UK-Rwanda Partnership

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I remind the Home Secretary to face forward, so that his voice is picked up more easily and so that people can see him.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The Home Secretary and the Government will be aware that there has been some surprise at the reciprocal agreement to welcome Rwandan refugees to the United Kingdom. How can he demonstrate the safety of Rwanda as a third country while simultaneously accepting the conditions that produce refugees?

[James Cleverly]

The hon. Gentleman asks a very important question. This part of the treaty reflects the previous memorandum of understanding that has been in place for some time, and it is particularly tied to non-refoulement. It is envisaged that it will be used only in very exceptional circumstances, as I said in my statement. If there are circumstances where, for whatever reason, a refugee we have sent to Rwanda cannot remain there—these will be exceptionally rare cases—the only place they can be returned to will be the UK.

Violence and Abuse towards the Retail Workforce

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Liz Twist]

I most certainly do agree. My hon. Friend’s experience of visiting shop workers has clearly been the same as mine. She has heard the same stories, so we must do something to make such violence a specific offence.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for securing this debate. This is a massive issue in my constituency. My eldest son used to manage a local shop in the high street of the main town where I reside. He has made me aware of a few occasions when young people have gone in at night to steal items from the store and created a severe sense of fright and fear among the staff. A young girl who worked in the shop, a 19-year-old, was scared stiff—I use those words on purpose.

Does the hon. Lady agree that retail staff often face the most violent torrents of abuse and that more must be done to protect their security? That could include two things: panic buttons or immediate access to the police. Quite often, the police do not attend.

[Liz Twist]

I thank the hon. Member, who is right to remind us that the issue is about not only supermarkets, but small shopkeepers; I think of some of the villages in my constituency.

I want to talk about some of the comments from shop workers in the north-east given in response to USDAW’s survey. I thank USDAW for sharing them with me. These are quotations. One person said:

“I have had name-calling, threats of being hit with bottles, needles and actual assault.”

Another person said:

“Shoplifters swing crutches, punches and bags. They have made threats on my life and talked of getting me jumped.”

Another said:

“There are homophobic insults, intimidating words and being spoken down to.”

Yet another said:

“I have been pushed over, punched in the head and jostled by a large group.”

I am sure that MPs across the House will agree that no one deserves to suffer such abuse simply for doing their job, and that is true whether someone has been working in a shop for 20 days or 20 years.

We should also highlight the fact that retail has a young workforce. More than one in four retail workers is under the age of 24 and more than 60% of new starters in retail are in that age bracket. Indeed, a small but significant proportion of retail workers are aged just 16 or 17. Retail offers fantastic opportunities for young people to get into employment and it is shameful that they might be deterred from doing so because of the abuse that might be inflicted on them. Many workers also have caring responsibilities that they fit around their shift patterns. It is unconscionable that they are experiencing such fear in their daily working lives.

I encountered these stories in my own constituency, but the figures suggest that this local picture is representative of national trends. In March this year, the British Retail Consortium published a report on the scale of the abuse and violence towards shop workers. It found that incidents including abuse, physical assault and threats with weapons had risen from 450 per day in 2019-20 to around 850 per day in 2021-22. It also found that only 7% of incidents of violence or abuse were prosecuted.

Legal Migration

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I am more than happy to put in the Library our estimates of the impact of these announcements and the previous announcements.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I understand exactly what the Home Secretary is trying to do on migration, and there is a need to do some of those things. I work closely with the Northern Ireland Fish Producers Organisation back home, and fishing is an industry that welcomes foreign workers as there is a clear shortage. When we left the EU, the fishing sector was promised that things would get better, that quotas would make stocks more available and that the fishing sector would therefore grow. The fishing sector welcomed that.

The minimum income was set at £18,600, whereas the average wage of a fisherman in Northern Ireland is £24,000. The English language became the next obstacle, and the fishing sector tried to agree to it. Will there be some realism on the skilled worker threshold of £38,700, which will not give the fishing sector the opportunity it needs to be active in employing people?

[James Cleverly]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. We will work with the MAC to ensure that, as we get rid of the shortage occupation list, we do not undermine key industries. I want to ensure that the fishing industry, whether in Northern Ireland or on the east coast of Scotland, can remain viable and profitable. That will always be part of our thinking.

Refugee Family Reunion Routes: Sudan

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

I am grateful to have the opportunity to draw the House’s attention to the catastrophic situation in Sudan and to highlight the circumstances of the people in danger there, some of whom have family members recognised as refugees here in the United Kingdom. I hope to take this time to illustrate how the UK’s family reunion rules make it incredibly difficult for those individuals—most of them children—to join their family members here. Finally, I want to ask the Government to think again about how they apply the family reunion rules, given the horrendous circumstances that those individuals face, and to urge the Minister and his colleagues to think about a new approach to facilitate and support reunion with family members here rather than hindering it, as seems to be the case in too many instances.

I turn, first, to the circumstances in Sudan. What is unfolding there has been described by the United Nations as one of the

“worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history.”

Since fighting broke out between the Sudanese armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, more than 9,000 have been killed. Horrific reports of rape and sexual violence continue to emerge, and clashes are increasingly along ethnic lines, particularly in Darfur. Every hour children are killed, injured or abducted. Many hospitals have had to suspend operations; others have been bombed or turned into military bases.

Last month, the Minister for Africa said that the violence there bore

“all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing”.

The fighting that commenced in mid-April has led to more than 1 million people fleeing Sudan altogether to neighbouring Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, South Sudan and the Central African Republic. Meanwhile, more than 5 million have been forced from their homes, internally displaced within Sudan. Among those displaced are almost 1.5 million refugees and asylum seekers from other countries, who had already had to flee persecution in their home territories to Sudan, particularly Eritrean nationals. More than 6 million people are on the edge of famine, and more than 20 million face acute food insecurity. More than 4 million women and girls face the risk of gender-based violence, with limited or no access to protection services and support.

Against that background, I have had the pleasure of working with the Refugee and Migrant Forum of Essex and London—RAMFEL—which has a number of refugee clients here in the UK with family members stuck in Sudan who want to get here. Altogether, RAMFEL represents 14 individuals—a tiny sample of that country—who have been struggling to leave Sudan to join their family here. Seven months on from the start of the most recent conflict, only two have made it here so far. Of those two, one—a child—was successful only after an appeal. Of the 12 who have not yet made it here, all are children under 18. Ten are Eritrean, and two are Sudanese. Of those 12, eight are still in Sudan itself—children in a war zone, facing extreme danger. The other four have made it to neighbouring countries but, as we will see, they are not out of danger yet.

To all reasonable observers, given the circumstances of those children, reunion with their family members in the United Kingdom must be appropriate and the right thing to do. Is it not precisely for such situations that we have family reunion policies at all? Family reunion would provide a safe legal route to the UK, allowing both the individuals here and those coming here to get on with rebuilding their lives. It would remove any temptation to seek assistance from people smugglers—breaking the business model, to borrow that expression. Most fundamentally, those children would be safe.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) on securing this debate—that constituency is quite a mouthful, and I hope I pronounced it right. He is at the fore in addressing this issue. In Sudan, 4.3 million people have been displaced, and 1.1 million are living in five neighbouring countries. The British Red Cross has been instrumental in reuniting more than 10,000 displaced people and their families. It can offer support with visa applications if the individual is based in London, Liverpool, Preston or Plymouth, according to its website. Does he agree that it is important to have visa assistance hubs throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with at least one for the devolved institutions in Northern Ireland.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman makes perfect sense. Organisations such as the Red Cross and RAMFEL, which I have been working with on this topic, are fantastic. The more support we can give them and people across the United Kingdom, the better.

These are precisely the circumstances in which we should have refugee family reunion rules. I regret to report that, unfortunately, the rules and processes are making it harder for these people than it should be. In particular, while UK rules are pretty generous for spouses, partners and children—I acknowledge that—they are more restrictive for other categories of relative, including siblings. Most of the children I am talking about today have lost their parents, and it is an older sibling here in the UK that they are seeking to join.

Furthermore, the rules require enrolment of biometric information before an application will even be looked at. That means the children cannot even get over the starting line, because the visa application centre in Sudan, understandably, had to close after the outbreak of the conflict. If there is no way to safely provide biometric information, surely we should stop asking for it in advance?

I will set out precisely how the application of the family reunion rules and procedures has impacted on the children. I am using pseudonyms to protect the identity of individuals. Sixteen-year-old Adila fled to Sudan to escape persecution in Eritrea, including forced conscription into the army. As a lone 16-year-old girl in a war zone, she clearly faces significant risks. She has already been displaced from Khartoum to a city in eastern Sudan and is struggling severely with her mental health. She seeks family reunion with her older brother, who is a recognised refugee here in the UK. However, hers is one of a number of cases that cannot get off the ground because the Home Office insists she attends a visa application centre to enrol biometric information. The centre in Sudan is closed, so that would mean having to make an irregular and dangerous journey to a neighbouring country to do it there.

I acknowledge that the Home Office does consider applications to defer enrolment of biometric information until the person either arrives at or is at least en route to the UK, so that the application can proceed. But even a cursory look at the relevant policy document shows that it is only in very few circumstances indeed where the Home Office allows that to happen. When 16-year-old Adila asked to defer enrolment, she was refused that application. The Home Office said she had not proved her identity with reasonable certainty and asserted that having crossed one border irregularly—fleeing Eritrea to get to Sudan—she could obviously manage to do so again.

I do not believe that that is a fair approach to take to a 16-year-old girl in Sudan. Allowance has to be made for the fact that Eritrean refugees in Sudan will almost certainly not be able to produce passports. A degree of latitude is therefore required. The idea that because someone fled over a border in fear of persecution, they can just be called on to make another dangerous and irregular journey is in itself a dangerous idea. It rides a coach and horses through the Home Office’s own policy. It would not be worth the paper it is written on. If an unaccompanied 16-year-old girl in a war zone cannot avail herself of the deferral policy, who on earth can?

Seven of the other individuals are in a similar situation. They cannot apply because they are in Sudan and there is no place to go to enrol their biometric information. Even among those who have made it out of Sudan, similar issues can arise. For example, Fatima, a 15-year-old Eritrean girl, had originally made a family application to join her brother in the UK just prior to the outbreak of the war in Sudan. She had got as far as booking an appointment at the visa application centre in Khartoum. That, of course, had to be cancelled when the centre closed after the outbreak of fighting. Fatima ended up trafficked from Khartoum to South Sudan some weeks after the outbreak of war, and was released only on the payment of a ransom. She clearly remains at severe risk of kidnapping, sexual exploitation and all other manners of harm. There is no visa application centre in South Sudan, but again the Home Office refused to defer biometric enrolment.

RAMFEL asked the Home Office if, as an alternative, mobile biometric enrolment could take place—someone would travel to South Sudan from a regional VAC to take the biometrics there. If required, RAMFEL would offer to pay, but even that reasonable offer was refused. I ask the question again: if those circumstances do not merit the deferral of biometric enrolment or other compromise action, what on earth does?

UK Citizenship Test

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Westminster Hall

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Life in the UK citizenship test.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I want first to talk about my constituent, Kate Jeffery. She is an Australian by birth, and she married her husband in Banbury in 1992. They returned to Australia shortly thereafter and then came back to the UK—her husband’s home—in 2017. They have settled here, and Kate has built her life here. I am happy to say that she has now decided to make North East Fife her home; it is a lovely home.

When the time came for Kate to apply for indefinite leave to remain, she did so on 26 April, almost eight months ago. In making that application, Kate also applied for an exemption from the “Life in the UK” test due to her dyslexia, which is so severe that it means she can never study for or take the test. She did this with the formal written support of her GP, which is no mean feat, considering the waiting time to see GPs these days.

This, sadly, is where things started to go wrong. In June, her exemption was refused on the grounds that GP support did not count as evidence of a diagnosis. Kate started to worry about her right to remain, so she reached out to my office for assistance, paid out of her own pocket for a private diagnosis and sought legal advice. Evidence in support of Kate’s application was sent by my office and her solicitor to the Home Office on multiple occasions between June and August, but no acknowledgment of receipt was provided, and there was no trace of that evidence when we rang for updates. We knew that at least one set of the documents was received—it was sent by recorded delivery—but still we had no progress.

After chasing throughout September, my office finally received notification on 25 September that the documents had been uploaded to the Home Office system on 15 August, so we all had a moment of temporary relief that this ongoing situation would be over. But, unbelievably, at the start of this month Kate was contacted by yet another caseworker at the Home Office who asked again for the same supporting documents to be sent. This is a farce and an utter failure, both in ensuring that leave to remain applications are dealt with consistently and in providing a basic good customer service level.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for bringing this debate forward. Many people have described the UK citizenship test as a “bad pub quiz”. The questions asked are incredible, and many people born British would not even pass the test, including you and I, Sir Christopher. Does the hon. Lady agree that for someone to understand our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, we need to focus more questions on the inclusion of the devolved institutions, such as the operation of governmental systems and how they support integration and community in the UK? She is outlining her constituent’s case very well.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for his intervention. I will come on to speak about the House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee report last year and the Government’s commitment to review the test, but I agree: there should not be a test of history or obscure facts. It should be a test that helps people who are applying for British citizenship or indefinite leave to remain to better integrate into UK society.

As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, we know that the “Life in the UK” test has serious flaws, and the Home Office knows it too, because of the inquiry I referenced by the House of Lords Committee, which concluded in June last year. Accessibility of the test for applicants with long-term physical and mental conditions, like Kate, was one of the specific issues highlighted. The Committee found that the threshold for exemption from the test is very high. That is understandable, but although the Government claim to have adaptations available to accommodate individuals, no information on those adaptations is available to applicants. Worryingly, although the purpose of the test is to promote social cohesion, all it does is test people’s ability to learn and repeat a lot of information. Many people struggle with that, and when we talk about education, we say it is a bad thing.

The Government’s response has been disappointing. In response to the House of Lords Committee’s report, they gave a letter from the former Minister with responsibility for safe and legal immigration simply stating that test applications are driven by candidate requests, rather than the other way round. In the first instance, that might sound positive: “We don’t constrain you; you tell us what you need.” But—and it is a big but—for those who are not familiar with the system, who are scared of losing their right to be here and who already face barriers to the process as a result of their disability, all that does is put up another barrier. Instead of making it easier for people with disabilities, the Government are making it harder because of that disability. It is completely subjective and dependent on a logical Home Office case handling process that, as I have outlined, does not seem to exist.

Illegal Migration

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is undoubtedly true that communities with fewer hotels have fewer public services. It is harder for people to get around because public transport is weaker. It is therefore more impactful when the Home Office takes hotels in such places, and we should consider that as we proceed to exit hotels.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I welcome the Minister’s statement and his determination to deliver solutions. It is clear from what he says that solutions are coming. I welcome the news this morning of the intention to cut the costly hotel bills, but will the Minister clarify whether that is because we are sending unsuccessful applicants somewhere else, and if so, where they are going? It cannot be a case of cutting hotel bills while increasing council costs by the same amount. Will the Minister also confirm that local women and children will be prioritised in housing over any young, healthy, single illegal migrant male?

[Robert Jenrick]

I share my hon. Friend’s sentiment and conviction. Of course we should be a decent, generous and compassionate country to those coming here from places of peril, but we also have to prioritise the interests of British taxpayers. We should not be elevating the interests of illegal migrants over those of the communities we are sent here to serve. Those who are granted asylum have access to the benefits system and they can work. We should all encourage them to do so and to integrate into British society.

Hate Crime Against the LGBT+ Community

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2023 Westminster Hall

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of hate crime against the LGBT+ community.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Cummins. I sincerely thank all colleagues present for attending today’s debate. I draw attention to my membership of the all-party parliamentary group on global LGBT+ rights, my role as co-chair of the LGBT+ parliamentary Labour party and, sadly, my own experience as a victim of LGBT+ hate crime.

I begin by thanking Stonewall, Galop and many other national organisations that speak up on these issues. Locally, in my constituency, I think of groups such as Pride Cymru and Glitter Cymru. I also want to mention the LGBT+ Safe Spaces venues, from our clubs and pubs to inclusive religious venues, and places such as the Queer Emporium in Cardiff, not to mention their brave security staff and managers, for all they do to keep our communities safe and welcome.

The fact is that, despite all the legal progress we have made in this country and the rapidly changing and welcome debate, particularly among younger generations, this is a perilous and profoundly uncertain time for the LGBT+ community in the UK. I would never seek to downplay the even worse threats of death and violence, let alone the absence of basic legal rights in many other contexts globally, but I can genuinely say that we are not in a good place here and things are getting worse.

That view is not just anecdotal. It is borne out by clear evidence and trends that I will come on to, and is sadly borne out by the stark, horrific reality that we saw in the homophobic murder of kind, compassionate Dr Gary Jenkins in my city of Cardiff in 2021. We can all think back to the horrors of the Admiral Duncan bombing in 1999 and the Stephen Port murders in 2014 to 2015 in east London, and all the failures around how that case was handled.

We are all aware of ongoing and more recent incidents, but I am conscious of the House sub judice rule and I will, therefore, refrain from commenting on a number of them. I know that colleagues will want to take particular care on that matter.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing this matter forward. Unfortunately, I cannot stay for the debate; I have already informed the hon. Gentleman that I have a prior appointment. As someone interested in human rights issues, I want to put on the record my condemnation of those who carry out hate crimes against anybody, wherever that happens. I fully support what the hon. Gentleman is putting forward, which I want to put on the record.

[Stephen Doughty]

I thank the hon. Member for his support, which is genuinely welcome. The cross-party group that we have here today reflects the wide concern across the House at recently released statistics.

I will refer to my own experiences, which are sadly all too common for others. I have been assaulted with a homophobic element in my own constituency in broad daylight. I have been told online by somebody that he would sort me and my issues out while I was at football, while posting pictures of me dressed up at Pride. I have been called a “faggot” while walking along Queen Street in Cardiff. Like many other members of the community, I have worried whether it is safe to kiss my boyfriend or hold his hand on the bus or the tube. Even as a parliamentarian on an overseas trip, I was told to my face that people like me are detested.

In National Hate Crime Awareness Week, rather than belittling the impact of hate crime or suggesting that it is a “woke” irrelevance, it is critical that we look into the impact that attacks are having on the community, across the country, against people who just want to love who they love, live as themselves and get on with their daily lives. In the UK in 2023, the place of LGBT+ people in society, and their safety and wellbeing—is it really such a difficult thing to ask?—simply should not be contested notions, be up for debate or, worse, lead to violence, intimidation or assault; and yet here we are.

Safe Asylum Routes: Afghan Refugees

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Robert Jenrick]

In a moment, I will come to the specific question around the numbers and how they relate to both British Council workers and GardaWorld employees. If time allows, I will come on to my hon. Friend’s question about the limiting factor of accommodation as well. Clearly, it is a significant challenge for us. The primary responsibility rests with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Ministry of Defence. The Ministry of Defence in particular is responsible for bringing forward service family accommodation and ensuring that it is available and of a suitable quality, so that once families have been granted their visas, they can come to the UK safe in the knowledge that they will have somewhere to stay, rather than being housed in a hotel, which I think we all agree is an unsatisfactory way for anyone to live for a prolonged period and which we have consciously moved away from. My hon. Friend will have seen the effort to which the Government went in the first half of this year to close the hotels that were housing 8,000 Afghans who had arrived around the time of Operation Pitting.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The Minister will be aware of the case, which I brought to his and the Secretary of State’s attention, of the gentleman who worked in the British Army alongside one of my constituents. He had to leave Afghanistan and live under threat in Pakistan with his wife and four children. We are keen to get him back to Northern Ireland—to Newtownards, to be specific. There is a job and house waiting for him; all we have to do is get him there, because he served our country. I gently remind the Minister that we still await a successful outcome for that gentleman.

[Robert Jenrick]

Let me make some progress, if I may, and I will return to those colleagues who wish to intervene. To address the hon. Member’s point, we sympathise deeply with the situation that many Afghans find themselves in, including those who are suffering because of their work in standing up for human rights and the rule of law, as well as those, such as women and girls and members of minority groups, who are facing wider persecution at the hands of the Taliban. Those are the reasons why we as a country have made the commitments that we have, and it is critical that we continue to deliver on those. The Government remain absolutely committed to the people of Afghanistan and the schemes that we established in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Kabul.

Since June 2021, around 24,600 people affected by events in Afghanistan have been brought to safety in the UK. They include British nationals and their families, Afghans who loyally served the UK and others identified as particularly at risk, such as campaigners for women’s rights, human rights defenders, journalists, judges and members of the LGBT+ community. The number includes 7,000 individuals brought to safety after Operation Pitting. Because of the various ways in which cohorts are defined, detailed international comparisons have to be made with some caution, but on most measures the figure is significantly more than the numbers brought to safety by many of our European neighbours. I stress that this is not just about the number of Afghans who have arrived in the UK, but about the manner in which we support those people in order to integrate them into the United Kingdom and ensure that they can begin to establish themselves here and lead fulfilling lives.

At-risk Academics: UK Support

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir Julian Lewis]

I entirely agree with everything the right hon. Member says, and I told a special adviser before the debate that I would be mentioning this case. I understand that there has been a statement of concern from four countries—the US, the UK, France and Germany—about this case, and I hope that those in power in Azerbaijan will take the representations seriously.

My first contact with Cara came during the fall of Kabul in 2021, when a constituent sought my help to bring her sister-in-law, an academic opposed to the Taliban, to safety in the UK and to a Cara fellowship at the University of Southampton. The task was neither quick nor easy, but it ended successfully with Cara’s help. It is a pleasure to see the executive director of Cara, Stephen Wordsworth, present at the debate today. I am grateful to him and his organisation for all they did for my constituent’s sister-in-law.

Since then, I have drawn attention to Cara’s work several times and was pleased to table early-day motion 1188 in May, with the backing of 20 more MPs on both sides of the House, to mark the anniversary of its 1933 founding statement. That success for my constituent was just one of hundreds of cases with which Cara is dealing. The charity has steadily built up its support network of UK universities and research institutes, now numbering 135. Most of them host a Cara fellow, often several, and act as their visa sponsors.

The House should note that Cara fellows come on regular visas, not as asylum seekers, and, to their great credit, the supporting universities usually cover much or all of the cost of each placement. Thanks to that support, some 170 academics from all around the world are safe with their families on Cara fellowship placements in the UK. At any given time the Cara team are working to help place dozens more, while other new applications are being carefully sifted and assessed. Many of them will soon lead to successful placements. For each one who comes, however, another will apply and will deserve help.

We talk often about attracting the best and the brightest to this country. With the generous support of the UK’s universities and research institutes, Cara plays a crucial part in this endeavour—but with the important difference that were it not for Cara, these highly talented people would in many cases be destitute, locked up, badly injured or even dead. The work is painstaking and unrelenting, and it is carried out by just 14 people. The hope is always that Cara fellows will one day be able to go home safely, and some do, with individuals recently returning to Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, Turkey, Iraq, Palestine and Azerbaijan, which we just mentioned in another context. Others, however, must continue to wait. I could provide dozens of examples but shall limit myself to just a few. For their safety and that of their relatives and friends still in their home countries, some of the names are pseudonyms.

Naila was an accomplished academic in Yemen in the field of public health. When she first contacted Cara, she was living with her husband and a young child. They were under siege and fearing for their lives. With Cara’s support, she secured a placement at Cambridge University, where she now works on a global talent visa.

Nadiya, a Ukrainian academic with vast international experience in civic education and citizenship linguistics, was forced to flee Ukraine with her 12-year-old daughter after Russia’s invasion. Cara helped her to secure a visiting research fellowship at the department of education at Oxford, where she is now continuing her research.

Wynne was a renowned environmental researcher and activist in Myanmar with over 30 years’ experience, who sought Cara’s help after the 2021 military coup. He is now a visiting fellow at Oxford, researching drought and water insecurity.

Oleksandra was a professor of economics in Kyiv. She left with her daughter after Russia’s invasion and is now a visiting researcher at the London School of Economics.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the right hon. Gentleman for bringing this issue forward. He always bring good things to Westminster Hall, but also to the main Chamber. Since 2022, over 100 Ukrainian academics have been supported to settle in the UK with British Academy and Cara at-risk fellowships. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we, as a compassionate and generous country, should continue to ensure that those academics from Ukraine are supported in their careers, and that this approach must also extend to the likes of women in Afghanistan, who deserve the very same treatment?

Dangerous Drugs

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I do not agree that the amendment is tinkering; it is an important measure, as I will outline in just a moment. On action against drug abuse more generally, we have a whole 10-year drug strategy that we are a year and a half into. It includes tough enforcement at the border and action to disrupt criminal gangs who deal drugs—we had a record level of drug seizures recently. In addition, we are investing record sums in drug treatment—£582 million extra over a three-year period—and increasing the number of treatment places by 54,000, so there is a comprehensive programme of work, both on enforcement to break drug importation and drug gangs, and, critically, on treatment to help people out of addiction and into a better life.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for clearly outlining the Government’s intentions. The amendment deals very specifically with nitrous oxide, and I welcome it. The Government have recognised the need to make changes. I would like more stringent drug controls—as, I think, would the Minister—but, bearing in mind the Government’s intentions, and the intention of some Members to divide the House, can the Minister confirm that the amendment will not place more onerous conditions on those who need to use nitrous oxide, such as dentists? Will they be outside its scope? At the same time, the need for the law is clear.

[Chris Philp]

Yes, I can provide that assurance. I will expand on this later, but those who are using nitrous oxide for legitimate purposes, which includes the catering industry, the dental sector, research and even semiconductor manufacture, will be outside the scope of these restrictions.

The hon. Gentleman touched on the control of harmful drugs more generally. It is important to control harmful drugs, particularly where they are very addictive and cause health harms. We have seen in cities in North America that have liberalised their drug laws substantially, such as San Francisco, Portland and some Canadian cities, that it has resulted in widescale public health problems.