International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

Leo Docherty Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2022 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Leo Docherty)]

I am glad to be able to respond to this powerful and forthright debate. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) and my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) for calling the debate and leading off. I should say that this subject sits in the portfolio of the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), but I am pleased to be here in his place. I am grateful for Members’ contributions, and I will try to cover them all and give some assurance about the Government’s policy.

The hon. Member for Bristol South laid out in quite stark terms the landscape of inequality and risk that women and girls face with regard to gender-based violence. She kicked off with remarks about Qatar and put the subject in the context of Ukraine, but she also focused on her constituency and Bristol. That was quite an alarming picture. She made very good points about the need for specialist rape courts, for particularly well-qualified individuals to be working in our police forces, and for a data-driven response to that challenge. I commit to her that I shall gently ask one of my fellow Ministers, perhaps from the Ministry of Justice or the Home Department, to write to her with an update on how we are getting on in relation to specific expertise in dealing with rape cases in our courts system. I was very grateful that she raised that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock was frank in her very stark assessment of how poorly we are doing when it comes to the statistical feedback. She laid down a very forthright and welcome challenge to the Government, and she drew attention to the very bad experience of our own colleagues in conducting their lives as female MPs. She mentioned the very dignified and powerful speech delivered to us and all colleagues by Madam Zelenska on Monday and put that in the context of our efforts in Ukraine.

I am glad that my hon. Friend commended our PSVI conference, but she also reflected that we need to keep our own house in order, and we accept that challenge. Our policy should not be just words, and she made the case for proper therapeutic care in the NHS and proper protections for rape victims in prisons. Again, I will ask my colleague in the Ministry of Justice to write to her with an update about the situation regarding proper protections in prisons. I will also ask, from the NHS side, for an update on the therapeutic care pathway for rape victims. I will be very pleased to do that.

My friend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke movingly about the international context with regard to victims of gender-based violence and about kidnap in Nigeria and the Yazidis in Iraq. Of course, we are keenly aware of the ravages of Islamic State in Nigeria. We raise that on a very frequent basis with the Government of Nigeria, and we will continue to do so. I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising those cases here today.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) referred very forthrightly and movingly to the Killed Women organisation. I am grateful to her for raising that. I was glad that she commended the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, but she quite rightly said that we must get our own house in order, and the Government certainly accept that challenge.

The hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) made a very valid point about the confidentiality of counselling notes in the handling of rape cases, which is by necessity extremely sensitive. I will ask my colleague in the Ministry of Justice to write with an update on our policy with regard to confidentiality in the handling of counselling notes, because the hon. Lady made it very clear that that is a key component of successful prosecution of these cases. She put it in a very well rounded way when she said that violence against women and girls cannot be ended by the victims. I thought that that was a very good way of seeing it, and she made a good point. We all join her in calling for holistic change.

My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) gave us some interesting reflections about the genesis of the PSVI conference and programme. We are grateful for his long-standing involvement in that and his keen advocacy of it still, some 10 years later. I agree with him that it was an achievement of true statecraft, and it continues to be. I think that those who visited the conference on Monday saw the energy, resource and priority that the Government afford this work, but of course that will only be as good as our ability to maintain the momentum, commitment and political priority. Of course, it is a priority, and that can be seen in our international development strategy.

My hon. Friend asked me how much resource was going to the Ukraine fund specifically. I can tell him that it is £10 million, and that will be routed through Ukrainian organisations on the ground. They will be best placed to afford that assistance to our Ukrainian allies, who are heroically resisting outrageous Russian aggression.

The hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) also reflected on the PSVI conference. She made some quite critical remarks. I accept those in the spirit in which they were intended. I should confirm to her that our bilateral violence against women and girls spend is £27.6 million annually, and it remains a major priority. That is why we have another commitment, of £12.5 million, over the next three years. It is front and centre in our development strategy, as is only right.

My hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) challenged the Home Office to update her on spiking laws. That is a very serious issue, and I commit to asking my colleague in the Home Department for an update. We all recognise those sorts of cases in our own constituencies, and I am pleased to take action on that.

I was most grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) for reflecting on the Bunny Walks initiative in her constituency, which is a powerful example of community action. She also made a commendable point about the PSVI conference: there can be no peace without justice. She spoke movingly about the valuable time she spent in Africa, and I was pleased that she referred to her visit to Ethiopia in October. I think that all colleagues will commend and thank her for her energy while in her ministerial role, and for her continued interest in these issues from the Back Benches. We are most grateful for her continued advocacy.

[Caroline Nokes]

I join the Minister in his comments about my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), but I will not let him gloss over what she said about women’s right to reproductive health, which is a crucial part of preventing violence against women and girls. Will he join me in reaffirming the Government’s position on women’s right to access abortion, and in regretting the fact that, in some countries, abortion is still not available when it should be?

[Leo Docherty]

I am very happy to join my right hon. Friend in those remarks. We are of one view, and I am very grateful for her intervention.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly) made a strident and powerful speech, based on intimate personal experience in his own constituency, about the low prosecution rate in rape cases. I will ask my colleague in the Ministry of Justice to write with an update on that. My hon. Friend painted a picture, based on intimate personal knowledge, of a derisory state of affairs. I will seek an update for him.

I am grateful for the powerful contribution of the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson, the hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown). I join her in calling out the shocking impact of gender-based violence on women and girls, and I am grateful to her for bringing to the attention of colleagues the powerful testimony of survivors in Ethiopia. She asked, validly, why there were no Ethiopian survivors at the conference on Monday. We will take that home. She rightly pointed out some other lessons that we should learn from the conference about the handling of the experiences of survivors. I can confirm that they are being learned in advance of the next conference. She spoke about empowering women around the world. I assure her that gender-based violence will remain a core priority of the Government, and that we will seek to reflect that in our sanctions policy.

We were delighted that, subsequent to the conference, 54 states endorsed the political declaration, which sends a powerful sign of international resolve. We thought that that was important. That is backed up by our new three-year strategy and £12.5 million of new funding. More than £5 million will go to the Global Survivors Fund, founded by Dr Mukwege and Nadia Murad. We are putting our money where our mouth is. This work has resource and significant political energy. I again thank colleagues for their contributions to today’s powerful debate.

Stalking Protection Bill

Leo Docherty Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 23rd November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Wollaston]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

May I begin by thanking the Minister and all her officials for the extraordinary amount of work that they have put into assisting with the Bill, and for everything that the Minister has done to progress the violence against women and girls agenda in the House? I also thank Daragh Quinn in my team for his work and for doing so much to co-ordinate and help with the preparation of the Bill. I also thank the many individuals and organisations outside the House that have made such a difference. I am thinking of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, Paladin, the Gloucestershire Stalking Advisory Service, the National Stalking Consortium and many others, such as police and crime commissioners for Sussex, for Northumbria, and for Devon and Cornwall, as well as officers from Thames Valley police and Devon and Cornwall constabulary, I thank them for their valuable advice, and I also thank the stalking lead for the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

I would particularly like to pay tribute to colleagues and Members across the House for their work. Having listened to the characteristically thoughtful speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), I pay tribute to the work that he has done, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), on stalking, which has made an extraordinary difference.

[Leo Docherty (Aldershot) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is being extremely gracious. I thank her for introducing the Bill, which undoubtedly will be of benefit to my constituents in Aldershot and Farnborough. We are very grateful.

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank everyone who has contributed today with thoughtful speeches and interventions, including my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), my neighbour, whom I join in his tribute to the police and crime commissioner for Devon and Cornwall for her courage in talking about her experience. I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston), and for Dudley South (Mike Wood), for their thoughtful interventions. I thank the hon. Members for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami), as well as my hon. Friends the Members for Croydon South (Chris Philp), and for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), for their ongoing and long-standing work. I greatly appreciate all the support I have received from colleagues across the House.

As we have heard, stalking is an insidious and dangerous crime with devastating consequences for victims and their families. Acts that initially appear, as we have heard, to be trivial, when seen as a whole have an extraordinary effect, not just on the individuals immediately affected but on everyone around them. Stalkers contact not just members of the family—my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham spoke about his constituent, Dr Aston—but people’s workmates and neighbours. There is a sense in which it never stops. As we heard from my hon. Friend, it is often described as murder in slow motion. It affects people’s physical and mental health, leaving them feeling isolated and fearful. It can escalate rapidly. In the context of domestic violence, about 50% of threats of violence are acted on, and there are many examples in which stalking has escalated to rape and murder.

Stalking behaviour is much more common than people realise. About one in five women and one in 10 men experience some kind of stalking behaviour in their adult lifetime, according to the crime survey for England and Wales. It typically takes about 100 episodes of stalking behaviour for victims to come forward. That is what the Bill is partly about. It is also about raising awareness and allowing this to be taken seriously. We hear time and again of people coming forward to report stalking behaviour, but it is dismissed as somehow a compliment.

Salisbury Incident

Leo Docherty Excerpts

Wednesday 12th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I will get to my response later on, but the right hon. Gentleman makes the point that we have to deal with Russian state aggression across a wide front. We have said that we will use all legal powers within the rule of law to push back the malign action of the Russian state. The Criminal Finances Act 2017, which had cross-party support, gives us tools to deal with illicit finance. It is a fact that some of the two biggest flows of illicit finance into this country come from Russia and China. Therefore, it is obvious that we will be looking in those areas and making sure that we deal with such illicit activity, but we also look elsewhere. I cannot comment on individual investigations, but where we see a break in the law, whether it be illicit finance or any other type of malign activity, we will act using those powers and push it back.

[Leo Docherty (Aldershot) (Con)]

The Minister is making a very eloquent statement. Will he confirm that some of the most important lessons learned are now being incorporated in the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill that is currently going through the House of Commons?

[Mr Wallace]

The Bill went through only yesterday with a large majority. I was disappointed that not all parties could support it. Labour supported it, and I enjoyed our going through the Lobby together. I urge the Liberal Democrats to think again and not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Clearly, there were issues that not everyone agrees with. I do not think that voting entirely against the Bill would have helped our security or indeed the businesses that could have been compensated by Pool Re for loss of trade as a result of terrorism. Nevertheless, it is why, in that Bill, we have the measures against a hostile state. We wanted to mirror what we have in schedule 3 as what we have in schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act 2000 and give our police and ports that power to examine individuals.

--- Later in debate ---

[Leo Docherty (Aldershot) (Con)]

It is a great honour to speak in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), who has just given a superb example of the knowledge, experience and eloquence for which he has become renowned in this House. In my brief remarks, I will pick up on some of the themes he mentioned in relation to our broader security response.

What was so shocking about the appalling outrage in Salisbury, apart from its intrusive nature and the way it undermined our norms of behaviour and our sovereignty, was the extent to which it was an entirely brazen act. However, we must keep it in the context of a long list of brazen international acts by the Russian state that have violated the post-cold war security settlement in Europe and have sought to undermine the international norms that civilised states should observe in their interactions with one another. Some of that interference has been conventional, some of it has involved the use of cyber-warfare, and some has been a mixture of both—a classic form of hybrid warfare. We will all be aware of the long list of instances, starting in 2008 with the invasion of Georgia and moving through to the annexation of Crimea and the invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014, leading on to the downing of MH17 and the outrage in Salisbury.

Those events are well known, but less well known is the impact of Russian state activities in the cyber-sphere. In the Minister’s superb opening remarks, he mentioned the NotPetya virus, the most virulent that the world has ever encountered, which caused some $10 billion-worth of damage worldwide and had a significant impact in this country. I am delighted that the Government are enhancing our national counter-cyber-attack capability, and I commend the Minister for announcing £1.9 billion of extra funding until 2021 to turbocharge the tremendous work of GCHQ in countering the cyber-security threat that our country faces every day. I also commend the Minister for bringing forward improvements to our border security and defences. The proposals, which are going through Parliament in the form of the Counter-terrorism and Border Security Bill, will give our security forces, emergency services and Border Force the capacity to deal with state hostile activity on the same basis as they may deal with terrorist activity.

Winston Churchill famously declared that Russia was an impenetrable state, with motives that are hard to decipher. He said:

“I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”.

Churchill was speaking in 1939, but today, ironically, the reverse is true. The Russian state’s agenda on the world stage is very clear. It wants to dominate its neighbourhood, by force if necessary, and to undermine and overturn the international order, particularly the security order that we have enjoyed for a long time in post-cold war Europe. How do we guard against that? My simple belief, picking up on some of the themes discussed by the hon. Member for Aberavon, is that we and our allies need to achieve peace through strength. We must meet Russian threats with total resolve. The Prime Minister, in her response to the outrage in Salisbury, was a model of swift and resolute action, and the diplomatic coup that she managed to achieve—our expulsion of 23 diplomats followed by similar action by some 27 allied countries—was a remarkable triumph that sent a clear signal to the Russian state.

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

To return to what the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) said—“You can leave Russia, but it will never leave you”—it is 18 years since I visited Russia; I travelled from Moscow down to St Petersburg. We should remember that our argument is with the Russian state—with Putin—not with the Russian people, whom I found on my visit to be incredibly warm and welcoming.

[Leo Docherty]

I am very grateful for my hon. Friend’s contribution. Like him, I have enjoyed travelling in Russia—in Moscow, St Petersburg and many other cities—and I have always been very touched by the Russian people’s hospitality and tremendous sense of pride in the magnificent Russian heritage and culture, which we should all enjoy. He is right that our argument is with the Russian state, not the Russian people.

As I have said, our Prime Minister achieved a tremendous diplomatic coup, but our resolve and response must also be in the conventional sphere. I am very pleased, therefore, that we now contribute some 800 soldiers to the enhanced forward presence—a combined NATO presence in Estonia and other Baltic states and eastern countries. That is a very clear signal that we will commit conventional forces to deter Russian aggression on NATO’s borders.

We must also be aware that our deployment to Estonia and our contribution to the enhanced forward presence contains a lesson, which is that we urgently need to relearn our ability to exercise, deploy and sustain military force at scale. We have not done that since the end of the cold war. We must take note of the fact that, this week, the Russian military is conducting a large-scale military exercise—the Vostok manoeuvres—involving some 300,000 soldiers in eastern Siberia. Our NATO equivalent, which also takes place this month, will involve 40,000 soldiers. We need to relearn those lessons urgently, and I hope they will be incorporated into the modernising defence programme. Simply put, the British Army needs two fully manned, fully equipped divisions that can be deployed at reach and sustained for as long as we need them to complete those sorts of operations.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I very much support everything my hon. Friend is saying. Does he agree that, in retrospect, it was perhaps a bit premature to abolish, as part of the strategic defence and security review in 2010, the joint chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear regiment, which was created in 1999? He will have noticed members of our armed forces on the streets of Salisbury recently, and if there were incidents of that sort in the future, possibly involving biological or nuclear devices as an alternative to the chemical one that was deployed on this occasion, we might need the kind of expertise that we thought we were growing from the Royal Tank Regiment and the Royal Air Force regiment in 1999.

[Leo Docherty]

I agree entirely. We need to maintain the ability to react to chemical, biological and nuclear warfare, and I hope that lesson will be contained in the findings of the modernising defence programme, which should be announced towards the end of the year.

The approach of achieving peace through strength is something we learned in our historical dealings with Russia; it is not new. Indeed, in 1858, our Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, declared:

“The policy and practice of the Russian Government has always been to push forward its encroachments as far and as fast as the apathy or want of firmness of other Governments will allow them to go, and always to stop and retire whenever it was met by decided resistance.”

Lord Palmerston knew what he was talking about, because at that point he had just concluded, in victorious fashion, the Crimean war with Russia.

I will finish by saying that this decided resistance—this resolve—has been exemplified in a superb fashion by our Prime Minister and our emergency services. I hope and am confident that this resolve throughout our Government, our armed forces and our emergency services will be maintained in our dealings with Russia long into the future.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I have now to announce the result of today’s deferred Division on the EU-Singapore free trade agreement. The Ayes were 331 and the Noes were 145, so the Ayes have it.

[The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]

Windrush

Leo Docherty Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Leo Docherty (Aldershot) (Con)]

I am very pleased to speak in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda).

It has been very obvious today and in previous debates that there is justifiable anger over this issue. I think it is partly motivated by the fact that the contribution of the Windrush generation to building our society and economy in the post-war years has not been sufficiently recognised, or is undermined by what has happened. One element that we would do well to celebrate and recognise is the contribution of many members of the Windrush generation to our armed forces, prior to their arrival in this country in 1948, during the second world war. During the second world war, some 10,000 Caribbean soldiers served in the British armed forces across all three services, and many conducted themselves in a very distinguished manner.

That includes one Billy Strachan, who arrived in England from Jamaica in 1940 to serve in the Royal Air Force. He conducted himself with distinction, completing 30 missions as a part of Bomber Command at a time when the casualty rate in it was some 50%. He was made an officer and completed his training at Cranwell. The historian Ashley Jackson, in his book “The British Empire”, quotes Billy Strachan, who describes arriving from Jamaica as a new young pilot officer in his RAF unit and his surprise on meeting the batman he had been allocated:

“I was a little…boy from the Caribbean and instinctively I called him ‘Sir’. ‘No, Sir’, he hastily corrected, ‘It is I who call you “Sir”’.”

That is a very interesting vignette, and it reflects the remarkable role that serving in the armed forces can often have in advancing human rights.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I only wish I had known my hon. Friend was going to make that point, or I would have looked up the name of the very distinguished Afro-Caribbean officer from world war two who was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and was one of many people from that background who were recognised for great gallantry in the fight against fascism and Nazism.

[Leo Docherty]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s intervention, and I hope that, prior to the conclusion of my speech, another Member will intervene to give us that name.

Of course, it was not such a positive experience for every member of the Caribbean community who served in the British Army. Allan Wilmot, who also came from Jamaica, volunteered to join the Royal Navy in 1941 and served throughout the second world war. He described the sense of hostility that many felt on arriving in the British Isles after the war:

“Being British, you feel like you are coming home, but when we came here it was like we dropped out of the sky. Nobody knew anything about us.”

Those people had to display the same bravery that they had demonstrated during the war on arrival in this country, to overcome that hostility, and of course many of them overcame it successfully and went on to contribute very meaningfully to our economy and our society.

The distinguished service of Caribbean armed forces men and women is not confined to the history books. There is no finer example of gallantry in the modern era than Johnson Beharry, from Grenada, who served with the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment in Iraq and was awarded the Victoria Cross in 2005 for his remarkable bravery in Amarah. Anyone who has served recently in the armed forces will have very positive experiences of serving shoulder to shoulder with members of the Commonwealth and Caribbean soldiers. I was very pleased to serve alongside Guardsmen from St Lucia and Jamaica.

My interest in the experience of soldiers from abroad who have come to this country and then go on to settle here also links to the experience of our Gurkha soldiers. They, like the Windrush generation, navigated the transition from service life to civilian life. Just as we are hugely proud of the distinguished conduct and contribution that the Gurkhas make, we would do very well today to be similarly proud of the distinguished service of a generation of Caribbean soldiers and the positive contribution they made in the second world war to guarding and defending our freedom.

Minors Entering the UK: 1948 to 1971

Leo Docherty Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Steve Double]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. [Interruption.] If she can wait to hear what I will go on to say, all will become clear. I hope that we can keep the tone of the debate constructive and positive and put right what has gone wrong for the benefit of those who have been affected. Those who want to score political points may feel free to do so, but I will not seek to do that. I will seek to address the concerns of the people who have signed the petition.

[Leo Docherty (Aldershot) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the calm tone he has struck in initiating the debate. Given the previous intervention, does he agree that it is important to remember that a Labour Government first coined the term “hostile environment”? [Interruption.]

[Steve Double]

My hon. Friend makes a good point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Double]

I would respectfully say to the right hon. Gentleman that I suspect that question is more for the Minister than for me. I think it is above my pay grade to answer for the Government on those issues. I recognise that there are such issues, but perhaps the Minister will respond or the right hon. Gentleman will raise the issue later.

We have a duty to ensure that the Windrush generation and their children know that they are welcome here and belong here. We do not want any Commonwealth citizens who came to this country between 1948 and 1971, and who made their life in the UK as law-abiding citizens, to feel unwelcome or to be in any doubt about their future in this country. It should be stated that the response from the Home Office to the situation has been too slow. Not only should the situation never have occurred, but once it was known about the Government should have spotted what was happening and reacted much more quickly. However, although they are late, I commend the actions that the Government are now taking to help the Windrush generation and their children to obtain their right to remain here. The clear apologies from the Prime Minister and other members of the Government have been welcome, but we need more than words. We need action to correct what has gone wrong.

The then Home Secretary first announced on Monday 16 April that she was establishing a new dedicated team to help the Windrush generation to evidence their right to be here and to access the public services that they need. The team aims to resolve cases within two weeks of evidence being produced. She also stated that the Home Office does not intend to ask the group to pay for their documentation. Last Monday she expanded on her initial statement by committing to waive citizenship fees for Windrush generation members who are applying for citizenship, to waive the language and life in the UK tests for them, and to waive the administrative costs for the return to the UK of Windrush retirees currently residing in their country of origin.

The former Home Secretary also announced other measures, which are of particular interest to the petition’s signatories. First, the petition called for Windrush minors to be given the right to remain in the UK; indeed, most Windrush generation children in the UK are already British citizens. However, should they have to apply for naturalisation, the Government will waive the associated fees. Secondly, the petition states that

“the government should also provide compensation for loss and hurt”.

The Government have said that a new compensation scheme will be set up for those who have suffered loss as a result of this issue. That is clearly the right thing to do, but I want to ask the Minister whether the Government have considered providing, as part of the compensation package, support and counselling for those who have suffered distress, stress and upheaval that has affected their day-to-day lives. It should not just be about recompensing them for costs they have incurred; it should also be about the support they need to get over, and move on from, their traumatic experience.

[Leo Docherty]

My hon. Friend is laying out in useful terms the series of actions that the Government are taking. Does he feel, as I do, that the leadership provided by the new Home Secretary this morning will prove decisive? I have just come from the Chamber, where he said he will do whatever it takes to deal with the matter in a timely and decisive fashion. Does my hon. Friend share the confidence I have in the new Home Secretary?

[Steve Double]

Indeed I do. I would add that I think the previous Home Secretary was completely committed and was taking action to address the issue. However, I also have tremendous faith in the newly appointed Home Secretary and that he will get to the heart of the issue and make sure that things are put right and that the lessons that need to be learned are learned, and I shall come on to that point now.

Going forward, officials working at all levels of the Home Office must learn important lessons from the failures that have beleaguered the Windrush generation and their children. Those mistakes should never have happened, and there were warning signs, with Members coming forward in recent weeks to say that they were receiving casework relating to the issue.

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[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Mr Austin, I am very proud to stand here on behalf of the 178,000 people who have signed the petition. I am proud to stand here on behalf of the 492 British citizens who arrived on Empire Windrush from Jamaica 70 years ago. I am proud to stand here on behalf of the 72,000 British citizens who arrived on these shores between the passage of the British Nationality Act 1948 and the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, including my own father, who arrived from Guyana in 1956.

It is a dark episode in our nation’s history that this petition was even required. It is a dark day indeed that we are here in Parliament having to stand up for the right of people who have always given so much to this country and expected so little in return. We need to remember our history at this moment. In Britain, when we talk about slavery we tend to talk about its abolition, and in particular William Wilberforce. The Windrush story does not begin in 1948; the Windrush story begins in the 17th century, when British slave traders stole 12 million Africans from their homes, took them to the Caribbean and sold them into slavery to work on plantations. The wealth of this country was built on the backs of the ancestors of the Windrush generation. We are here today because you were there.

My ancestors were British subjects, but they were not British subjects because they came to Britain. They were British subjects because Britain came to them, took them across the Atlantic, colonised them, sold them into slavery, profited from their labour and made them British subjects. That is why I am here, and it is why the Windrush generation are here.

There is no British history without the history of the empire. As the late, great Stuart Hall put it:

“I am the sugar at the bottom of the English cup of tea.”

Seventy years ago, as Britain lay in ruins after the second world war, the call went out to the colonies from the mother country. Britain asked the Windrush generation to come and rebuild the country, to work in our national health service, on the buses and on the trains, as cleaners, as security guards. Once again, Caribbean labour was used. They faced down the “No blacks, no dogs, no Irish” signs. They did the jobs nobody else wanted to do. They were spat at in the street. They were assaulted by teddy boys, skinheads and the National Front. They lived five to a room in Rachmanite squalor. They were called, and they served, but my God did they suffer for the privilege of coming to this country.

But by God, they also triumphed. Sir Trevor McDonald, Frank Bruno, Sir Lenny Henry, Jessica Ennis-Hill—they are national treasures, knights of the realm, heavyweight champions of the world and Olympic champions, wrapped in the British flag. They are sons and daughters of the Windrush generation and as British as they come. After all this, the Government want to send that generation back across the ocean. They want to make life hostile for the Windrush children—to strip them of their rights, deny them healthcare, kick them out of their jobs, make them homeless and stop their benefits.

The Windrush children are imprisoned in this country—as we have seen of those who have been detained—centuries after their ancestors were shackled and taken across the ocean in slave ships. They are pensioners imprisoned in their own country. That is a disgrace, and it happened here because of a refusal to remember our history. Last week, at Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister said that

“we…owe it to them and to the British people”.—[Official Report, 25 April 2018; Vol. 639, c. 881.]

The former Home Secretary said that the Windrush generation should be considered British and should be able to get their British citizenship if they so choose. This is the point the Government simply do not understand: the Windrush generation are the British people. They are British citizens. They came here as citizens. That is the precise reason why this is such an injustice. Their British citizenship is, and has always been, theirs by right. It is not something that the Government can now choose to grant them.

I remind the Government of chapter 56 of the British Nationality Act 1948, which says:

“Every person who under this Act is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies…shall by virtue of that citizenship have the status of a British subject.”

The Bill uses “British nationality” by virtue of citizenship. I read that Bill again last week when looking over the case notes of my constituents caught up in the Windrush crisis. Patrick Henry is a British citizen who arrived in Britain in 1959. He is a teaching assistant. He told me, “I feel like a prisoner who has committed no crime,” because he is being denied citizenship. Clive Smith, a British citizen who arrived here in 1964, showed the Home Office his school reports and was still threatened with deportation.

Rosario Wilson is a British citizen with no right to be here because Saint Lucia became independent in 1979. Wilberforce Sullivan is a British citizen who paid taxes for 40 years. He was told in 2011 that he was no longer able to work. Dennis Laidley is a British citizen with tax records going back to the 1960s. He was denied a passport and was unable to visit his sick mother. Jeffrey Greaves, a British citizen who arrived here in 1964, was threatened with deportation by the Home Office. Cecile Laurencin, a British citizen with 44 years of national insurance contribution to this country, payslips and bank account details, had her application for naturalisation rejected. Huthley Sealey, a British citizen, is unable to claim benefits or access healthcare in this country. Mark Balfourth, a British citizen who arrived here in 1962 aged 7, was refused access to benefits.

The Windrush generation have waited for too long for rights that are theirs. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over. There comes a time when the burden of living like a criminal in one’s own country becomes too heavy to bear any longer. That is why in the last few weeks we have seen an outpouring of pain and grief that had built up over many years. Yet Ministers have tried to conflate the issue with illegal immigration. On Thursday, the former Home Secretary said she was personally committed to tackling illegal migration, to making it difficult for illegal migrants to live here and to removing people who are here illegally.

[Leo Docherty]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Lammy]

I will not; I am just going to finish. Indeed, during her statement last Thursday, the former Home Secretary said “illegal” 23 times but did not even once say “citizen”.

This is not about illegal immigration. This is about British citizens, and frankly it is deeply offensive to conflate the Windrush generation with illegal immigrants to try to distract from the Windrush crisis. This is about a hostile environment policy that blurs the line between illegal immigrants and people who are here legally, and are even British citizens. This is about a hostile environment not just for illegal immigrants but for anybody who looks like they could be an immigrant. This is about a hostile environment that has turned employers, doctors, landlords and social workers into border guards.

The hostile environment is not about illegal immigration. Increasing leave to remain fees by 238% in four years is not about illegal immigration. The Home Office making profits of 800% on standard applications is not about illegal immigration. The Home Office sending back documents unrecorded by second-class post, so that passports, birth certificates and education certificates get lost, is not about illegal immigration. Charging teenagers £2,033 every 30 months for limited leave to remain is not about illegal immigration. Charging someone £10,521 in limited leave to remain fees before they can even apply for indefinite leave to remain is not about illegal immigration.

Banning refugees and asylum seekers from working and preventing them from accessing public funds is not about illegal immigration. Sending nine immigration enforcement staff to arrest my constituent because the Home Office lost his documents is not about illegal immigration. Locking my constituent up in Yarl’s Wood, meaning she missed her midwifery exams, is not about illegal immigration. Denying legal aid to migrants who are here legally is not about illegal immigration. Changing the terms of young asylum seekers’ immigration bail so that they cannot study is not about illegal immigration. Sending immigration enforcement staff to a church in my constituency that was serving soup to refugees is not about illegal immigration.

The former Home Secretary and the Prime Minister promised compensation. They have promised that no enforcement action will be taken. They have promised that the burden of proof will be lowered when the taskforce assesses Windrush cases. The Windrush citizens do not trust the Home Office, and I do not blame them after so much injustice has been dealt out.

I quote Martin Luther King, who himself quoted St Augustine, when he said that

“an unjust law is no law at all.”

I say to the Minister, warm words mean nothing. Guarantee these rights and enshrine them in law as soon as possible, and review the hostile environment that turns everybody in this country who is different into someone who is potentially illegal. Some 230 years after those in the abolitionist movement wore their medallions around their necks, I stand here as a Caribbean, black, British citizen and I ask the Minister, on behalf of those Windrush citizens, am I not a man and a brother? [Applause.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Leo Docherty (Aldershot) (Con)]

I am grateful to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Austin. I am pleased to be able to speak in this important debate.

I will speak relatively briefly, but first I want to declare that I entirely support the sentiment of the petition. My constituency has a significant population with a Commonwealth background across Aldershot and Farnborough, which are in the borough of Rushmoor: people who have built their lives in the borough and who contribute a great deal at every professional level. I am very pleased to put on record my appreciation of the contribution that that population makes. Aldershot, as a borough, shares an even longer history with our Commonwealth, going back to the late 19th century, when a great number of imperial troops were stationed in its garrisons. The contribution of our Commonwealth population has, as has been said, a long historical precedent. Today, members of our community with mainly Indian and Pakistani heritage live with a significant Nepalese community, and that is something of which I am extremely proud.

We have heard some eloquent and moving speeches, but rather than talking about the rhetoric surrounding the issue, I will touch briefly on the action that the Government have taken in the past few days and weeks. I am grateful that the Minister is here; I am sure she will offer further reassurance about the series of actions the Government have taken so far. It is important that the Government have waived the fee for anyone who wishes to apply for citizenship—for those who do not have any documentation and those who do. The waiving of the requirement to do the knowledge of language test is important, as is the fact that the children of the Windrush generation will be able to apply to naturalise at no cost. It is also important that those who have lived here for a long time and have then returned to their country of origin are able to come back, and that the associated fees will be waived.

I am encouraged that we have a dedicated team helping to identify and gather evidence to confirm the existence of individuals’ rights to be in the UK, and I would be grateful for any updates that the Minister might provide on that taskforce’s latest actions. I understand that, as of last week, 23 people had already obtained the documentation they needed, with nearly 100 appointments booked to help more people. I am encouraged by that, but any further update from the Minister would be much appreciated.

I am pleased, too, that no one affected will be charged for any documentation that proves their right to be here, and that anyone who wishes to obtain a formal residence card can do so free of cost. Given the emotions around the subject, which we have been described eloquently today, I am reassured that there will be no removal or detention as part of any assistance to help those citizens get their proper documentation. It is important that we put that on record and that it is clearly understood. I am also reassured by the fact that a new website will provide information and guidance for people who need support, and will give examples of the type of evidence required for the formal process.

In addition to that series of actions, it is important that the Government now get the tone right. That is why, earlier today in the Chamber, I was encouraged by hearing the new Home Secretary clearly outline that the matter is of the highest importance. He did so in personal terms, saying that “it could have been my mother, my brother or me.” The new Home Secretary gets this. He gets the emotional importance of the matter and the sense of justice that people associated with the Windrush generation want to see fulfilled. He also said, “I will do whatever it takes to get this right…we will do right by the Windrush generation.” He then went on to say, “Like her, I am a second-generation migrant”. He was referring to the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), and to the fact that she “does not have a monopoly” on anger. That is very true, and the only response from the Government now, while there is justifiable anger, needs to be one of calm, compassionate efficiency. I am reassured that the Government will resolve the episode in a serious and determined manner, but also in an empathetic and gracious one.