Rape and Sexual Violence: Criminal Justice Response

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Miss Dines]

Giving confidence to anybody who appears in court is important, particularly with this sort of heinous crime. As I mentioned earlier, we have completed a national roll-out of that pre-recorded evidence, which spares the victims of those ordeals and really makes a massive difference. It is one of the things that is brought up time and again when I speak to victims: they want to give their evidence in a fair way and not to feel that they are on trial. That is exactly why the Government are rolling out pre-recorded evidence. The victims code will go even further in allowing and in fact mandating prosecutors to meet people who are about to give evidence and who have been the victim of an alleged rape. It is a really good step forward and I commend the victims code to the House.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister very much for responding to questions and for her statement. While I welcome the fact that the 43 police forces in England and Wales are to implement a new approach to investigating rape, can I ask the Minister what information sharing there is with the regional Administrations about these protocols, and what additional funding is available to help the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland justice system to see this apparently attainable improvement replicated in Northern Ireland?

[Miss Dines]

This holistic new approach is supposed to affect and influence the whole way we deal with fighting rape—investigating, gathering evidence and getting cases before the court. I want to see that specialism and those measures rolled out everywhere. I would be very happy to get the relevant Minister to write to the hon. Gentleman to explain what more we can do to assist the special situation and what we have in Northern Ireland. It does not matter where someone lives; if a woman or a man has been raped, they deserve to have that support. I am grateful for the question.

Police Stations

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

The hour is late, but we still have an important issue to discuss this evening: police stations. In November 2017, the Mayor of London announced the closure of a substantial list of police stations around the capital, including Barnet police station. Ever since, I have been campaigning to save it. A key justification given for the Mayor’s decision was that the number of crimes reported at police station front counters has fallen. It is true that the way people report crimes has changed in recent years—it can, of course, now be done by phone or online—but being able to attend a police station front counter and talk to someone face to face is still an option valued by many, especially the elderly or those who may not be comfortable in the digital environment.

Moreover, police stations perform other vital functions in addition to front counter services. Crucially, they are a place to locate officers, but they also provide facilities such as evidence and equipment storage, police vehicle parking, and custody suites and cells. As such, what is even more worrying than the loss of a front counter is the loss of the physical presence of the police in a particular locality. In the six years since Mayor Khan announced the closure of Barnet police station’s front counter, that police station building has thankfully remained in use by officers, both neighbourhood police and other teams.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Theresa Villiers]

I will.

[Mr Speaker]

I thought you would at least allow the right hon. Member to get under way. I call Jim Shannon.

[Jim Shannon]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. The right hon. Lady is right to mention community policing—it is about not just the buildings, but the community officers and the contact with their local communities. She made a very helpful intervention in the debate on the Northern Ireland budget that referred to that issue. I echo her request to ensure that not only the buildings, but the community policing is there, because it is the eyes and ears of the community. It is about making policing better.

[Mr Speaker]

I am sure that the right hon. Member, if given time, would have got to that.

Ethnic Minority and Migrant Victims of Violence Against Women and Girls

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for bringing forward the debate. I make my point with great sadness—the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), has a passion for the subject, and she knows this better than most—because, unfortunately, in Northern Ireland we have had some 42 murders of women over a five-year period. That is the highest rate in all Europe, second only to Romania, and it tells me that in Northern Ireland the murder of women and disrespect for women are at higher levels than almost anywhere else. That grieves me greatly.

We always look to the Minister for a positive response, which is what we seek from the debate and what the hon. Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) is rightly asking for. When it comes to having better services in place, it is important that the Minister corresponds with the Minister responsible in the Northern Ireland Assembly to ensure that protection for women across this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is improved, especially in Northern Ireland.

[Kate Osamor]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that important and powerful intervention. Unfortunately, violence against women does not discriminate: it can happen anywhere. I hope the Minister will take on board the shocking numbers that the hon. Gentleman just relayed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

Migration is a very complex issue, and of course we have to balance the needs of the labour market. That is why we are very pleased to support well-crafted youth mobility schemes. There is one with India, and I have just come back from New Zealand, where we have expanded our youth mobility scheme. They are great schemes that allow the exchange of young people, who can come here to serve and work in our economy.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is very clear that the issue of migration must be settled and sorted out. At the same time, it is important to note that those who have come from eastern Europe, the middle east and Africa are contributing to the economy of my Strangford constituency. I think the Secretary of State is committed to ensuring that continues, but what discussions has she had with the Northern Ireland Assembly to ensure that we continue to have the workers we need?

[Suella Braverman]

No single measure can control net migration, but as the Prime Minister has been clear, net migration is too high. That is why I recently announced a series of measures aimed at reducing the number of student dependants, which has risen exponentially over the past few years, and ensuring that students come here in a more proportionate and balanced way.

Migration and Economic Development Partnership

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call Jim Shannon.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

It does not mean that we are at the end of the statement. It just means that, in the circumstances, I am being kind to the hon. Member for Strangford.

[Jim Shannon]

I am sure the Secretary of State was saying, “Great, it is all over.” I jest, but it is not fair to do so, because it is a very serious matter.

Although I agree with the Secretary of State that there must be an end to boatloads of young refugees circumnavigating the system in place, the Court has determined that the risk of refoulement from Rwanda to other countries means that the Government’s policy cannot be carried out legally. Will the Secretary of State outline how she believes the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland can stop the influx while fulfilling our human rights obligations, which is not just a legal matter, but a moral one.

[Suella Braverman]

The hon. Gentleman is right: this is not just a legal matter; it is a moral one and it is of a political salience that I have not seen for a long time in our country. The vast majority of the British people want us to stop the boats. They want us to fix this problem. That is why I am encouraged with every step that we take on this journey. The reality is that we believe in the lawfulness of our agreement with Rwanda, and, as the Court found, the conditions in which people will be accommodated in Rwanda per se are lawful and they will be treated lawfully and humanely. It is about whether there is a risk of refoulement—of them being relocated on to a third country that may not be safe. That is the point of dispute in the judgment. We are seeking permission to appeal. We believe in the lawfulness of this scheme and we have confidence in delivering it as soon as possible.

Illegal Migration Bill: Economic Impact Assessment

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

No. As I have said on many occasions, the approach we are taking is to introduce one of the most creative and robust systems of any country in the western world.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I recognise that the Minister and the Government have a big illegal migration issue to sort out, but the economic impact assessment does not paint an accurate picture. Without foreign staff our NHS would collapse, and without the support of grandparents to help with children our workforce would collapse. The assessment does not do justice to the fact that we as a nation are infinitely richer thanks to those who choose to come here to work and raise their families, and who make the choice to be the best of British alongside those of us who were born here.

[Robert Jenrick]

The difference is that the people to whom the hon. Gentleman has referred come here legally. We welcome people who come here legally—as visitors on tourist visas, as workers on work visas, as NHS workers on NHS and social care visas—but it is very different if people break into our country, flagrantly breaching our laws. No other country in the world would tolerate that, and neither should we.

Population Growth: Impact of Immigration

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir John Hayes]

That is entirely true. Indeed, there is a huge gulf between the expectations and the sentiments of the vast bulk of the British population on this subject and those of that awful marriage of greedy plutocrats and doubt-fuelled liberals, who seem to think that endless migration is acceptable. My hon. Friend is right: this has been done without consent—indeed, without as much as consultation, let alone consent.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the right hon. Gentleman on bringing this forward. I understand the direction he is going in, but my understanding is that 1.2 million people migrated to the UK and 557,000 left to go elsewhere. That leaves a balance, as the right hon. Gentleman said, of 606,000 at the end of June ’22. Does the right hon. Member accept that many of the people who are coming here have a contribution to make to society and can build society alongside us? I understand that economic migrants are outside of this system, but there are many who want to make a contribution. Does he accept that fact, and does he think that the contributions they make to the NHS and to families are important?

[Sir John Hayes]

Yes, of course I accept that and I will say a bit more on that later on. Of course it is true that people come here and make remarkable contributions to our communities and to our society. This is not about a failure to acknowledge that contribution; it is about dealing with the unprecedented scale and pace of it. It is impossible to sustain this level of migration for reasons I will set out.

To be clear about the relationship to population, migration alone accounts for 57.5% of population growth in England and Wales. Since 2001, the UK population has increased by 8 million, of which nearly 7 million was due to immigration. Just imagine that figure for a moment. To put it in context, that equates to the combined populations of Birmingham, Manchester, Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Peterborough, Ipswich, Norwich, Luton and Bradford. A much higher population increase can be expected in future years unless we do something radical to address this problem.

Asylum Applicants: Mental Health and Wellbeing

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Bacon]

I do agree with the hon. Gentleman, and the point of my bringing this case to the House is to highlight the fact that Home Office officials simply are not approaching the issue with anything like sufficient urgency to sort it out. I reiterate the point I made earlier: I make no criticism of Ministers in this regard, because I do not doubt for one second that every Home Office Minister is straining every sinew to make this a reality. My criticism, such as it is, is aimed squarely at the officials, who do not seem to see these people as people; they see them as problems they will get to when they have time.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing forward an issue that is important to him, and congratulate him on being so assiduous. Does he not agree that our obligations—and, I believe, our moral duty—must mean that, as well as feeding and sheltering asylum seekers, we ensure they are supported to survive in this land, which is foreign to them, and are given help to assimilate, rather than being left voiceless and frightened in a hotel room with their children, wondering for weeks what is going to happen next?

[Gareth Bacon]

I have a lot of sympathy with that point. It is critical that we process asylum claims much more quickly because while those claims are in abeyance, the asylum seekers are living in stasis. It might be that people who come to claim asylum are not asylum seekers, but economic migrants. That does not make them bad people, but it does mean that they are illegal immigrants, and they should be returned. What should not happen, as in the case of my constituent, is that they live in a state of limbo for years. That should not be acceptable in any way, shape or form.

I became aware of Mr A’s case on 14 March 2022, when a constituent made contact to request that I engage with the Home Office. Back then, my constituent had already noted Mr A’s deteriorating mental health. However, despite my office’s regular efforts to obtain updates, it was not until August 2022—five months later—that the Home Office responded, and only to say that Mr A would have to wait a further six months for an update.

I am sure the House can imagine the effect that that message had on Mr A. Indeed, only a few days after receiving that news, he climbed up Tower Bridge with the intention of attempting to kill himself. Fortunately, he was talked down. He was taken to hospital and later returned to the accommodation with which he had been provided in Biggin Hill. Given the elevated risk of harm displayed by Mr A, my office contacted the Home Office to alert it, in the hope that a sense of urgency would be felt by those in charge of processing the case. However, several more months went by without a resolution of any kind.

In January, therefore, I met with Mr A and another of my constituents, who had been helping him. During our meeting, Mr A presented me with evidence for his asylum claim. That included X-ray images of his body. Disturbingly, the images showed a large amount of metal shrapnel lodged in his torso and limbs as a result of being shot at by the Syrian regime. The evidence also included photographs of him after he had been beaten with an iron bar. Faced with this disturbing evidence and having no success at all in persuading Home Office officials to progress Mr A’s case, my office informed officials that if no progress had been made in two weeks—that is, by 3 February—I would seek a meeting with the Home Secretary to personally brief her on the situation, place the entire file in her hands and ask her to intervene. I hoped that that might lift the all-pervading sense of disinterest and inertia.

No such luck: on 31 January, I received an email from Home Office officials that gave no additional information and no indication as to when a decision would be made, and that claimed to have sent a response to Mr A on 16 January. Neither Mr A nor my other constituent who attended the meeting with me on 20 January—four days after the Home Office letter was allegedly sent—had mentioned that letter. On 1 February, my office called the Home Office hotline to request a copy of it. The response we received was that the Home Office was unable to locate the letter, and the officials stated that it had not been uploaded to the system. When they asked my staff member if he would like to request that they find the letter and send it to him, and he said he would indeed like them to do that, he was told that that would be treated as a new query and it would be sent to my office within 20 working days. You could not make this stuff up.

Later that day, I informed my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey), who is a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Office, of my intention to seek a meeting with the Home Secretary. He chased my request diligently, and three weeks later, on the morning of 22 February, he informed me that he had made progress on securing the meeting and asked me for Mr A’s date of birth and case reference number, which I passed to him a short while later. At 6 pm, he informed me that he had secured a meeting with the Home Secretary in her office in the House, scheduled for 6.45 pm that evening.

When I turned up for the meeting, I was brusquely turned away by a Home Office special adviser called Jake Ryan, who refused to allow me in. When my hon. Friend told him that that was unacceptable, the special adviser swore in his face. The high-handed arrogance of this unelected political appointee was staggering. I gather that my hon. Friend escalated the situation to higher authorities because at last there was movement on Mr A’s case. When I finally attended a meeting with the Home Secretary on 1 March, she informed me that officials had determined Mr A’s case. He would be granted 30 months to remain in the country and his application for asylum was refused on account of him being a Chilean national. The House will recall that I had been informed that, while Mr A had a Chilean grandmother, he is not a Chilean national, has no living Chilean relatives and, indeed, has never visited Chile.

Giving Mr A limited leave to remain means that he cannot regularise his life here or bring his family. Furthermore, giving him limited leave to remain, after which he will presumably be returned to Syria or sent to Chile, which apparently has a returns arrangement with Syria, is terrible news for Mr A because it significantly increases the likelihood of him being returned to a country where there is a direct threat to his life. The fact that the special adviser refused to allow me to see the Home Secretary on 1 March is extraordinarily frustrating, because had he not done so, I would have been able to alert her to those facts and it is possible that a different outcome to Mr A’s case would have been achieved.

In the meeting on 1 March, I asked the Home Secretary for the case to be looked at again by officials, and she assured me that it would be. Two weeks later, on 15 March, I received formal notification from the Home Office of the decision it had taken. The relevant sections of the letter read:

“On 3rd November 2020, Mr A submitted a claim for asylum; I apologise for the delay in progressing this case and any distress this may have caused.”

For the avoidance of doubt, that letter was written in March 2023. The delay referred to amounted to two years and four months. The letter continued:

“Mr A had a series of significant safeguarding issues (suicide attempts); We take the mental health and wellbeing of asylum seekers very seriously. We discussed Mr A’s case with officials and there were a number of delays due to the sensitivities and complexities of the case.”

The claim that Home Office officials take these issues seriously is one that I treat with a great deal of scepticism, certainly in the context of this particular case. Again, for the avoidance of doubt, it was the disinterest and protracted institutional inertia of Home Office officials that caused the safeguarding issues that they referred to.

The letter then stated:

“Mr A’s application was fully considered and the asylum and Humanitarian Protection aspect of the claim has been refused as Mr A does not have any individual protection needs in Chile.

However, we will be granting Mr A a period of leave of 30 months on the basis of his private life as, given his vulnerabilities, there would be insurmountable obstacles to him establishing himself in Chile.”

So on the one hand the Home Office accepts that Mr A would be unable to establish himself in Chile, but on the other it is refusing him asylum here, thereby condemning him to suffer another two and a half years of the purgatory.

National Security Bill

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 26th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Holly Lynch]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for making that important point. The annual report lists a number of policy Departments. Although the Select Committees do incredibly important work, they are not able to see the same information because their members do not have the same clearance as members of the ISC. It is quite right that such information and such scrutiny fall to the ISC, which alone can do that important work.

We have previously discussed that one of the starkest revelations from that annual report is that the ISC has not been able to secure a meeting with a Prime Minister since December 2014, nearly nine years ago. I welcomed the Chair of the ISC’s intervention when we debated the merit of the previous amendment, saying that the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) had pledged to meet the ISC. However, given her exceptionally short tenure in office, we will never know if that meeting would have taken place—her name is No. 4 on the list of five Prime Ministers who have been in office since 2014.

Such a meeting is just one of the considerations for an updated MOU, but knowing how often this issue has come up, both in this House and in the other place, I wonder whether the current Prime Minister now has a date in the diary to meet the ISC. If we are to take Government amendment (a) at its word, arranging that meeting is the very least the Government could do to be able to point to some progress. Alas, it appears that they cannot point to that progress.

I am also interested to know whether the Government have spoken to the ISC about Government amendment (a). Given that the amendment seeks to assure us that the Government intend to do due diligence on engaging with the ISC, have they engaged the ISC about the amendment? Hopefully the Minister might be able to shed some light.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the shadow Minister for her thoughts. I suppose the rationale for opposing Lords amendment 122B is the Justice and Security Act 2013. Does she have any idea why the Government are reluctant to concede to a review as the legislation evolves? That seems to be a simple way of doing it.

[Holly Lynch]

It would be unwise to speculate at the Dispatch Box, but I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. In the absence of clarity, he is right to put that question to the Government. Why have we not seen progress on this? It would seem to be sensible and proportionate to expect that engagement happens between the Government and the Prime Minister and the Intelligence and Security Committee, and happens on a regular basis.

Lords amendment 22B, tabled by Lord Carlile—once again, let me thank him for his services to this legislation—has continued to enjoy broad support, both across the Benches inside Parliament and outside. We know, from examples that have been exposed and from the most recent annual threat assessment by the director general of MI5, Ken McCallum, that it deals with one of the ways hostile state actors and their proxies are seeking to gain influence within our democracy. When we debated the merit of the previous amendment on this matter, I shared the examples of those linked to so-called Chinese secret police stations who had been involved in organising Conservative fundraising dinners. I also cited the Good Law Project’s research, which claims that the Conservatives have accepted at least £243,000 from Russian-associated donors, some of whom were linked to sanctioned businesses and organisations, since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

There is a comprehensive case for these proportionate changes. The Electoral Commission has said:

“Enhanced due diligence and risk assessment processes would help campaigners identify foreign money, identify potential proceeds of crime, and establish a culture of ‘know your donor’ within parties—similar to the ‘know your customer’ approach, encouraged through Anti-Money Laundering regulations for the financial sector.”

I hope the Minister is persuaded by its argument that:

“These requirements could be introduced in a way that recognises the need for proportionality, with different requirements depending on the size of a regulated entity’s financial infrastructure, or the size of a donation, to prevent the checks becoming a disproportionate burden on smaller parties and campaigners.”

Similarly, Spotlight on Corruption has argued:

“The rules that are supposed to prohibit foreign donations are riddled with loopholes which enable foreign money to be channelled to political parties and MPs through lawful donors.”

That point has just been made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne). Furthermore, the Committee on Standards of Public Life, in its 2021 “Regulating Election Finance” report, recommended that laws should be updated and that

“parties and non-party campaigners should have appropriate procedures in place to determine the true source of donations. Parties and campaigners should develop a risk-based policy for managing donations, proportionate to the levels of risk to which they are exposed”.

We know that the risk is there, and Lords amendment 22B is a rational and proportionate response to that risk. The Minister has said that the Lords amendment is unnecessary and that donations are covered by other provisions, but I ask him once again, can he truly assure us that dirty money, with a price attached, is not finding its way into our system and our democracy?

Stop and Search

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

Simply put, it is because such searches prevent crime and save lives.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. The use of stop and search has been raised with me during an ongoing feud in my constituency, yet the Police Service of Northern Ireland has used stop and search as an effective tool to combat the transport and sale of illegal drugs, to take lethal weapons off the streets and to find evidence of criminal activity. Will the Home Secretary’s advice to police forces on the mainland be extended to our police in Northern Ireland? They live under a high threat level and need the legal ability for stop and search to be fully understood and endorsed. If not, will she ask her colleague the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to make this messaging crystal clear in Northern Ireland too?

[Suella Braverman]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, I cannot speak for the PSNI. Since the county lines programme was launched in England and Wales in 2019, police activity has resulted in more than 3,500 lines closed, 10,000 arrests and 5,700 safeguarding referrals, all linked to drug offences. That is a success story and we must keep going.