sort out the bigger problem.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Does my hon. Friend accept that one problem is the number of countries that have not signed the convention on torture? We should not deport anyone to a regime where no convention on torture is applicable, and we should not rely on dubious one-off agreements, which is what we have been doing.

[Chris Bryant]

I completely agree, and anyway, if we sought to deport anyone to such a regime, we would face the courts, which is a very expensive business in this country, and we would be certain of failure. It would be a nugatory exercise.

I worry about creating more stateless people, which is effectively the intention of the Home Secretary’s proposal. I can see an argument for making someone stateless when they are abroad—we can say that a person who has done something appalling, perhaps in another country, is longer welcome in this country and remove their citizenship—but I have a much greater problem with making someone stateless when they are in this country. What would we do? We make them stateless and deprive them of citizenship, but then what? Do we banish them? Do we pronounce exile? Does the Speaker demand that they leave the country? Do we march them to the airport if they refuse to go themselves? In any case, where will they go? What country will take them? That is my problem with the proposals being advanced. There is a mediaeval element in the Bill and it will not help us one jot.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I will vote against the Bill on Third Reading for a large number of reasons. We have ordained that the Home Secretary will have executive power to take away citizenship in the future and to create a generation of stateless people. The handing over of that power is, I think, a very dangerous thing for any Parliament to do.

We have a number of other serious concerns about the Bill, such as those covered in the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) about the forced removal of people; the death of Jimmy Mubenga, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather); the use of the detention system; the denial of health care access; the problems of forcing landlords to become agents of the Home Office; and the reality of life for those people who have legitimately sought asylum in Britain and are starving on the streets of our cities because we do not have a system in place to give them proper support. The Bill does not answer any of those problems. It is based on prejudice and headline chasing and has nothing to do with the real needs of people who are desperately seeking support, help and assistance rather than the cold behaviour shown by the Government today.

Syrian Refugees

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

As I said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), we will look at this case by case. We have said that children at risk are obviously one of the categories that we will prioritise. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development has reminded me that our work on orphans is not just what will happen as a result of this scheme, because we are doing very specific work to support them in the region.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I still do not understand why we cannot be part of the UNHCR programme, which seems the obvious thing to do? May I take the Home Secretary back to the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman)? Many of the Palestinian refugees in Syria are themselves refugees from Iraq or, before that, other countries in the region. I hope that she will look very carefully and sympathetically at the plight of people driven from pillar to post by the travails and history of the whole region, and at least give them a place of safety here.

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman is correct in his identification of the particular problem for many individuals who have been displaced not just once, but many times. That is why we have done specific work with Palestinian refugees who, as I understand it, are in the refugee camps. As I said in response to the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), the problem about working with people inside Syria is of course the lack of access for humanitarian aid efforts in Syria.

UNHCR Syrian Refugees Programme

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We must not only urge other countries to do more, but do our bit and show that we stand together in humanitarian causes right across the world. We are stronger if we stand together, and it says something about who we are as a country.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I compliment my right hon. Friend on the motion she has tabled and the effect it has had. Will she return to the need for efficiency in dealing with the refugee crisis? Surely it would be desirable if the UK were part of the UNHCR process, rather than trying to set up something that appears to be separate but complementary.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. There is a strong case for being part of that UN programme, and I will come on to that point. Indeed, it was the UN who asked us to help in the first place, and it is right that we should respond to that in the most effective way, rather than setting up parallel programmes.

Many other countries are participating. France, Austria and the Netherlands are proving sanctuary for several hundred people, which is similar to the levels of support that the Home Secretary has confirmed she expects to help. Germany and the US are taking many more refugees, but with all our countries standing together, we are not far off the 30,000 places that the UN has asked for. That is the power of countries working together. Although each country itself may offer limited support, it adds up to substantial humanitarian relief for the most desperate people in the world.

When we called for this debate seven days ago, the Government and Home Secretary held a different position on helping the refugees, and it is right that they have now changed that position. I suspect that the Immigration Minister may be glad that he is not responding to this debate, since he had to reply to the urgent question last week when his position was different. As you will be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, as a result of strong support for the UN programme from all parties—including many on the Back Benches who raised their concerns as part of that urgent question last week—the Government have changed their position.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship for the first time.

My parents were refugees. They came to this country from Polish ghettos to escape religious and political persecution. Subsequently, most of their families were murdered by the Nazis in the holocaust, which has been commemorated this week, but despite the trauma they were able to build new lives here. In the summer of 1939, my parents took into their home a young girl who was one of the last to escape on the Kindertransport. She, too, was able to build a life in this country, and my most recent information is that she has a grand-daughter at Manchester university. Helping refugees has lifelong benefits.

The current situation is being watched with anxiety and distress by the Syrian community in Manchester, with which I recently attended a meeting held at the British Muslim heritage centre in my constituency in memory of Dr Abbas Khan, whose murder caused such distress. If my postbag is any guide, that anxiety is shared by those of all ethnicities in my constituency and more widely. There is special concern for Palestinian refugees, who are refugees twice over—from their own country and now from a war for which they have no responsibility, with which they have no connection and in which they have not taken a side. They are enduring death and deprivation in Syria.

The al-Yarmouk camp, just outside Damascus, has been under siege for six months. It was inhabited by more than 155,000 Palestinian refugees, but of those fewer than 20,000 now remain. A list has been published, which is in my possession, of the names of those who have died in the camp and the causes of death. Again and again, that cause is listed as starvation. Refugees in this camp are surviving on grass, animal feed and spices dissolved in water. Extreme human suffering in primitive conditions is the norm. Only 200 food parcels have been delivered to the remaining 20,000 people marooned in the camp.

Some 560,000 Palestinian refugees are living in Syria, and more than half of them have been displaced. Their restrictive travel documents mean that the majority would be unable to leave the country and seek safety abroad even if there were an opportunity for them to do so. Neighbouring countries—I pay tribute to them for the help that they have provided—are overwhelmed by Syrian refugees who have managed to get into their territory.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Let me compliment my right hon. Friend on his speech, and on the work that he has done on behalf of Palestinian refugees. Is it not also the case that tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees have recently arrived in Syria, mainly from Iraq but also from other countries, and that they are in a very dangerous and very vulnerable situation? Some have not even received permanent settlement in Syria, and are therefore particularly vulnerable both to the civil war and to any refugee programme that may ignore them in the future.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. No one—apart from the Syrian Government and another authority to which I shall refer in a moment—can be faulted for the efforts that are being made, but the situation on the ground is exceptionally difficult.

Although, as the Home Secretary has pointed out, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq have done their best to help, one neighbouring country that has not made the tiniest effort to do so is Israel. A large number of Israel’s population are refugees and descendants of refugees, and one would have thought that it would have some kind of conscience about the plight of refugees who are, in some instances, within yards of its borders, but the callous Government display no concern. The plight of the Palestinian refugees is their direct responsibility.

No one pretends that this situation can be dealt with easily. I join others in paying tribute to the Department for International Development for providing such huge amounts of money: that is the kind of thing that needs to be done, both because of its direct impact and because it demonstrates the determination of all the people of this country, and all the parties in the House, to do something about this ghastly situation. It is essential that we do not look back on it with the gnawing misgiving that we could have done more.

UN Syrian Refugees Programme

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend makes exactly the right point. Looking at how best to deploy our financial resources to help the largest number of people, we need to recognise that there is a difference between taking in refugees in the United Kingdom, as some are calling for us to do, and what we are doing through providing funding for the region. I think that helping hundreds of thousands of people in the region is the right priority, one of which we can be proud.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Will the Minister think again? Many of us welcome the amount of money the British Government have provided to assist refugees—we have no problem with that and fully understand the need. Syria as a whole, however, has hosted a very large number of refugees in the past, particularly Palestinians coming from Iraq, and as my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) pointed out, they are being bombed in al-Yarmouk refugee camp. Will the Minister think again and join in a UN programme to give safety to the most vulnerable refugees who, should they remain in place, will be killed for political or social purposes?

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman talks about refugees who previously lived in Syria. Of course, the help we are providing is not just to the neighbouring countries; a lot of it is for people who are internally displaced in Syria. We are working very hard with our diplomatic partners to secure humanitarian access in Syria, as well as supporting neighbouring countries. I hope the hon. Gentleman will welcome that too.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Norman Baker]

I think the hon. Gentleman is wrong on almost all counts. On the piece in this morning’s The Times, the hon. Gentleman might want to know that crime recorded by north-west police has fallen by 17% since June 2010 and that West Yorkshire has seen a drop of 15% in the same period. We welcome the fact that we now have a system whereby people—and women in particular—have more confidence to come forward to report domestic violence. [Interruption.] I hope you can hear me above the hubble-bubble opposite, Mr Speaker. I hope the situation will lead in due course to an increase in the number of prosecutions and convictions. Given that the matters are now firmly in the public mind, as they should be, historical cases are also coming forward and they are pushing the figures up.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

12. How many random inquiries on immigration status have been made in public places in each of the last six months.

[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Mark Harper)]

None.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

That is a surprising answer, because a number of us have witnessed immigration officers at Metropolitan line and other tube stations around London stopping people and asking them for their immigration status. Will the Minister assure me that no immigration officer would ever stop anyone randomly in a public place, ask them for identity documents and then call in the police to assist them with their inquiries, when there is no requirement to carry identity cards at any time in this country? Indeed, such identity cards do not even exist.

[Mr Harper]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we do not conduct random operations; we conduct intelligence-led operations, as did the previous Government, and they are very successful. The street operations we have conducted this year have led to the arrest of almost a third of those encountered. They are very successful in enforcing our immigration laws. We do not stop people at random; we are not empowered to do so by law and even if we were, we would not do so as a matter of policy. We stop people when we think there is intelligence to indicate that they are breaking our immigration laws, and I make no apology for that.

Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend has got his facts absolutely correct about those who absconded while under control orders. We have protected the funding for counter-terrorism policing and increased the funding for surveillance and other measures as part of the package relating to the introduction of TPIMs. As I said, that involves tens of millions of pounds a year.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I should like to take the Secretary of State back to the answer she gave to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert). What convictions have been obtained against Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed? What prosecutions are planned? Does she not think that there is something deeply dangerous about using the royal prerogative to bypass Parliament in order to take away someone’s nationality or access to a passport? Should not an element of accountability be essential in any democratic liberal society such as ours?

[Mrs May]

For those who are under TPIMs, and others, we make every effort to ensure that prosecutions take place whenever possible. I commend the Security Service in this regard. A number of individuals were prosecuted earlier this year for terrorism-related offences relating to significant plots. This shows the very good work that the police and the Security Service do on a daily basis to keep the public safe. I believe that it is appropriate to have slightly changed the ruling in relation to the interpretation of the exercise of the royal prerogative. It is important to have that measure available; and, as the hon. Gentleman will see from the fact that I am here at the Dispatch Box answering his question, I am also accountable to this House.

Immigration Bill

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I have to say that this morning’s reaction from the shadow Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), to the proposal to charge for use of the NHS shows that the Labour party is going to be on the wrong side of this argument, because people in this country want to see people being treated fairly in relation to the NHS.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

rose—

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Syms]

There must be a balance, because many language schools generate foreign exchange, provide good education and feed people through to our universities. The Government have ensured that the ones that survive—some will prosper—do so because they are legitimate, but many people took that route here. That part of Government policy is very sensible.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I understand what the hon. Gentleman says about foreign overseas students, but does he recognise that, in the case of London Metropolitan university, the Home Office overreaction did a great deal of damage to Britain’s international reputation? Thankfully, that has mostly changed in respect of London Metropolitan, but do we not need to be slightly cautious, because overseas students bring an awful lot to the country?

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz]

As a member of the Committee—there are four Committee members in their places this afternoon—I am not going to offer to take on more work, given our work load. As the hon. Gentleman knows, every quarter we look at the work of the Home Office on immigration, and I am certain that some aspects of the Bill will be included in the work that we do. We will therefore scrutinise some aspects of the Bill but not its entirety.

In pursuing an immigration policy that is fair and just, we need to be very careful with our enforcement methods. We also need to welcome decisions taken by the Government when they move in the right direction. The Home Secretary was right to shelve the ad vans, and I congratulate her on doing so. As the shadow Home Secretary and others have said, those vans caused enormous concern in the communities. We do not have a figure for how many people got into the vans and asked for a lift back to the airport, but the vans cost £10,000 and were out for six days in inner-city London. As yet, we do not know how many people have gone back. When the pilot is over, we will need those figures. Meanwhile, I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) for his superb Adjournment debate. It gives us all heart to know that we can call for an Adjournment debate to advocate the abolition of an aspect of Government policy and for it to happen two weeks later. It gives us comfort to know that we have some powers as Back Benchers.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Although I agree with my right hon. Friend about the ad vans, is he aware that immigration officials are still hanging around underground stations in London, stopping people at random and asking for papers? That creates a deeply unpleasant and hostile atmosphere. It is very ineffective in achieving its aim, but it creates much community tension in the process.

[Keith Vaz]

It worries me if that is happening; it is certainly not the best way to enforce immigration policy. The best way is to go through the proper process of making an application. If the result is negative, the person should leave the country. I have just had figures from Capita and the Home Office for the number of people who have left the country as a result of the £2.8 million contract that the Home Office gave Capita—although I cannot understand why it was not possible for Home Office officials to write the letters and send the e-mails instead of giving the job to a private company. According to those figures, 20,000 cases have been closed as a result of Capita’s activities.

I will come to my second bit of praise for the Home Secretary at the end of my speech, but I first wish to highlight a couple of issues that cause me concern. The first is the issue of landlords checking people’s passports, which will cause huge problems. The shadow Home Secretary said that people might have to look at 400 different European identity cards and documents. I am concerned that ordinary landlords who are not trained in immigration policy will simply not know the difference between leave to remain, indefinite leave and other Home Office statuses placed on non-British passports. Most landlords, when they grant tenancies, already ask for copies of people’s passports. The risk is that the only people who will be able to get accommodation are those with British passports. That means that a lot of people with a perfect right to remain here will not be able to get accommodation because landlords are too scared or do not understand the law.

I recently visited Calais to look at the border and I asked our excellent border officials how they were able to test whether certain passports and documents were forgeries. They brought out this very big, expensive machine. It was about 10 years old and not the most sophisticated piece of equipment, but they told me, “We use this to find out whether a document is a forgery.” We cannot expect landlords to have such machines—they would not be able to afford them—but if we do not train them or have regular inspections, which we could not afford, it is difficult to know how the provisions will work in practice. In theory, it is a brilliant idea, but it is totally unworkable in practice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. If we seriously want to get everybody in, we will have to average about 10 minutes a speech. If we carry on in the same way, a lot of Members will drop off the end of the list.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I heard what you said, but would it not be more useful to put a time limit on speeches so that we can all get in?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

That is up to me, but I thought that hon. Members would have enough respect for each other to ensure that everybody gets in. I thought that they would help each other by taking a little less time in order to allow others to take part, which is why I did not want to be dictatorial about it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker—at last I can make my contribution.

I want to begin by complimenting a number of hon. Members on their absolutely excellent speeches, especially the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), who brought an amazing level of humanity and intelligence to the debate; my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), as well as my good friends, the hon. Members for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott); and my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), whom I congratulate on the way in which she made the case on housing and the contribution that migrant communities make to this country.

We are debating the Bill at amazing speed. The programme motion is ludicrous, and the lack of any pre-legislative scrutiny whatsoever is breathtaking. It seems to me a negation of our duty as parliamentarians not to have the proper opportunity to examine the Bill—but then, of course, we never were going to be able to examine this Bill, because it is all about dog-whistle politics and appealing to a particularly low common denominator now being promoted by the Daily Mail and other newspapers.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

No. I am going to make my speech.

I would like the House to consider for a moment the general narrative that is current in this country and across Europe—a narrative condemning people who are migrants and condemning people who try to survive in Europe, and at the same time expressing deep concern when 200 were drowned off the coast of Italy in the tragedy of Lampedusa, along with the 20,000 others who have died trying to cross the Mediterranean in the past 20 years, as well as those who have drowned trying to get to the Canary islands or to Greece. Yes, some of those were economic migrants and some were asylum seekers. Yes, some were trying to escape from human rights abuses in Eritrea, Sudan and many other countries, and we express concern at what happened.

We need to think about why people seek to move in order to survive. Do not we, as a powerful industrial country, have some responsibility not just for the economic situation that this country faces but, through our contributions to the European Union, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation, and to the general agreement on tariffs and to trade and other organisations, for the sense of economic imbalance around the world?

We should be a little more sanguine about immigration and emigration. During the 1950s and 1960s, which, it is always apocryphally told, were a time of mass migration into Britain, the figures show—they are helpfully put together in the House of Commons Library briefing—net migration from Britain during the whole of that period. A very large number of British people went to live elsewhere and made their contributions and their lives in other countries. They did it for economic reasons and sent money home. Indeed, at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, there was a regular migration of more than 100,000 people a year from Britain, mainly to the United States, Canada and Australia, but to other places as well. Migration—

[Andrew Bridgen]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

No, I am not giving way.

Migration is something that people do to try to survive. We should think about that for a moment. We should also for another moment—I take the point that was made so well by my Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington—have some respect for the enormous contribution to the economy of this country that has been made by people who migrated here. Had there not been migration from the Caribbean, south Asia, Ireland, central Africa and many other parts of the world into this country over the past 50 years or so, what kind of health service would we have? What kind of education system would we have? What kind of industrial base would we have? What kind of society would we be? Would London have been the multicultural capital of the world hosting the Olympics? I think not. We would be a much poorer, much less relevant society and a much less relevant country. We need to think about the contribution that has been made and respect people for it.

Members on the Government Benches got very angry when my Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington was telling it like it is about the treatment of people in detention centres, the powers of arrest that the Bill gives to immigration officers, and the circumstances in which some people are removed from this country by force. I have met the family of Jimmy Mubenga, who died when he was forced to leave this country. I remember many years ago, shortly after I had been elected to this House, telling the House about a young Kurdish man called Shiho Iyguven, who was threatened with removal to Turkey and took his own life in a detention centre. His son, who was a tiny baby at the time, came to see me and asked, “What was dad like?” All I could say was, “Unfortunately, he was told he was going to be deported and in desperation he took his own life out of fear.”

We are taking some serious measures here today. I intervened earlier on one of my colleagues about the behaviour of the immigration service in carrying out the stop-and-search policy, which my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington talked about, making Conservative Members so very angry. Imagine a dispassionate, observant visitor to London who happened upon a tube station in Wembley or in the east end, or anywhere where there is a substantially multi-cultural population, seeing non-uniformed people go up to somebody, show a badge of authority and start asking about their immigration status, and when they start protesting seeing the police arrive and say they have to answer the questions. What would such a visitor on holiday in London think if they saw that going on? I am sorry to say that that is exactly the direction that the Bill takes us in.

The Conservative party are very concerned, and have been as long as I can remember, about the European convention on human rights and the European Court of Human Rights. They are an obsession with them. Never mind that the convention was written by a Tory lawyer and introduced in 1950 and has done a great deal to give people a benchmark of human rights throughout the member states of the Council of Europe. They want to say that article 8, the right to family life, somehow undermines the British way of life. So we have this curious clause 14, which talks about public interest considerations in respect of article 8 of the European convention on human rights. It is strangely written because much of it consists of assertions of the wishes of the Government of the day; they are not requirements but a series of assertions. It is only when one gets well into the clause that one finds specific requirements.

The clause seeks to guide immigration judges in the direction of minimising the question of family life, and because of the way in which it deals with children in family life, it will often be damaging to the interests of children who happen to have parents who may be applying for the right to remain in this country. I hope that in Committee there will be a serious examination of the whole question of article 8, and that when the Bill eventually reaches the House of Lords it will be able to do something more useful, such as protecting the rights of all of us by asserting the necessity of us remaining within the European convention on human rights, and therefore enjoying the protection of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. I know that Conservative Members are obsessed with the idea that we must withdraw from the ECHR, but it is a treaty obligation. Once we withdraw from a treaty, we are sending out the message that everyone else can do the same. Where then is the benchmark that we claim for ourselves of justice in society?

Like many others who have spoken in the debate, I deal with a large number of immigration cases—asylum seekers, family reunion cases, student visas. People come to my office and we do our best for them within the rules and try to get answers to their questions. I have no great problem with many of the civil servants who work in the Home Office, and I pay tribute to the many who work extremely hard, particularly those who are not particularly well paid, but they have a mammoth task. In 2008, I remember showing someone who came into my office a letter saying that legacy cases would all be resolved by mid-summer 2011. He duly came back in mid-summer 2011, queued up for my advice bureau for three hours, came in, put the letter down in front of me and said, “There, Mr Corbyn. It’s now mid-summer 2011,” which it absolutely was. It was June—you can’t get more mid-summer than that. I duly wrote to the Home Office asking when he would get a response, and I was told, “Maybe two years.”

People’s lives are on hold for year after year. They cannot travel, possibly cannot work or study and cannot make a living for themselves. They are in insecure accommodation and have an insecure future. What kind of life is that to thrust on anybody? It is an uncertain situation in which to bring up children. I ask the Minister to bring a sense of efficiency to the Home Office in dealing with long-term cases, which bring people great misery and difficulties.

I shall join my colleagues in voting against the Bill tonight, partly because of the details that it contains on education, housing, some aspects of health and so on, but also because of the atmosphere that it will create and the message that it will send at this particular time. Let us start with a sense of humanity. Every case is a human story, and every human story has its ups and downs, its triumphs and tragedies. Instead we have dog-whistle politics, the mantras being that every immigrant is an illegal immigrant who must somehow be condemned and that immigration is the cause of all the problems in our society.

A shortage of housing can be dealt with by building houses—it kind of helps. The two things go together. Recognising people’s skills and their ability to contribute to our society helps us all. If we descend into a UKIP-generated xenophobic campaign, it weakens and demeans all of us and our society, and we are all the losers for that.

Undercover Policing

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) is bursting with anticipation. He need not worry that I have forgotten him; how could I? I call Mr Jeremy Corbyn.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I thank the Home Secretary for the statement she has given today. It is something beyond disgusting that, when many of us thought that Macpherson was a moving-on stage in the whole area of public policy in relation to the black community and to policing, we find out that whole elements of the Metropolitan police had not moved on at all, and indeed were busy smearing and obstructing justice in exactly the way they had beforehand. The Guardian reported at great length on Saturday the behaviour of two undercover police officers, Bob Lambert and John Dines. Bob Lambert is known to some of us in this House and is a very clever operator—there is no question about that. It is also clear that during the undercover operations used against the Lawrence family and in the McLibel case and a number of other cases, senior officers in Scotland Yard must have known who was doing what and known of the disreputable personal behaviour of such people, and must still know. I hope the inquiry is not restricted within the police force but, in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), is open and public, and that heads roll at a high level in Scotland Yard for those who have covered up the truth and allowed smearing and injustice to go on for a very long time. Unless that inquiry gets to the bottom of these matters, there will be no credibility and no public confidence in policing.

[Mrs May]

The investigation is, of course, looking into allegations that attempts were made to smear the Lawrence family, is looking widely at the operation and tasking of the special demonstration squad, and is looking at how reporting was undertaken, which I assume will include the question of who was aware of what was being done. It is clear that a number of cases are already under the supervision of the IPCC because they relate to the conduct of officers, which it is appropriate for the IPCC to consider, but I am clear, as are those involved in the investigation, that they should follow the evidence, and we must ensure that those who are guilty of wrongdoing will be brought to justice.

Student Visas

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bailey]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, although he has taken half my next point. Perhaps he made it considerably better than I would.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Bailey]

Very quickly, but I have already taken a lot of interventions.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I appreciate that, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He will be aware that I represent the constituency that includes London Metropolitan university. Although things have moved on a long way and some overseas students are now being recruited, will he express regret about how that university has been treated and the damage that was done to Britain’s international reputation by the Home Office’s handling of the situation?

[Mr Bailey]

Whatever the case for taking action there, the way that it was handled has undoubtedly had considerable adverse repercussions abroad. Perhaps the case needs to be examined to see whether similar problems that may emerge in future can be dealt with in a less damaging way.

We have a superb industry and there is a huge and increasing global demand for its product. It is estimated that 4.1 million students are studying in different countries from their home countries and that that figure will rise to 7 million by 2020. We have top-class universities and an expanding market of people who want to come here, and we must capitalise on that.

The Government have claimed that their visa policy is working because, according to the figures, there has been a marginal increase in the number of international students applying to come to British universities in the past year. In reality, there are considerable fluctuations, with an increase in numbers coming from China offsetting a huge fall of 25% in those coming from India. I have to say that Universities UK disputes some of these figures, but I do not want to get drawn into a debate between the Government and Universities UK. Everybody recognises that at a time when there is huge and growing demand, Britain is, at best, flatlining in terms of the number of recruits it is getting. In fact, Britain’s share of this expanding market has dropped from 10.8% to 9.9%. A shareholder of a company that had a fantastic product and an expanding market would not be very happy with its management if it were taking a declining share of that market.

The crucial significance of that was highlighted by the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). It is not only about the immediate benefit but the long-term trading relationships that build up as a result. In the west midlands, we see that with the Tata brothers and their investment in Jaguar Land Rover, and with Lord Paul and his investment in schools and companies. There is a tremendous potential as regards the immeasurable contribution that will be made due to foreign students studying here.

This comes at a time when universities are struggling for finance; they recognise that in these hard times they cannot be exempt. Recruitment of international students presents an opportunity for them to bring in extra money that unfortunately they cannot get from the Government because of the current financial problems. My local university, Wolverhampton, currently recruits 800 international students each year, but it estimates that with a fair and consistent visa process it could take another 500 a year from India and Sri Lanka alone. If they contribute £10,000 a year, which is a fairly minimal estimate, that would amount to £5 million more a year going into the local university and, above all, into the black country economy. I think that that situation would be reflected in other universities that I have spoken to.

Earlier I mentioned the credibility test, which is undoubtedly one of the major problems. It is not only a regulatory problem but a process problem. One prospective Wolverhampton university student was rejected on the grounds that the amount of money he would spend in this country meant that he could get the same course at a domestic university in his own country. Imagine that happening in any other industry: if somebody told Jaguar, “You can’t export a Jaguar, because people can afford to buy one that’s made in their own country,” we would be up in arms and dancing in rage. In this case, however, nothing is said.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right.

We can do three things to solve this problem. First, we must continue to come down hard on immigration fraud. The Government are right to deal robustly with those who abuse the student route. The fact that we have closed down more than 500 bogus colleges since the election shows how easy it has been to exploit the student visa system in recent years. If we want to carry the public with us, it is vital to maintain public confidence in the integrity of our immigration system.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making about bogus colleges, but does he have sympathy for the students who applied to enter this country to study at those colleges and who have had a very bad time through no fault of their own because they were duped into a very bad system? The system has changed a bit, but should we not have a more humanitarian approach to those people who, after all, are victims?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that innocents get caught out in those situations. The best way to deal with the problem is to close down the colleges that are abusing the system and the students. Indeed, I spoke about London Metropolitan university in his constituency earlier and the perception that there is the forced deportation of legitimate students from this country.

Secondly, we must be more intelligent about where the risks and the opportunities lie for us. I hope that Ministers will listen to this point carefully. In targeting tier 4 visas, the UK Border Agency already distinguishes between high and low-risk students. There are face-to-face interviews for students who are considered to be high risk.

In my opinion, that should work the other way around and we should give the red-carpet treatment to the kind of students we want to attract to our country. For example, female students from the Gulf states are likely to have lower English language proficiency and are more likely to want to bring their spouses and children with them. If we want to see reform in the Gulf states, those are exactly the kind of students we need to attract. However, under the current rules, their dependants are obliged to return home every six months to renew their visa, and after 11 months the student must do the same. In Australia, Canada and America, dependants can apply for a visa that covers the whole study period. We do not need to rewrite the rule book; we just need to have more common sense and flexibility where our national interests are concerned.

Finally, we need a cross-party consensus to neutralise the political fallout. No Government want to be accused of fiddling the figures, particularly on a policy area as combustible as immigration. We need to present a united front when standing up for British economic interests. That is why I am sharing a platform with my colleagues from the Labour party on this motion.

I came into politics to get politics out of the way of British businesses that want to grow. Elsewhere in the economy, the Government have done great things to cut red tape and unnecessary bureaucracy. We must extend the same freedoms and opportunities to our higher education sector. I commend the motion to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I am pleased that we are having this debate, as it will enable us to draw attention to a number of issues relating to overseas students in this country. We should start from the premise that the students who come here to study and work are a big help to our economy, to local economies and to the experience of UK students in our higher education institutions.

London First, in calling for the removal of students from the UK migration target, states:

“Taking students out of the migration target would be the strongest positive message that the government could send out but, if this remains too politically difficult, then a more measured and consistent approach to addressing applications for visas would be a good first step.”

Many of us have met students in other countries who are considering coming to the UK to study, and discovered that they are put off by a number of factors. One is the complication and cost of applying for a visa, as well as the delays that often occur in that process. I know that the Minister is aware of those problems, and I look forward to hearing his response to this point. Those students are also put off by the image that has been created by the treatment of overseas students here.

I am not going to defend the bogus colleges that purported to teach the English language to people in London and other cities. They often short-changed their students, many of whom ended up as victims of a particularly nasty system. It is right to prosecute those who were perpetrating that fraud against those students, but we should have more sympathy with those genuine students who came here thinking that they were going to be taught English only to find that their college was a sham. They lost out, and some of them were deported even though they had done nothing wrong. Behind every statistic lies a human story, and we should look at the human story as well as the overall statistics when we deal with these issues.

The National Union of Students has pointed out in its advice on this debate that, following a perception study, 40% of respondents to an NUS survey of 909 international students carried out last year said that they would not advise a friend or relative from their home country to come to the UK to study. We cannot afford that perception to be spread abroad. This debate is therefore important, and the Minister’s response to it and the way in which he handles this issue are possibly even more important. It we want to remain a place to which students want to come, we will have to ensure that they are treated properly and that they are allowed to work at the end of their course, particularly if they pursued a semi-vocational or professional qualification. If they cannot complete a period of work at the end of their course, the prospect of studying here will be less attractive and the prospect of studying elsewhere will become more so. The UK loses out as a result.

As I said in a couple of interventions, I represent a constituency that includes London Metropolitan university, which has been put through the mill in media treatment and with funding problems like no other university in this country, so I would like to say a few things in its support. As a university, it is an amalgamation of many institutions, as most of them are, and it has given many people the huge opportunity to become the first in their family history to get into higher education. It has an unprecedented record of bringing in students from minority ethic communities and diverse backgrounds, and it should be applauded and complimented for that.

Although the name is relatively new, London Metropolitan university is an amalgamation of a number of local institutions in north-east London that started serving the community in 1848. It is not exactly a Johnny-come-lately, although of course the situation has changed a great deal. Two things have happened. First, the Higher Education Funding Council for England decided some years ago to fine the university a great deal of money, but after a lot of representations, that money is now being repaid and the university is coping with that.

Secondly, on 29 August last year, it had revoked its tier 4 licence and highly trusted status required to recruit non-European Economic Area students. That placed 2,000 international students at risk, including the current student union president and members of the student union executive. A survey done by the United Kingdom Border Agency claimed that there was a lack of attendance and monitoring, insufficient English language testing and overstaying of student visas. The students concerned were told that they had 60 days to find another institution or they would have to return to their own country. That resulted in a great deal of debate, including an urgent question in this Chamber and statements from the Government. The university sought High Court action against UKBA and was granted a hearing last September, when Mr Justice Irwin granted an order allowing all current international students to stay at the university until the end of the academic year 2013; judicial reviews are still continuing.

Since then, there has been a great deal of discussion and negotiation between UKBA and the university, and procedures have been put in place. My concern was that a lot of wholly innocent international students were put under a great deal of stress and pressure. The university was not allowed to recruit international students for the forthcoming academic year, and that obviously has an impact on the local economy and on the university itself. I hope that the Minister can provide us with some hope—if not here today, perhaps by correspondence—that the negotiations will result in the revocation of the original ban on recruitment and that a number of overseas students can be recruited in the forthcoming academic year.

I would be grateful if the Minister would answer some brief questions. A number of students who transferred to other institutions last September—nine months ago—still await a decision on their visa applications even though they were submitted in good time. Two additional cases, where students who completed their studies in February 2013 and put in applications for visa extensions, are still pending and have not been answered. That is a very long time to wait. In addition, there are many students who are no longer in contact with the London Met university, yet the Home Office was supposed to establish a casework team in Sheffield to deal with applications from both current and former students of London Met. I would be grateful if the Minister would explain exactly what has happened about that; is the Home Office still in touch with those students?

I want London Met to be a successful university. I want it to be able to recruit international students as it did before, and I want those students to benefit from the experience of living in north and east London while they are studying there. I also want to highlight all that they bring to the university and all that they—and, indeed, the local economy—gain from it. The damage done to the international reputation of higher education by the handling of London Met is pretty serious indeed, on top of all the other problems that the Select Committee has rightly pointed out. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell me how many students have actually been removed from the country as a result of the decisions concerning London Met.

The Home Office uses the words “probationary licence granted” for the restoration of tier 4 status, but there is nothing in legislation that talks about probationary licences. An institution either has tier 4 status grade A or a most-trusted status, which we obviously hope will be restored. I do not know where the word “probationary” comes from. Is a new point of law being introduced?

Finally, will the Minister provide assurances that the 20 London Met students who submitted passports nine months ago and who now wish to leave the country will receive an answer in the next 28 days? In all fairness, those students spent a great deal of money coming to this country, many of them are from poor families who scrimped and saved to send them here, and they had to go through a dreadful experience. We want to move on. We want international students back at the university and the university to be thriving and providing good-quality education. That is the message I want to give. Our local community benefits from that university, and it frequently benefits from the community when community events and many other things are held there. We want it to be a good place of learning. Every colleague who represents a constituency with a university or a higher education institution in it wants that for those institutions. It is up to the Minister to ensure that we continue to recruit overseas students and that they benefit from their learning experience in this country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

I was referring to people who, as I have seen when we have removed them, have been in the UK for a decade or more, perpetually renewing a student visa and clearly making no progress. That is an abuse of the system. We were talking about that, not about trying to micromanage someone’s academic career.

Let me do something that I cannot always do and give some positive news to the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) about London Metropolitan university. I will not rehearse the past in great detail, but I have put a lot of work into this—it happened just about the time at which I was given this job and at which my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) became the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice—and I am absolutely convinced that the UK Border Agency, as it was, took exactly the right decision to revoke London Metropolitan university’s sponsor licence. It was not fulfilling its responsibilities by any measure. Nobody in the sector has defended it and its behaviour was, I am afraid, well known.

The positive news, which shows that the system works, is that we have worked closely with London Metropolitan university and it has made significant improvements to its system and to the administration of how it delivers on its requirements. It has now been awarded an A-rated sponsor licence, which means it can sponsor international students, and it has 12 months to build up a track record and apply again for highly trusted sponsor status. That is very positive. The Home Office has worked very closely with the university—[Interruption.] I think the hon. Member for Rhondda is asking how many students there are. The university can recruit only 15% of the number it could originally have while it is an A-rated sponsor.

The hon. Member for Islington North asked me about this subject first. I do not have the specific details of all the students that were there and what has happened to them, but we have those data because we wrote to every single one. I will write to the hon. Gentleman, since the university is in his constituency, and I will put a copy of my reply in the Library—[Interruption.] I will also send a copy to the hon. Member for Rhondda and I will include the details of how many have left the country.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am grateful for that information and look forward to receiving the Minister’s letter. Does this mean that students who started their second year last September will now be able to complete the third year of a three-year degree course and that we are back on track towards getting highly trusted status restored in a year’s time?

[Mr Harper]

It might be more sensible if, rather than trying to answer a lot of specific questions, I set out the detail about the university when I write to the hon. Gentleman. As I said, I shall copy the letter to the hon. Member for Rhondda and will put it in the Library so that other Members can see it. The story is positive, as the university has started to deliver on its compliance requirements.

The Home Office is now working closely with universities and Universities UK on a co-regulation initiative to set out their responsibilities clearly for them. We have had a number of workshops with those universities and they have found that very helpful. I have certainly had positive feedback from UUK, the Russell Group and individual universities I have visited, and they have seen a change in their relationship with the Home Office. It is important that we continue to improve that and I have asked the Home Office to continue to do so.

Abu Qatada

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

As I have made clear both in the Chamber and outside it, I believe that we need to think about our relationship with the European convention on human rights and European Court of Human Rights. I believe that while we are members of the convention and subject to the Court, we should abide by the rule of law—that is what people would expect the Government to do—but I also believe that we need to change the relationship, and that everything should be on the table in that regard.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Does the Home Secretary recognise that the influence of the European convention on human rights over many years has been beneficial in outlawing questioning under torture and protecting the human rights of many people throughout Europe, including people in this country? Does she also recognise that persuading Jordan to accept a non-torture clause in the putative treaty that she has presented to the House was a product of the values of the European convention? Is it not the case that we should be talking not about leaving it, but about extending the values contained in it to the rest of the world if we can possibly do so?

[Mrs May]

The European convention was signed for a particular purpose. Over the years, the European Court has itself interpreted the convention in particular ways, and I believe that when it raised the issue of Abu Qatada and article 6, it moved the goalposts.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned torture in connection with Jordan and the agreement that has been signed. I remind him that the Jordanian Government themselves changed their constitution to outlaw torture. The case of Abu Qatada went before SIAC, and SIAC reached the judgment that it did, because the case law had not been tested at that stage. The Jordanian Government themselves took the step of outlawing torture, and I think that we should congratulate them on the changes that they have already made in their legal system.