Public Order Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

The people of Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke warmly welcome this important legislation, because it is doing exactly what they want to see: holding those criminals accountable for their criminality. No one is standing here seriously suggesting that, when the people of Stoke-on-Trent go to Hanley town centre to stand together to protest for the rights of the Kashmiri people—I have attended in person—the police will come in heavy-handed while we stand peacefully and speak through a microphone to constituents and residents from across the area to raise concerns about the human rights abuses happening to the people of Kashmir.

No one is saying that, when certain trade unions want to stand peacefully outside my office in protest, to demonstrate against some cause, I am expecting the police to come in and round those people up. I am not. I welcome them comng outside my office. I am more than happy to hear their cause, and engage with them in conversation and debate. Even if we end up agreeing to disagree, no one in their right mind is saying that the police are going to prevent that action from happening. No one in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke believes for a second that that would be appropriate. If that were the case with this legislation, I would stand up to oppose the Bill. But I am supporting it because it is doing something: tackling criminal behaviour.

People gluing themselves to the M25, where people are traveling at 70 miles an hour—women and children in cars that could easily crash, ending up with loss of life —are apparently willing to sacrifice their own safety and their own lives for a cause. However, they are not even able to stand up for their beliefs and values. The hypocritical nature of those campaigns is what drives people berserk in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke.

For example, Liam Norton from Insulate Britain says he “doesn’t care” about insulating homes—his words. He does not even insulate his own home. He has no insulation in the walls and has single pane glass. People simply do not like hypocrites. He even called himself a hypocrite. We are talking about individuals who are running campaigns—some crusty eco-woke warrior wanting to make some sort of point on Twitter, so they can get lots of likes from the far left that make that particular social media platform vile and abusive. Thank God I am not on it; great for my mental health. Then we see their actions. Gail Bradbrook from Extinction Rebellion drives a diesel car and takes an 11,000-mile round trip to Costa Rica, contributing 2.6 tonnes of carbon footprint, which is a quarter of a Brit’s yearly average.

Practice what you preach. Do not stand up and virtue-signal for the sake of it or try to pontificate—as the Labour party regularly does—in order to make a point that will get a few more likes in woke London or on Twitter. Instead, stand up for people of this country who want to see an end to criminal behaviour by those jumping on top of tube trains or blocking lorries, for example, some of which are carrying cooking oil or carrying oil at a time when we have a global fuel crisis. Those are the type of mad things that people are sick of seeing.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is right that these are largely deranged members of the bourgeoise making working people’s lives difficult, but, actually, the situation is more serious still. In the case of the demonstrations and protests that he describes, the action meant holding up an ambulance on its way to an emergency and stopping a woman getting to the home of her 95-year-old mother who had had a fall. It meant that the people protesting were wholly and completely disregarding the horror and pain that they were causing. That shows the sort of people they are. This is about not hypocrisy, but carelessness and heartlessness.

[Jonathan Gullis]

My right hon. Friend makes a fantastic point. Let us think about the people who were not able to get to their cancer screening appointment; the children who were not able to be in school because of lockdown and who are having their education in the classroom—with their expert classroom teacher—further delayed; the emergency services trying to go about their jobs, having to deal with protesters; and the police from as far away as Scotland coming down to London, meaning that they are not on the streets of the local areas that they should be serving, allowing criminals potentially to run wild there because of some selfish individuals.

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[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)]

Given all the crises that we are facing in our country, it speaks volumes that the first Bill of a new Parliament is yet another piece of authoritarian anti-protest legislation. The message from this Government is clear: their top priority is making it harder to protest against the cost of living crisis, rather than helping people through it.

The Government have already introduced some of the most serious and sweeping restrictions on the right to protest with their Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, and this Bill takes the assault on our rights one step further by reviving many of the failed measures that were rightly thrown out in the other place. Restricting protest, expanding discriminatory stop and search, introducing jail sentences and unlimited fines for demonstrating close to national infrastructure, and introducing new offences of locking on will not help my constituents to pay their bills, or, indeed, address many of the issues about which they will tend to protest.

This is yet another Bill that seeks to stop people making their voices heard, and it disadvantages our poorest and most marginalised communities. Laws are not reasonable or fair if rights are protected only for those who agree with the Government, and curtailed for those who wish to challenge the Government. I agree with the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black), who said last week that we were sleepwalking into fascism. This country’s tradition of dissent has paved the way to our rights and freedoms, and those protests are the reason why someone of my class, race and gender has the rights that I have; but this Bill contains measures that would have outlawed the protests that won votes for women and trade unions.

Given the Government’s trajectory, there is no doubt in my mind, at least, that these measures will be used against pickets in industrial disputes. According to the Bill, there will be a defence when it comes to trade disputes, but that defence will not be available to stop the new serious disruption prevention orders applying to individuals who take part in more than one protest within a five-year period, even if they have not been convicted. That obviously targets union officials who regularly attend and organise pickets. The Trade Union Act 2016, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act and everything in between, and now this Bill, have all but eradicated what was already a severely restricted right to picket. Our unions are part of the last line of defence against this Government’s attack on working-class people, and I cannot believe that the Government would stoop so low.

It is wrong that the Bill extends stop and search powers and introduces serious disruption orders when existing stop-and-search powers are already a key component of the racially unjust criminal justice system. Marginalised communities are already disproportionately likely to face criminalisation and harassment. Just last month there was a national outcry when it emerged that a black teenager had been strip-searched by police at school, having been falsely accused of possessing cannabis. There has been a string of revelations about the racism and misogyny that still blight UK policing, clearly exemplified by the vile racism and misogyny uncovered at Charing Cross police station and the already record low confidence in policing.

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. Lady speaks about stop and search. She will know that during a two-year period up to 2021, 150,000 arrests were made as a direct result of stop and search. She will also know that in 2019, 50,000 knives were found and removed. Those were arrests that prevented crimes, and those were knives that might have been used to take life or at least to injure. Surely the hon. Lady recognises that stop and search is just part of the means by which we can crack down on crime.

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy]

I have no issue with evidence-based stop and search. If there is a reason to stop somebody, that is absolutely fine. Unfortunately the police continue, again and again, to stop and search people from certain communities. All that that does is go further down the route of making confidence in policing extremely low, which does not do anything to solve crime.

When it comes to misogyny, I think about the horrifying treatment of those who attended the vigil in my constituency last year to commemorate Sarah Everard and other women who had lost their lives to violence. That made it clear that women opposing violence against women were not safe from male violence, even from those who were tasked with protecting us from it.

The Bill targets, in particular, the activism of groups who have already been mentioned many times: groups such as Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain, Kill the Bill and the Black Lives Matter movement. All those groups have used disruption to draw attention to major injustices such as the climate crisis, attacks on our civil liberties and institutional racism. Rather than taking action to address those injustices, the Government want to stop people speaking out about them. We must remember that today’s protests are signposts for tomorrow’s progress.

How does it make sense for the Government to support protests around the world while cracking down on the right to protest here? As Amnesty International has pointed out,

“these authoritarian provisions…are similar to repressive policies in countries the UK regularly criticises—including”

—yes—

“Russia, Hong Kong, and Belarus”.

The message to the public is very clear: we must put up with it, or shut up. This continuous attempt to criminalise dissent is a threat to everyone who wants to stand up for what they believe in, and to anyone who believes in building a better society. The way in which the Government continue to push this agenda makes it clearer than ever that we must oppose this Bill today, and oppose all further attempts by them to proceed with this authoritarian way of running the country.

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[Paul Bristow]

The right hon. Lady is a long-standing Member of this House, and she is enormously respected by me and by many people here, but I would respectfully point out that that is not what I said. What I said was that I was not convinced that many protests achieved anything much. There are notable examples where protests have achieved a great deal, but I am not convinced that many of the protests that we see each and every day now are achieving anything at all. That was my point.

Freedom of speech in our media should be matched by the freedom to express those views. I agree with the right hon. Lady that protest is important. That was exactly the point I was trying to make. Whether it achieves anything or not is beside the point. The fact that so much of it comes from political perspectives that are opposed to mine is also beside the point. Anyone tempted down that route just needs to look around the world. The scenes of protesters in Russia with blank signs being arrested are a reminder that what we could stand to lose is nothing less than freedom itself. I will always defend legitimate protest by those with whom I disagree. However, there are also illegitimate ways of protesting that go beyond the expression of a view to impositions on the freedom of others, to violations of our laws and to acts that can even pose a risk to people’s lives. Direct action is not a legitimate form of protest. Locking on, which is defined in clause 1 of the Bill, is not a legitimate form of protest. Obstruction of major transport works, which is defined in clause 3, is not a legitimate form of protest.

[Sir John Hayes]

My hon. Friend seems to be distinguishing between peaceful protest, of which there is a long tradition, as he rightly says, and violent protest. These acts are violent acts. The destruction of property, the attacks on individuals and the real nuisance and life-threatening damage caused when roads are blocked are acts of violence. They are militant and extreme, and they can be distinguished from peaceful, legitimate protest.

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[Matt Vickers]

I could not agree more. I am delighted to see 13,000 more police officers on our streets, and I want them to spend their time tackling the issues in Stockton South, rather than policing this jamboree.

Law-abiding citizens have been stunned by these scenes and want to see our police forces empowered to protect the rights of everyday people who are trying to go about their daily lives. Why should someone be able to prevent them from getting to work? Why should someone be able to prevent their children from getting to school? Why should someone be able to prevent their dying relative from getting to hospital in an ambulance?

Sixty-three per cent. of people support the creation of a criminal offence of locking on, and it is clear why. We must protect the freedom of our citizens against a minority who would seek to impede them. Moreover, I can see how genuine protesters would be frustrated. They turn up to a protest to stand up for a noble cause, and then some of these serial protesters turn up en masse like some sort of traveling circus. Full of clowns, these groups hijack protests for a superglue soiree. They bring individual campaigns into disrepute and damage the public support and sympathy that genuine protesters have worked hard to gain.

[Sir John Hayes]

My hon. Friend is making a compelling case for the Bill. We have heard from the Bill’s critics that the end justifies the means—that because the end is noble, in their judgment, any means, however violent or disruptive, are legitimate. Is that not the argument used by every extremist, indeed every tyrant, throughout history?

[Matt Vickers]

My right hon. Friend is entirely right. These actions undermine public support and sympathy for genuine causes, and they create division and misery in the name of genuine causes.

For everyday people right across the country who should have the right to go about their daily life without interference, for those who wish to undertake peaceful and legitimate protests, and for police officers frustrated by having to waste their time when they could be making our communities safer, this is the right way forward. Thanks to this Government, there are now 13,000 more police officers on our streets; I want to see them tackling crime, not distracted and diverted by these jamborees of disruption, division and criminality.

Finally, I disagree with the assumption that police forces will use the powers in this Bill disproportionately and improperly. Of course, there have been horrendous exceptions—cases of misuse of police powers—but we should differentiate these from the brave men and women who sign up as police officers and put themselves in harm’s way to protect us. They should be backed and given the powers that they need to get on with the job.

Nationality and Borders Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Tuesday 26th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

The hon. Gentleman’s remarks are effectively a charter for doing nothing. What is unacceptable is for people to continue putting their life in the hands of evil criminal gangs whose only regard is for turning a profit—they do not care whether people get here safely. We have a moral responsibility to stop this, and we have a moral responsibility to act, which is precisely what we will do through this Bill.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend accept my congratulations on the Patel-Pursglove plan vis-à-vis Rwanda? And will he ensure that, when people arrive here, they are on a plane as quickly as possible before some dodgy activist or fat-cat human rights lawyer can get their hands on them?

[Tom Pursglove]

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary should rightly take a lot of credit for getting this new world-leading partnership over the line. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) has been a passionate advocate for this approach, and I am pleased we are delivering it. I think it will make a genuine difference in acting as a deterrent and ensuring that we have global solutions to a global challenge.

In that sense, I welcome the steps that have been taken in the last few days. I hope my right hon. Friend will be reassured to know that we are working hard to make sure this is operationalised without delay and that, of course, people are on flights as quickly as possible. What we do not want at any stage—this goes back to why we need fundamental reform of the asylum system—is delay in the system. We want people to have certainty either way.

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[Stephen Kinnock]

Thank you for your wise counsel, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I have already pointed to the work and refugee convention amendments, but we also need to address differential treatment. Lords amendments 6D, 6E and 6F provide that a person can be a tier 1 refugee if they have travelled briefly through countries on their way to the UK, as somebody from Kabul or Kyiv would have to, or if they have delayed presenting themselves to the authorities for a good reason. They would also require compliance with the refugee convention and state that family unity must be taken into account. The Government should get behind the amendments. What in them can there possibly be to disagree with?

The channel crossings have been taken out of the Home Secretary’s hands and handed to the Ministry of Defence and the Royal Navy. The Ukrainian refugee scheme has been handed over to the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. This Sunday, the former director general of borders and immigration called for a new immigration Department to remove responsibility from the Home Office. With her Department now effectively in special measures, will the Home Secretary not just for once do the right thing and accept the amendments today, so that we can begin to repair some of the damage done by this deeply counterproductive legislation?

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I will not delay the House unduly; my colleagues would not want me to. I just want to make two points. The first is that the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) is right: these matters should have been addressed earlier, by successive Governments—including Labour Governments, by the way. Our immigration policy has not been planned strategically, as it might have been. The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point.

The hon. Gentleman also said that the system needs to be efficient. I spoke about Edmund Burke on Second Reading; he said that the test of civil society and the policy that relates to it was justice, and that when a policy ceased to be just it was barely a policy at all. For a policy to be just, it has to be ordered, efficient and consistent. Immigration policy has struggled with order, efficiency and consistency for a very long time. On that, the hon. Gentleman was also right.

However, the hon. Gentleman is fundamentally wrong about the amendments for the following reasons. First, the Lords seem unwilling to grasp a nettle that, as he described, previous Governments have also failed the grasp. That nettle is sorting out and amending a broken system to ensure that we can continue to give safe refuge to people in desperate need, and that the system cannot be routinely and persistently gamed—by people traffickers and, actually, by economic migrants pretending to be asylum seekers. That is the fact, and we have to face it and reform the system so that we can differentiate between the two. The Government are trying to do that. It is not an easy process, but the Lords seem to me to misunderstand the Government’s intention, which is to create a consistent, ordered and effective system.

In specific terms, the amendment pertaining to the Refugee Council is unnecessary because part 2 of the Bill is already in line with the Refugee Council. I am amazed to hear the hon. Gentleman say that asylum seekers should be allowed to work. What sort of signal does that send out to legitimate migrants who have come to this country seeking to perform a role in our economy to serve this country? What sort of signal does it send out to indigenous Britons—of all types and races, by the way—who are unemployed and seeking a job, when they are told they must compete with people arriving in the country as asylum seekers? That seems to be a nonsense, yet that is what the Lords amendment suggests.

Nationality and Borders Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The whole thing smacks of a kind of bureaucratic trickery whereby every option is blocked off by some additional piece of bureaucracy. The Bill should have been an opportunity to unlock some of that, but instead it leaves us in stalemate.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Appositely to the remarks of the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) about where people claim asylum and how it is processed, the Bill will allow a claim to be processed elsewhere before people get here. Based on what the hon. Gentleman says, that will be a positive move, will it not? It will also mean that people who are travelling through safe countries where they could claim asylum can do so there and have their claim processed there.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I think that the right hon. Gentleman is referring to offshoring, but as we have seen, offshoring does not work: it is costing millions and millions in Australia and every expert is panning the idea. If I have understood his intervention correctly, I am afraid that it is simply a non-starter.

The Opposition support Lords amendment 6, which removes the Government’s attempt to introduce differential treatment of refugees based on method of arrival. For instance, if a Ukrainian citizen were to flee and travel here across Europe while waiting for a Government visa office to open or a safe route to be provided, clause 11 would make them a second-class refugee. To be a first-tier refugee, they would have to have taken an aeroplane directly from Ukraine. That absurd technicality shows just how unjust the proposal is.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. My plea for Members to limit themselves to four-minute speeches simply has not worked. I point out to the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby), who intervened just now, that I consider that she has now made her contribution, because there is not enough time for everybody to get into the debate. We will now have a formal four-minute limit. I call Sir John Hayes.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Disraeli observed:

“How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.”

Many of the amendments put forward by the Lords are carelessly critical. They are veiled, as these things so often are, in a thin covering of assumed moral superiority, but surely it is not moral to oppose a Bill that tries to make the asylum system fit for purpose. Surely it is not ethical to conflate illegal immigration with the immigration of those people who diligently seek to come to this country lawfully and to surmount the hurdles we put in their path, and who, having done so, take pride in making the contribution mentioned by the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell).

Nationality and Borders Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I am conscious of the wide interest in a significant number of these amendments, so I will predominantly focus my remarks on the Government amendments in this first instance and address other matters in the wind-up.

Our asylum system must not reward those who enter the UK illegally from manifestly safe countries where they cannot possibly still be fleeing persecution and fear. People must claim asylum in the first safe country they come to, and making a secondary and unnecessary move to the UK puts lives needlessly in danger while pushing aside other vulnerable people, including women and children.

We must break the criminal networks that facilitate illegal immigration and exploit people. People who come to our shores illegally will be treated differently. Although we cannot resettle everyone who needs sanctuary, the large numbers we resettle in the UK will be made very welcome. We will be fair but firm in how we continue to embark on this landmark reform of our asylum system.

New clause 20 is a minor, technical amendment that will ensure a small number of references to justices of the peace in immigration legislation in the context of obtaining entry and search warrants in Northern Ireland instead become references to lay magistrates. This is a simple measure that tidies up the statute book.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

The Minister makes a critical point about claiming asylum in the first safe country. People traffickers rely on the idea of selling a destination, regardless of where the person starts. The measures my hon. Friend describes will frustrate the people traffickers and do a great service both to this country and to their many victims.

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[Tom Pursglove]

The point that I would make is that the Government will set out their intentions in due course. I think it is right not to pre-empt. It is important to make sure that this House is kept updated as to that work, and we will be very clear in our intentions.

[Sir John Hayes]

It is extremely encouraging news that the Government are going to—at last, I have to say—consider the Blair legacy of the Human Rights Act, but to substantially reform it will require legislation. That much is implicit, is it not?

[Tom Pursglove]

As I say, Ministers will come to the House with further details in due course.

Work is under way in relation to resolving the question of retained EU law, led by Lord Frost, with input from the Attorney General and the Ministry of Justice. For these reasons, I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to withdraw their amendment 150.

I turn to new clauses 18 and 19 on illegal immigration offences, tabled by my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) and for Kettering (Mr Hollobone). I hope that they and other hon. Friends supporting the new clauses will recognise that, as part of our groundbreaking new plan for immigration, the Government have sought robust changes to the law around illegal entry and similar offences through the very Bill we are discussing today. The Bill, which my hon. Friends seek to amend, already addresses and indeed exceeds the changes proposed in new clause 18.

Let me turn now to new clauses 24 and 52, tabled by the hon. Members for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) and for Halifax (Holly Lynch), my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) and the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis). As both new clauses regard settlement fees for non-UK members of our armed forces, I would like to debate them together. It is a fact that our Government and our nation highly value the service of all members of the armed forces, including Commonwealth nationals and Gurkhas from Nepal.

Draft Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011 (Continuation) Order 2021

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2021 General Committees

[Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Bore da, Ms Rees. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship and opposite the Minister. It is important to say that the security job, both in opposition and in government—I see a former Security Minister here—is unique, because such is the nature of our Parliament and politics that we debate these matters robustly. The current Minister has been impeccable in ensuring that the Opposition are briefed on all these important measures. We appreciate that, and I hope we can continue to work together in that constructive spirit.

Although these are technical measures, the statutory instrument has important implications for security and keeping our citizens, their families and communities safe. That is the priority for all hon. Members across the House. As I said during the passage of the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act 2021, we want TPIMs to be robust and impactful, but agile enough to adapt to fast-changing threats. TPIMs are, without doubt, a critical tool in our arsenal, but given the potentially far-reaching implications for subjects of a TPIM, we also recognise the need for them to be proportional, exceptional and imposed only where necessary, backed by the strongest safeguards and clear exit strategies.

We made important progress through amendments that we, with the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West, won during the passage of the 2021 Act, particularly on maintaining a higher standard of proof than was initially envisaged, on time limits for a TPIMs notice, and on vital additional oversight and review functions for the Independent Reviewer. Given TPIMs’ importance, we all agree it would be incomprehensible were we to let these powers lapse suddenly at midnight on 13 December, as they would if the instrument was not passed. We will not let that happen. We welcome the clarity the measures gives law enforcement, the security services and their partners, who work so hard on our behalf to protect people. We also acknowledge the support of the Independent Reviewer and the Investigatory Powers Commissioner.

I have a few questions for the Minister. Are the Government happy with the effectiveness of TPIMs and the level of the resources given to administer and monitor them? What impact have recent changes had operationally? As he said, as of October, there are five TPIMs in force, which is a relatively stable number. Does he envisage that continuing? We know that the terrorism threat is evolving in complexity, as we saw most recently in my region, Merseyside, at the Liverpool Women’s Hospital, and of course our tools must keep up. The impact of self-initiated, lone actor terrorism is growing rapidly. That is why we called on Ministers to look into that specifically and to publish their findings. I hope the Government will consider doing that. Tools such as TPIMs combat such threats and help to tackle individuals radicalised under the authorities’ radar—for example, online.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s early remarks and the tone of his speech. On lone actors, as he notes, there is a growing fear that people like the fellow in Liverpool—we acknowledge that the investigation is in its early stages—may not be known to the security services prior to their attack. How important does he think it is that we monitor internet activity closely, given that it is clearly being used by people to self-radicalise? These are very difficult and challenging matters, but that may well be the means by which we try to anticipate those kinds of activity.

[Conor McGinn]

The right hon. Gentleman makes hugely important point. That is the sphere that poses the fastest growing and most dangerous threat. I know the Government are bringing forward their draft Online Safety Bill, and I hope it will enable us to consider measures that directly address this threat. It is hugely important to ensure that our security services, the National Cyber Security Centre and GCHQ have all the tools they need to have at their disposal to monitor internet activity, but the truth is that it is very difficult, given people’s ability to remain anonymous, to self-radicalise and to plot acts of terrorism from a bedsit. I think we need to look at that alongside lone actor activity generally and specifically at how online activity is used. We will of course work with the Government however we can to support that, but the right hon. Gentleman makes a hugely important point.

We support the statutory instrument and the clarity the renewal of the powers brings. It would be a dereliction of duty were we to allow the tools to lapse suddenly, and we will act with the Government to prevent that. We will continue to hold the Government to account, working together in the national interest but scrutinising in the national interest too.

English Channel Small Boats Incident

John Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

There are lots of options that we could all look at, but we need the legal frameworks as well. That is why I am bringing forward the Nationality and Borders Bill.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

The tragedy in the channel draws into sharp focus an issue on which we have no doubt about the Home Secretary’s determined intentions. They are illustrated by her borders Bill, which will go some way towards fixing a broken asylum system that is gamed by traffickers, economic migrants and rights lawyers. She needs to go further, however. That is why the Common Sense Group of MPs has written to her saying that we need to disrupt the criminal gangs, process claims offshore and turn boats around in the channel, as the law allows us to do. People who voted to take back control have every right to ask the question: “If you cannot protect the integrity of the borders, what can you control?”

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend will know what is in the Bill. He mentions offshoring and third countries; all those options are under consideration, and our new plan for immigration covers those areas. He is absolutely right in his principal point, which is why we are determined. We will not cease after the measures that we have already announced, but look to augment and enhance some of them. With the state of crisis that we are seeing, with global migration issues right now and with the appalling loss of life that we have seen, it is incumbent on everyone—Governments, law enforcement, border controls and all the various agencies—to come together to stop the awful trade of human trafficking.

Funeral Director Services Regulation

John Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend might not know that I am chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for funerals and bereavement. There are two things that I wish to draw to his attention. The first is to endorse and amplify what he has said about the funeral and bereavement sector during the pandemic, because it rose to meet what was an extraordinary challenge, as he described.

The second thing, which is highly pertinent to my hon. right Friend’s remarks, is that one of the problems—this is highlighted in our all-party parliamentary group’s annual report, which was published recently—is that responsibility for funerals and similar matters crosses several Government Departments. The Minister is in his place, but of course this issue is affected by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and the Department for Work and Pensions—several Departments have responsibilities in this field. It is important that there is a cross-Government approach to funerals and bereavement. That is something the all-party parliamentary group has called for, and it is something the Minister might want to reflect on during the course of the debate.

[Jake Berry]

I thank my right hon. Friend for an excellent intervention. Picking up on both interventions, this is a very complicated space—the Department of Health and Social Care, of course, will have some input as well. In this sort of complicated space, things often get missed, so I hope that the Minister, who I know is not a believer in Government silos, will look to work across Government to ensure that we can bring some regulation to this area.

When I spoke to my constituents about this, both those affected and others, they were shocked and surprised to find out that this sector, which people access at such a vulnerable moment, is largely unregulated. We should seek to close the gap that allows people to opt out of all regulation for financial reasons—and they may have very valid business reasons for doing so—leaving people with limited redress. In all fairness, the two best known regulating bodies, the National Association of Funeral Directors and the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors, are seeking to address the issue. They have been proactive, which is good. It is not just those two bodies that are calling for regulation, of course. The Competition and Markets Authority recently looked at funeral services, as my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) will know from his work with the all-party parliamentary group for funerals and bereavement. We should seek more regulation in this space.

I am aware of the work being undertaken by David Heath, the former Member for Somerton and Frome, who is the chair of the Independent Funeral Standards Organisation. I understand from David, who is doing excellent work with that organisation, that it will be up and running from January, trying to regulate and work with the sector to seek further regulation. Of course, there is no compulsion on any funeral director to take part in that organisation, and there is no compulsion on funeral directors and other bereavement services to join the existing trade bodies.

I hope that the Minister will take up the excellent suggestion of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings: to seek to work across Government to ensure that we find a solution to the doubt in this area in relation to regulation. What would be exceptionally helpful for the industry—and if he cannot do it today, it may be something for another day or something on which he could write to me—is to set out a direction of travel on regulation for all of those competing organisations. They should be given a period of time to get their own house in order, but they should understand that that is a limited period of time. Different regulators have competing interests, and they need some Government direction to work together, come together and be forced to talk to one another. If they fail to find an industry-led solution, which would be my preferred route, there should at least be an understanding that the Government will keep this under review and may, at some point in the future, intervene.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Pursglove]

At the moment we are looking at a self-regulation approach to this issue. There are challenges in going down the route of formal regulation, which, of course, takes time because it needs statutory underpinning, often involving primary legislation. We expect the sector to look intensively and at speed to improve the situation. There is an onus on all those providing these services to live up to the standards that we would all expect funeral directors taking care of our loved ones or friends to live up to, for the reasons so eloquently outlined by my right hon. Friend.

[Sir John Hayes]

My right hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) has done a great service to his constituents. He has been their champion and drawn this tragic case to the attention of the House. Out of the tragedy, the family will be hoping that something positive will come, and today can be the beginning of that. My right hon. Friend drew attention to the work of David Heath, who recently met the all-party parliamentary group. Will the Minister agree to meet the all-party parliamentary group to take these matters further, in exactly the spirit of my right hon. Friend’s speech?

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I want to really engage with this issue in the spirit in which all Members have come to the debate. With that in mind, I would be delighted to meet the APPG and to hear the concerns of its members. In fact, my right hon. Friend has pre-empted what I was going to offer later in my remarks. As a parliamentarian, he is very good at teasing out these sorts of commitments.

[Sir John Hayes]

I have stood in the Minister’s place many times.

[Tom Pursglove]

My right hon. Friend has indeed. He has managed to extract that commitment from me and I will certainly look forward to that discussion. As he has described, none of us in this House wants to see any other family go through the wholly unacceptable distress that the family in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen have been through, at a most difficult time for them. We cannot allow that to happen in future. There is an enormous onus on the sector to drive forward this improvement and these quality standards. At this point, we think it is right that they take responsibility for achieving that, but we reserve the right to have a greater involvement in these matters if we do not see the sort of improvement that I think we would all expect.

In light of the Competition and Markets Authority’s recommendations, both the sector’s representative organisations—the National Federation of Funeral Directors and the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors—are taking positive steps to introduce and embed improved self-regulation and complaint-handling arrangements. Encouraged by the sector’s proactive approach to the Competition and Markets Authority’s findings, we are continuing to work closely with it throughout the implementation of its new self-regulation regimes, with a view to assessing their effectiveness once they have bedded in. I hope that that gives some reassurance as to the improvement that my right hon. and hon. Friends are seeking.

Where funeral directors are not members of these representative bodies, I would expect them to look to the standards that the bodies are developing and to adopt and advance those standards within their own set-ups. I think that that is an important point to make. Cost, which Members have raised, is of course a matter for the representative bodies, but I know that the NAFD in particular is looking to make improved regulatory structures accessible across the profession, which again is very welcome.

In addition to its findings on quality standards, the Competition and Markets Authority made recommendations to address the lack of accessible and comparable information on the products and services that funeral directors provide. In the light of pandemic pressures on the sector, the Competition and Markets Authority has not pursued remedies to address that issue fully. Instead, it has introduced a range of “sunlight” provisions to support customers in making choices about funerals, and to ensure that the pricing, business and commercial activities of funeral directors, as well as the quality of the service that they provide, are exposed to greater public and regulatory scrutiny. The remedies include an obligation for all funeral directors to set their prices out clearly and prominently so that families needing to arrange a funeral can, if they wish, compare that information before deciding which provider to use. The Competition and Markets Authority has also recommended that, once conditions are more stable, it should consider whether a further market investigation is needed to identify whether additional customer protections are needed.

To return to the regrettable experience of the constituents of my right hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen, there are numerous pieces of legislation with which all traders, including funeral director businesses, must comply. In particular, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 sets out the standards that consumers can expect when they contract with a trader or business for the provision of services, and the remedies if those rights are breached. Where a trader or business fails to meet the standards for the supply of a service required by the 2015 Act, or the service does not conform to the contract, that could potentially be a breach of contract, and if so, the consumer is entitled to seek a remedy. If that cannot be agreed in correspondence, the consumer could then pursue a claim against the funeral director in the courts.

I want to pick up on the point made about the cross-Government nature of this issue, which again is important. I have made the point that, as a result of the pandemic, what we have seen is a stronger working relationship between Government and the sector. It is essential that that is reflected across Government, given the fact that elements of policy in this area intersect with various Departments. My right hon. Friend referred to there being silos and the fact that we do not want operations within silos. I hope that he will be slightly reassured by the fact that, as a joint Minister, across both the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, I am quite well versed in ensuring that elements of Government do not act in silos. In that spirit, I would want to engage with colleagues across Government to ensure that we get this right, and that is precisely what I intend to do. He has my reassurance on that.

I conclude by again thanking my right hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen for introducing this debate this afternoon. It would be impossible for anybody—any Minister or any Member of this House—not to be affected by hearing about the experience that he has described with real understanding, care and sympathy for his constituents who have been caught up in this terrible situation. I am very grateful to him for bringing this to the House’s attention. I want him to know that I am very mindful of the situation that he has described, that this is something that I want to go away and look at further, that I do want to engage with the APPG that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) chairs, and we will ensure that that happens, and that, as I have described, there is a piece of work going on at the moment around self-regulation, but we need to monitor that closely, to see whether it achieves the objectives that I think all of us wish to see, and if that is not the case, we reserve the right to look at this issue again and to take matters from there.

I hope that that will provide my right hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen with some reassurance. I would also ask whether he could please express my condolences to his constituents family. They have been through a terrible time, and it really is very important that no other family go through the experience that they have.

Question put and agreed to.

Nationality and Borders Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christian Wakeford]

My hon. Friend gets very much to the crux of the problem. I am not going to talk about what threshold is right or wrong, but I am going to talk about the fact that we are trying to achieve a fair system that helps those who are most in need. That is what we truly need to understand. Our communities are rich in their diversity because of immigration and because of the people we have been helping. I think again of the Syrian resettlement scheme, which we are proud of. In Lancashire we have taken thousands, and I am proud of us helping those most in need, but for far too long the system has been exploited by people smugglers, criminal gangs and asylum shoppers, who cheat that system. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, people are paying extra either to break into a lorry or to get into a boat to be shipped across. That is not the right way to try to seek asylum.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

That abuse is not limited to people smugglers. It extends to the so-called human rights lawyers who know how best to game the system and to activists who encourage people to claim asylum on all kinds of different grounds, and when they fail to claim again. The system is corrupted by those individuals who seek not to defend the interests of the most needy, which my hon. Friend has described, but to exploit those who will do anything to get into this country, legal or illegal.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bambos Charalambous]

Criminalising people who have come to this country irrespective of what they have left behind makes them criminals. What law have they broken when they are seeking refuge here?

What we have seen playing out in the channel crossings over the past few days occurred because the Government have closed down all safe routes for refugees to travel to the UK for protection. People are being driven to make dangerous journeys because they are out of options. To this callous Government, it is all a game—pure theatre. The Tories use all migrants, an ever-easy target, as a distraction from their own institutional failings and the gross inequality that falls upon their citizens.

The Bill does nothing to propose refugee resettlement or family reunion routes and will only put more pressure on Britain’s broken asylum system. About 10% of arrivals are expected to be unaccompanied children. The Government should be properly addressing the issue of safe routes for claiming asylum and helping unaccompanied children. Penalising refugees is a clear breach of article 31 of the refugee convention, but even more disconcerting is that clauses 27 to 36 seek to interpret the refugee convention to suit the Government’s whim. Unilaterally deciding how international law should be interpreted never ends well for the Government. The reason they feel the need to do so here is that they know they will be humiliated when those clauses are challenged. Once again, it is not so much a case of marking their own homework; more a case of being judge, jury and executioner.

One thing the Bill will almost certainly do is ensure that people seeking asylum here are kept longer. Whether through imprisoning asylum seekers for four years in our prisons or detaining them in barracks, that is an awful lot of money to spend on something that is not going to work. I dread to think what impact that will have on our creaking criminal justice system. Again, we have not seen the sums. Why not? Surely the Home Secretary will have cleared this with the Chancellor and costed it?

[Sir John Hayes]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Bambos Charalambous]

I am conscious of time. I have to sit down in three minutes.

The Law Society of England and Wales warned yesterday that the Bill risks putting England’s global reputation for justice at risk—shameful. This is the Government who are reducing the country’s global standing so significantly. As if the inhumanity in the way the Government propose to treat asylum seekers is not bad enough, they go further by deciding to punish victims of modern slavery. The Bill peddles the Government’s signature toxic politics of fear and hostility by changing the standard of proof for determining if someone has a well-founded fear of persecution and making it more difficult for people to be recognised as victims of human trafficking. Despite choosing to start by disbelieving trafficked victims, there is nothing in the Bill about setting up a national operating standard procedure to train those whose first point of contact is clearly to identify victims of modern slavery. Why is that not in the Bill? Once again, it is just like the Queen of Hearts: sentence first, verdict afterwards.

We should most definitely be going after the traffickers and people-smuggling criminal gangs, but without international co-operation we will struggle to do that. The Bill is high on rhetoric, but low on action. Without introducing any safe routes, the Bill will be a boon for the international criminal gangs and a boost for their profits. Rather than breaking the business model, the Government have breathed new life into it by pushing people further into the arms of smugglers. Having reduced our ties with Interpol and tarnished our reputation with the international community, we have lost the soft power that things such as our commitment to international aid bought us.

We have been asking for safe routes to replace Dublin III since last year, but we have had nothing from the Government. Meanwhile, the Bill gives the Secretary of State new powers to act like the playground bully in delaying or suspending visa processing for citizens of countries that she believes are unco-operative with removals. In all honesty, if the Government seriously think that that will work in getting international co-operation, they are deluded. It is the same desperate politics that created the hostile environment and the Windrush scandal. Labour strongly opposes this misleading and deeply flawed legislation, and urges the Government to engage responsibly in a debate that recognises the humanity of those who have to flee their homelands and seek protection, no matter how they arrive in the UK.

This Bill is nothing more than a house of cards. It does nothing to address the crisis in our asylum system. It is deeply flawed and will end up collapsing if there are no bilateral agreements with our EU neighbours. We on the Labour Benches will be opposing the Second Reading of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes]

rose—

[Chris Philp]

I will give way in a moment. There is no worse example of that than the small boats crossing the English channel. About 80% of the people on them are young single men, who have paid people smugglers to cheat the system. They are not fleeing war. France is not a war zone. Belgium is not a war zone, and nor is Germany. These are safe European countries with well-functioning asylum systems. These journeys are dangerous and unnecessary, and push to one side those in greatest need, including women and children.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend has brought us this Bill. He deserves great credit for it, alongside the Home Secretary. But will he go further? Will he fulfil the pledge to actually turn back the boats in the channel that he has just described, using the Royal Navy, if possible? Will he process claims offshore, as has also been pledged? Will he do something to frustrate those lawyers who game the system by claiming all kinds of international obligations taking precedence over our sovereign law and our sovereign Parliament?

[Chris Philp]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his very timely intervention and I agree with what he says. This Bill contains provisions such that people arriving by small boat and other illegal means will be liable to prosecution and a four-year jail term, and people smugglers will face a life sentence. This Bill also gives Border Force the powers it needs to make interceptions at sea. Let me be clear: nothing in this Bill would have made the Kindertransport from the 1930s illegal. That was an authorised and organised programme that would be perfectly legal. Indeed it is rather analogous to the safe and legal route we are at this very moment offering locally engaged staff from Afghanistan. Let me also reassure the House, and in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), that there is no intention in this Bill to criminalise bona fide, genuine rescue operations by the RNLI.

Let me also be clear that nothing in this Bill infringes our international obligations. Opposition Members should study article 31 of the refugee convention, which makes it clear that it is permitted to impose penalties where someone has not come “directly” from a place of danger and where they did not have a reasonable opportunity to claim asylum somewhere else.[Official Report, 22 July 2021, Vol. 699, c. 10MC.] The people coming from France are not coming directly from a place of danger, as required by article 31, and they did have a reasonable chance to claim asylum in France. These measures are wholly consistent with our international obligations.

Nationality and Borders Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 19th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

In fact, the taxpayer will be saving money in the long run. We already spend over £1 billion a year on dealing with the failed and broken asylum system. If the hon. Gentleman has read the Bill and the new plan for immigration, which I urge him to do, he will see that there are a range of measures—

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Priti Patel]

I will.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am extremely grateful. Is not the truth of the matter that too often our courts exaggerate the significance of international treaties and obligations and, by so doing, frustrate the process by which we deport illegal immigrants, including large numbers of foreign criminals?

[Priti Patel]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question and for his observation. There are a range of aspects, certainly through this Bill, that we are seeking to address in order to make courts and immigration tribunals more efficient. It is wrong for them to have endless appeals, where individuals frustrate the appeals process and clog up the system. It is right that we do that because otherwise there will be individuals—genuine people seeking to claim asylum—who are simply not getting their cases heard, and we want to make sure that we can give them the support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

My focus today in the short time available—I cannot wait for call lists to end—is a very specific element in the Bill: part 4. I co-sponsored the Modern Slavery (Victim Support) Bill with Lord McColl and I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for meeting me and Lord McColl on a number of occasions to look for a way to improve it before it was published. I spoke on 19 October last year about the need for an immigration provision that provides confirmed victims—I stress “confirmed”—with certainty of recovery and the ability to focus on working with the criminal justice system to ensure that we increase the very low number of prosecutions for offences related to modern slavery. I want the House to hold that thought because it is critical. Our self-interest means being better on that element of the Bill.

Part 4 sets out several reforms on modern slavery. I am aware that the Home Secretary is seeking to meet varying objectives through the Bill and that she wants to reduce abuse of the system. I want to deal with clause 52, which will provide identified potential victims in England and Wales with assistance and support for a period when the person is in the national referral mechanism. Although I welcome the support for adult victims in England and Wales during that period being put on a statutory basis, as is already the case in Northern Ireland and Scotland, the support that clause 52 places on a statutory basis is actually less than is currently provided as a matter of practice in England and Wales, which is a problem. Essentially, whereas the current guidance in England and Wales affords 45 days’ support, as does the statute in Scotland and Northern Ireland, clause 52 proposes a reduction in England and Wales to just 30 days’ support for confirmed victims of modern-day slavery. I draw that to the attention of my hon. Friend the Minister, because it needs to be dealt with.

[Sir John Hayes]

My right hon. Friend has many faults, and I am aware of a handful of them, but one of them is not naivety. He has far more qualities, and his quality will tell him that the system is being gamed by all kinds of unscrupulous people. The risk is that modern-day slavery is one way of gaming the system.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I simply ask my right hon. Friend to notice what I said: I referred to those who already have confirmed status as a victim of modern-day slavery. This is important, because it means they have already gone through the NRM. It is a question of how we deal with them at that point. This will give time to arrive at the right conclusions.

Statutory support is provided during the national referral mechanism, so having no such support afterwards makes no sense. They go out of the NRM and are suddenly in the cold world, unable to navigate their way and fearful of retribution by those who treated them so badly in the first place. The provision of support to help these people is also in our self-interest, because it is in our national interest to ensure victims get sufficient support to allow them to help police and prosecutors with criminal investigations. In a way, by reducing such support, we are making things worse.

Clause 53, on leave to remain for victims of slavery or human trafficking, is at the heart of the Bill. I co-sponsored a Bill with Lord McColl to provide leave to remain for 12 months, along with assistance and support, for adult victims who want to remain in the UK. I gave evidence on this to the Home Office, and I am therefore disappointed that, instead of addressing the problems with discretionary leave that I highlighted last October, the Government have simply placed current practice, which is clearly not working, into a statutory framework.

Under clause 53, leave to remain will remain discretionary and the same justifications for its provision will apply: being necessary to assist the police with investigations, being necessary because of personal circumstance or being necessary to make a compensation claim.

The ability of a victim to remain in the UK is unchanged by the Bill, and one would therefore expect that the proportion of confirmed victims in receipt of leave to remain would remain low. In other words, this Bill would perpetuate rather than address the current arrangements in which the vast majority of confirmed victims are denied leave to remain in the UK to help their recovery. The police have made it very clear that they want victims to be settled in accommodation so that they know where they are and they can give evidence.

I support much of what the Bill is trying to do, and I understand the motives behind it, but part 4 deals with those from the most terrible backgrounds and facing the worst persecution, trafficked as they are. We need to give them time, and that time will help us prosecute the very people we wish to go after. Being good and decent is a payback to us at the same time.

I support this Bill, but I look for changes to part 4 during its passage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Welcome to the Chair. Edmund Burke said:

“Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.”

Restoring justice and order to the chaotic and confusing asylum system broadcasts that a line in the sand has been drawn that will not fade away with every new boat that arrives on the beach. The Bill is a testament to the principle that laws must be just and be seen to be; otherwise, we can hardly call them law at all.

According to poll after poll, the vast majority of the public see illegal immigration as a serious problem. Is it any wonder when there were 16,000 illegal entrants into Britain last year, with 8,500 on boats? Those are the ones we know about. This year alone, 7,000 have arrived on those boats.

[Richard Fuller]

Does my right hon. Friend not think that somehow turning the debate simply into, “Everyone who claims asylum must have a legitimate claim and everyone who is against it must be racist” does not help in trying to get to the just law that he is talking about?

[Sir John Hayes]

Absolutely, it does not, nor is it just to pillory the public and those who speak for them when they argue that we should enforce the law and that migration should be controlled. As a number of hon. Members have said, legal migration has been out of control for some time, and illegal migration, by its very nature, is both unjust and unfair because it breaks the law. It breaches that principle that people who arrive here and pursue legal routes are doing the right thing and that those who do not are simply doing the wrong thing and should be deported. That is what the public think, and that is what we should say very clearly.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Is no one on the Conservative Benches remotely concerned that the Bill would see a Uyghur fleeing persecution in China, a Syrian fleeing disastrous war crimes in that country or a persecuted Christian seeking sanctuary on this shore criminalised with an offence that could see them in prison for up to four years, stripped of their family reunion rights, offshored and whatever else? Does nobody on those Benches have any qualms about that whatsoever?

[Sir John Hayes]

Surely the hon. Gentleman must realise that while the principle of granting asylum—of giving sanctuary to people in desperate need—is a noble one, it is being gamed, day after day and month after month, with people travelling through many safe countries before claiming asylum, repeated claims on a whole range of different grounds, and even modern slavery, which we all deplore, being used as a justification to stay here when it is invented. That is to insult—to besmirch—those who are really suffering persecution and who come here in genuine need. It is being gamed, frankly, by a combination of unscrupulous civil rights and human rights activists, and people-traffickers. Although they do not work together in an organised fashion, the combination of the two is damaging public faith in our ability to control our borders. If “take back control” means anything, surely it means taking back control of our sovereign borders.

When the average Briton sees the asylum system being played, it leaves them bewildered, frustrated and angry that we should be taken for such fools. British people do not want to pull up the drawbridge to the world’s needy. What they want is a consistent system that helps the right people in the right way: one that will remove those with no right to stay in Britain just as it protects those we ought to be protecting, not one that grants favour to those who manage to successfully break our laws when they first arrive here.

[Sara Britcliffe]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, contrary to what the Opposition are saying, the Government are not changing their approach to maritime law and those organisations and individuals will still be able to rescue anybody who is in distress at sea?

[Sir John Hayes]

As my hon. Friend may know, I am a former maritime Minister, and it absolutely right to say that the agreement that we have with the International Maritime Organisation to rescue people at sea is also being exploited by unscrupulous people, and we need to be mindful of that fact.

This Bill goes some way to addressing the huge gulf that exists between public perceptions and those of the liberal establishment that has too much say about too many things in this country. Criminal gangs and desperate economic migrants know that every time bleeding-heart liberals oppose tougher penalties and tougher measures—and so blur the distinction between those in genuine need and those who break the rules—they do immense harm to the cause of genuine asylum seekers.

Finally, let me say a word about foreign criminals, who have been mentioned. In 2010, there were 4,000 foreign criminals here; now, there are 10,000. Surely every one should be deported. We do not want to import crime into our country. We must take back control and we must pass this Bill to do so.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Angela Crawley.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

Now then, Janis Bite was 13 years old and living in Latvia at the start of world war two. Two years later, the Nazis came. Their request was simple: one male member from each family to go and fight the Russians. It was either Janis, his dad or his younger brother, so Janis went to the Russian front and witnessed the horrors of war in temperatures of minus 40.

When the war ended in 1945, Janis was classed as a displaced person—a refugee. Imagine that. He could not go back to Latvia, because he had been sent straight to Siberia and that is where they sent his dad, so Janis was given two more choices: the US or the UK. So he came to the UK to a small village in Derbyshire, where he and other refugees were housed in Nissen huts in army barracks. He did not complain or whinge or moan about the barracks or set fire to the barracks or make TikTok videos. In fact, they were so grateful to the UK that they all volunteered to work in the fields at local farms picking potatoes and other seasonal vegetables for no pay. Janis met a girl in the village, he fell in love and he later married. He worked hard all his life and had three sons, one of them being Alan in Ashfield. Janis loved his football. He became a British citizen and loved this country. He even went on to meet our Queen. Janis is no longer with us, but his story makes me feel incredibly proud of our great country and its willingness to help people from all over the world.

[Sir John Hayes]

The story my hon. Friend is telling is a story of someone who sought our aid and got it, but would he contrast that with what is happening now? Would Janis not take the view, which has been articulated in this Chamber tonight, that the system that he held in such high regard is now being gamed and exploited, besmirching the good name of our country and people like him?

[Lee Anderson]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments. That is absolutely right. I spoke to Janis’s family last week in Ashfield, and they made exactly that point. I will feed that back to them when I get back to Ashfield this weekend.

We have always been a welcoming and tolerant country that has reached out to genuine refugees from all over the world, but just like Janis’s family in Ashfield, most people in the UK do not accept that people travelling here from France in dinghies are genuine asylum seekers—[Interruption.] They are not genuine asylum seekers. We know that many of them have been trafficked with a clear instruction on how to claim asylum once they get here. That is because our asylum system is not fit for purpose, and this Bill stops that.

The Labour party and the Opposition want to bring back free movement. They dislike our points-based immigration system, and now they are going to vote against a Bill that protects our borders and helps us deport foreign murderers and rapists. They will always vote against the British people. This new Bill will ensure that people in genuine need, like Janis all those years ago, get the help they need, and the greedy lawyers and the human traffickers will be told, “No more.” We owe it to people such as Janis who are suffering today to ensure that we have a fairer system that offers genuine refugees a safe haven. This Bill does that.

We have nothing to be ashamed of in this country. We are a kind, tolerant and welcoming country. That is proven by the number of people who risk their lives every single day to get here. If Janis’s family can see that the current situation is unacceptable, surely the Opposition should see that too.

I give a massive thanks to the Home Secretary, who has stuck to her guns. She has listened to the British people and delivered. Opposition MPs want to travel into reality. I will offer this opportunity to all of you now sitting there now with those glazed expressions on your face: come down to Ashfield, come speak to some real people in my towns and villages, and the message you will get will be completely different from the message you are feeding into this House. I am here because of you lot and the attitudes you had in 2019. We are getting tough on crime, we are getting tough on immigration and we are getting tough on law and order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

What a great pleasure it is to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker.

For many of my constituents, rightly or wrongly, the success of the Bill depends on whether it stops or clearly limits three persistent and frustrating problems with our immigration and border controls. First, it depends on whether the Bill stops or clearly limits the use of the channel crossing by boat or truck to make a claim for asylum; secondly, it depends on whether the Bill stops or clearly limits the filing, over many years, of speculative further asylum claims—frequently on specious grounds—that clog up our system, crowd out legitimate claims, and generally make a mockery of our legal processes; and thirdly, it depends on whether the Bill stops or clearly limits the opportunity for cherry-picking that leads people to make an asylum claim in the UK rather than in the one or many other safe countries through which they travel.

It is for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and the Minister to bear in mind that it is on those bases that my constituents will judge the success or failure of this measure, not the rhetoric that accompanies it. To me, however—and, I would say, to some other Conservative Members—there are further aspects that are important. Let me pick up the challenge from the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), on the views of those on this side of the House, because there are aspects of nuance and detail that I think it important to bring out.

First, if the assessment system is to be quicker, it is important for the Government to ensure that claimants have much better access to legal advice. Secondly, if the system is to work effectively, there needs to be greater availability of counselling, psychiatric and other medical assessments. Thirdly, we should once and for all have a culture of getting to the truth, rather than the culture of disbelief that has for too many years permeated the Home Office asylum system.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am intervening for a specific reason. What is actually happening is that the truth is being obscured by repeated claims which many of the people whom my hon. Friend is describing are encouraged to lodge by the unscrupulous lawyers who were given such a plaudit by the hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy).

[Richard Fuller]

My right hon. Friend speaks very wise words.

Let me just say to Opposition Members that there is no monopoly on compassion, and that it does not mean saying that the system must apply to everyone in a particular process. Compassion applies to an individual claim. The importance of our system is that we get to that individual and do not lose sight of him or her. In a previous life as a Member of Parliament, I spoke in a debate on another immigration Bill and bemoaned the lack of compassion in our immigration system. It was encouraging to hear the Home Secretary use the word “compassion” so often, and to hear stories of compassion from other Conservative Members, whether they were about how a council looks after the people who are claiming asylum or about people’s feelings about the system. So there is no monopoly on compassion here, and I look forward to working with Opposition Members in finding ways in which we can make it work more deeply in the Bill.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 5th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

That may be the case, but the reality is that, by law, dogs must be microchipped. It makes no sense to microchip a dog, only for some vets not to scan them. That would mean that people who had stolen dogs could simply take them to the vet of their choice, knowing that they would not be scanned. The point is that if we have an offence, we must follow it through. Those pets must be scanned; otherwise, they will get stolen and sold without redress.

Those were the three areas that were raised with me, and many of my colleagues and friends who have signed these new clauses have also faced the same concerns. There has been a staggering welling up of anger, concern and worry about what might happen to people’s pets. There are some who will not go on walks with their dogs at the moment for fear of what might happen. It is important for the Government to recognise that this is a major concern.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is championing a noble cause that many of us feel very strongly about. Has he received the assurances that I have no doubt he has requested from the Government that they share our serious concern and that they intend to act, if not tonight then certainly in due course, on precisely the issues he has raised?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. The truth is that I have had a lot of discussions with my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor about this, and I feel that he is very sympathetic. I am sure that he can speak for himself, but I hope that he will give an undertaking that the Government will return to this matter in this Bill, at least by the time it is in the other place, and make whatever changes are necessary to the laws and regulations in terms of criminal justice. I have a high hope that that will be the case, but I will leave it to my right hon. and learned Friend to make his position clear when he gets to his feet.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I have absolutely no problem with interventions, but it may be that we can get everybody in if people still stick to four minutes, even if they take interventions.

[Sir John Hayes]

Politics is about values. It always has been, actually, but in the modern age too many politicians —perhaps timid of inspiring or of their capacity to do so, or frightened of causing contumely—have retreated into a drear, dull, mechanistic discourse. Tonight, this Bill and these amendments are a chance to break free of that—a chance to change—because the Government are at last responding to the will of the people who, for a very long time, have believed that the criminal justice system was not weighted in favour of victims or law and order, but too heavily weighted in favour of making excuses for those who commit crime.

The world is a dangerous place. In fact, unimpeded, evil men and women will impose their cruel will upon the innocent. C. S. Lewis said that in living the reality of human imperfections,

“the art of life consists in tackling each immediate evil as well as we can.”

Law-abiding Britons do their everyday part in keeping the fire of social solidarity burning bright, yet too many with power appear to have forgotten how to tackle the evil that seeks to snuff out civilised order. Instead, those who see crime as an ill to be treated have held too much sway for too long. Evil too often receives a slap on the wrist, a stern telling off, and the public’s desire for retributive justice goes unheeded.

We must never forget, as was said earlier, that we serve here at the pleasure of our constituents. Public order and faith in the rule of law depend on popular confidence in the justice system—a confidence that must be earned. People’s sense of right and wrong has changed little over the decades. In 1990, four out of five Britons thought sentencing was too lenient. Today, four out of five Britons think the same. With the number of custodial sentences for sexual offences, theft and criminal damage all falling, it is time for this place to listen. Our constituents despair of having violent deviants freed to hurt again, of seeing non-custodial sentences for yobs and thugs, and of halfway automatic release for some of the most violent people in our society. Many gentle, peaceful people are appalled at all of this. Soft sentencing allows rapists, paedophiles and violent offenders to walk free having served only half their sentence. Given the pain of victims, that is an insult to decency.

This Bill, in seeking to ensure that the most despicable criminals face their just deserts behind bars, is welcome. That may shock the liberal establishment, filled by doubts and fuelled by guilt, but it is much yearned for by the silent majority of Britons and it is long overdue. Shame on those who wish to use the Bill for narrow ends. However, I will not go into the amendments on abortion because you would not let me, Madam Deputy Speaker, but you know what I mean.

Disraeli said:

“Justice is truth in action.”

That is not a relative individual truth but an extension of absolute virtue that people intuitively understand and to which this Bill gives life. Amendments to tackle the wicked scourge of pet theft affirm that truth, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) made clear.

The Bill before us today begins to signal that the Government are no longer distracted by the plight of the guilty. It proudly declares that we are devoted to the cause of the innocent and to the pursuit of justice. We must never be timid about being fierce in defence of the gentle, for in being so we stand for the majority of law-abiding Britons. I commend the amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), which, in laying down the truth that I have described, further reinforce a good Bill. It is a start: the beginning of a fightback on behalf of the silent majority.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) for his support.

I have 16 new clauses in this group that deal with issues such as extending the time limits for appealing unduly lenient sentences, including for assaulting an emergency worker, under the unduly lenient sentence scheme; limiting the use of fixed-term recalls, ensuring that there is no difference in sentencing between using a knife in a murder in a home compared with taking a knife to murder someone elsewhere; and a sentencing escalator ensuring that people who repeatedly commit the same offence must get a more severe penalty each time they do so, which has a huge amount of support from the public. I hope that the Secretary of State will write to me with his response to each of my new clauses.

In the limited time available, I want to focus on new clause 75, which would ensure that there was no automatic early release of prisoners who assault prison staff while in jail. I would like to see an end to all automatic early release, as alluded to by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings. However, as it seems that the Government are not quite with us on that just yet, my new clause would send a clear message to those who assault hard-working and dedicated prison officers and other staff in our prisons that they would have to serve the whole of their sentence in prison if they indulged in that kind of activity rather than, as at the moment, so many people being automatically released halfway through. If jailed criminals attack a prison officer, surely they should lose their right to automatic early release and serve their sentence in full.

Far too many prison officers are being assaulted. They do a very difficult job and we are not giving them sufficient support. We should be doing our bit to prevent these assaults from happening. Clearly, if people knew that they would have to serve the entirety of their sentence in prison, that would be a good deterrent. At the moment, they can assault prison officers and prison staff with near impunity because they know they are still going to be released halfway through their sentence. The number of extra days—I repeat, days—that are given to people when they commit the offence of assaulting a prison officer is derisory. We owe a duty of care to prison officers and should make sure that they are as well protected as possible when they are doing their public service.

That also ties in with the spirit of what the Government have been trying to achieve on attacks on emergency workers. I certainly agree with what the Government are doing in this Bill and I look forward to the Secretary of State bringing forward his proposals to deal with attacks on shopworkers when the Bill goes to another place. I think that showing we are on the side of prison officers, hard-working public servants, in this way would be a very welcome step forward. I imagine that most common-sense members of the public would be surprised to know that this is not the case already, to be perfectly honest.

I have not had any indication from the Government that they are planning to accept my new clause 75. I would love to hear from the Secretary of State why he thinks it is perfectly reasonable for criminals who assault a prison officer not to have their automatic early release stopped and why he thinks it is absolutely fine for them still be released early from their prison sentences. I am pretty sure that lots of prison officers would like to know the same, too. I would like to hear from him on that when he winds up, but I would prefer to hear that he was accepting my new clause 75, which I think the vast majority of people in this House would like to see, prison officers would like to see and the public would like to see.