China’s Policy on its Uighur Population

Marie Rimmer Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I congratulate the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on securing this important debate and his powerful, factual speech.

The situation in the People’s Republic of China for Uighurs and other ethnic and religious minorities is beyond disgusting. It taints the meaning of humanity and compassion. In Xinjiang, we see an oppressive system that brings all the powers of the state down on a disenfranchised minority, whose culture and people have committed no crime, but the state has determined their very existence to be a crime.

Across Xinjiang, we see Uighurs in their millions being imprisoned in detention centres and re-education camps. They are under constant surveillance. Their biometric data is forcibly taken by the state. There are restrictions on travel and their phones are monitored.

The Government claim that those are preventative measures against Islamic extremism. However, the disproportionate nature of those oppressive acts shows that they are systematic, racially motivated actions by the state. It is not just limited to the Uighurs; it extends to other minority groups, such as Christians, Tibetans and Falun Gong.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination are all raising grave concerns about the Chinese Government. Even more horrifying are the findings of the independent China Tribunal, which is chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, a leading war crimes prosecutor. The tribunal released its 562-page report on 1 March. It found unanimously and beyond all reasonable doubt that China is operating a forced organ-harvesting programme on prisoners of conscience and on ethnic and religious minorities, such as Uighurs and Falun Gong. The organs, which are forcibly taken from healthy living people, are either given to Han Chinese or sold to wealthy tourists, who are willing to pay vast sums to extend their own lives at the expense of other human beings. Sir Geoffrey Nice QC has been quoted as saying that

“It is now the responsibility of all those who interact with the Chinese government and international bodies to remember the duty every individual, and every organ of society, has to respect the entitlement of all on this planet, near or far, to the right to life. This cannot be done by wilful ‘blindness’ or ‘deafness,’ ‘pragmatic’ silence and inactivity. It requires action.”

Despite that, the World Health Organisation reports that China operates

“an ethical, voluntary organ transplant system in accordance with international standards”.

We would be right to ask how that can be, when the China Tribunal has evidence beyond all reasonable doubt that China is operating the exact opposite of an ethical and voluntary system. The answer is that under WHO rules China is able to self-assess its organ transplant system, so all we hear through WHO—a normally trusted international organisation—is the Chinese state’s party line. In a sense, we are asking the criminal to judge their own trial.

If I were to describe a state that was oppressing minority groups through mass surveillance, detention and re-education, and that harvested organs from living people to sell to the wealthy, people would think that I was describing a make-believe state in some dystopian novel. Sadly, that description is all too real and these practices are happening now within the borders of the People’s Republic of China. We cannot allow those practices to continue; we must take every diplomatic and judicial step we can to bring this abhorrent situation to an end.

I understand that China has risen to become the second most powerful economy in the world. However, we must ask ourselves whether will we allow the moral foundations of our nation to be sold out for economic profit, and will we allow innocent men, women and children to live and, sadly, often die in such horrific conditions in order to maintain our economic bottom line?

We have a tradition in this place of standing up for the voiceless and ending abuses of human rights within our own borders and within the borders of other nations. It is on this site that we became the first nation to abolish slavery; it is on this site that we voted to fight the ideology of fascism; and it is on this site that we stood up for nations ensnared by the oppressive Soviet Union when it was the world’s second greatest superpower. I ask all right hon. and hon. Members, and the Minister for Asia, who will reply to the debate, whether they will turn their back on that tradition. Will they turn their back on Uighurs, Falun Gong and others who are crying out for their support?

I therefore call on the Government to increase their diplomatic pressure on the People’s Republic of China and apply the Magnitsky Act to individuals in China who perpetrate organ-harvesting. I also call on the Government, and on right hon. and hon. Members of Parliament, to pressure the WHO to change the way that it assesses organ transplant systems, to move away from a self-assessment system and towards independent assessment.

We know that there is only so much that we can do in this place, but it is our moral duty to do all that we can do to help; to do any less would be to betray our morality, our history and the millions of voiceless people who are suffering and need our help.

Hong Kong

Marie Rimmer Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

My hon. Friend is right to say that on 25 June my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary gave an undertaking to ensure that the material to which my hon. Friend refers would not be the subject of any UK licences. Sometimes, the material that has been sold to Hong Kong has been misunderstood. For example, both my hon. Friend and I would agree that bomb disposal equipment and body armour are perfectly reasonable things to export to Hong Kong.

On the freedom of journalists, Hong Kong has been a place within the region where, historically, there has been a free press, and it would be very disturbing if there were a significant reversal of that. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) made reference to the deteriorating political situation in Hong Kong, and, in my answer, I agreed with her—that is my assessment as well. Clearly, that would include the situation with respect to a free press, as it is difficult to see how a deterioration in the way journalists go about their business would, in any way, be compatible with political freedom.

[Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

Will the Minister consider referring the worsening democratic deficit in Hong Kong to the United Nations Human Rights Council?

[Dr Murrison]

What I would like to see is greater attention being given to articles 45 and 68 of the Basic Law—that is to say a situation where we can look forward to an election of the Chief Executive and a fully democratic Legislative Assembly. I am an optimist. I would actually like to see democracy in Hong Kong greatly improved in the years ahead, and that has to be our ambition. Unfortunately, the events of the past few days have made that rather less likely.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marie Rimmer Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I would be delighted. They are lucky also to have an excellent trade envoy. I look forward to going to Indonesia later in the year and meeting counterparts in the new Government. We have a tremendous opportunity to do a huge amount of work with that very important country.

[Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Better late than never. I was genuinely perturbed by the hon. Lady’s absence from the Chamber, but she has now beetled into the place and we will hear from her.

[Ms Marie Rimmer]

T9. I sincerely apologise, Mr Speaker. I will explain later, and I am sure you will accept my explanation. I apologise to the Chamber.Given the recent comments and actions of President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu during the Israeli elections, when he called for the annexation of part or all of the west bank, and given that present international law prohibits the acquisition of territory by force and that any such move would put under threat a solution for Israel and Palestine, will the Secretary of State or a Minister commit to calling for an international examination of and protection for the human rights of Palestinians?

[Dr Murrison]

The human rights of Palestinians are quite clearly very close to the top of our list of priorities. The hon. Lady touched on Israel, the annexation of territory and the involvement of the US. Let us be clear. We want to see a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. I hope that makes our position clear.

International Freedom of Religion or Belief Day

Marie Rimmer Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), not only for his excellent speech but for the tireless commitment he has shown to raising this issue in Parliament over the years.

The hon. Gentleman’s knowledge and passion were extremely helpful during our recent trip to Pakistan, where we discussed many of the issues that will be raised by hon. Members today. I was very grateful to the Pakistani people for the warm welcome we were given and for the engagement and energy that we saw in every face in every meeting every day. They have hope and faith, and they are looking to us for help. We travelled from cities to slums, from the heart of the Supreme Court to the outskirts of Islamabad, and we consistently found people who recognised the significant scale of the problems faced and who are ready and willing to tackle these challenges.

Today, just two days before International Freedom of Religion or Belief Day, is the perfect time for me to discuss some of the challenges facing Pakistan and another important nation—China. I begin with something that the hon. Gentleman mentioned: the recent BBC investigation into China’s organ transplant industry. Last week, I attended a meeting about the persecution of a group I had never heard of before: Falun Gong practitioners. To say I was shocked and appalled by what I heard would be a significant understatement. Falun Gong is a spiritual practice that was outlawed by the Chinese Government in 1999. Since then, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom reports that Falun Gong practitioners have been arbitrarily detained in their thousands, being regularly confined in labour camps or disappearing altogether. As if that were not bad enough, there are widespread, consistent and credible reports that China is forcibly removing organs from those prisoners to supply the vast, expanding and lucrative organ transplant industry.

Organ harvesting. I think we all need to take a moment to let the idea of that sink in. It is 2018 and we are talking about human beings—men, women and children—being treated like cattle, killed on demand for the benefit of others, and all because they practise the wrong faith. The Chinese Government of course deny that that is happening. They acknowledge that it used to happen, but say that it has stopped. I know that all hon. Members would very much like to believe that that is true, but the evidence suggests otherwise.

I refer the Minister to the 2016 report compiled by former Canadian Cabinet Minister David Kilgour, working alongside prominent international human rights lawyer David Matas and Ethan Gutmann, an award-winning investigative journalist. Their report is a meticulous examination of the transplant programmes of hundreds of hospitals in China. It draws on media reports, official statements, medical journals and hospital websites, and analyses information such as hospital revenue, bed counts, bed utilisation rates, surgical personnel, training programmes, state funding and more. Their research indicates that the Chinese regime is performing between 60,000 and 100,000 organ transplants a year—a vast discrepancy with the official estimates of roughly 10,000 a year. Where are the organs coming from?

The alarming discrepancy with the official statistics is not the only evidence—indeed, it is just the tip of the iceberg. For example, since 2000, Chinese transplant hospitals have quoted waiting times of between days and weeks for an organ transplant—sometimes even hours. To give hon. Members some context, the average waiting time for a kidney transplant in the UK or US is two to three years, and these countries have much longer established traditions of voluntary organ donation.

That evidence, combined with testimony from Chinese medical professionals, has led to reports by major news outlets across the world, including the BBC, CNN and The New York Times. Indeed, the evidence is so persuasive that it has led numerous countries across the world to condemn the practice and to introduce legislation to prevent organ transplant tourism to China. For example, in 2016 the United States House of Representatives passed resolution 343 on forced organ harvesting in China. That resolution

“condemns the practice of state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting in the People’s Republic of China”

and

“demands an immediate end to the…persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual practice”.

Earlier this month, it was announced that a people’s independent tribunal on forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience would begin in London during December 2018. The tribunal will be chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice, who led the prosecution of Slobodan Milosevic, former President of Serbia, at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. I hope that hon. Members, including the Minister, will follow closely the work of the tribunal on forced organ harvesting.

The accusations are grave and difficult to believe, but does not their very gravity mean that we should do all we can to assess their validity? Should we not make absolutely sure that the claims are not true? Can we really say that we care about protecting freedom of religion or belief if we do not fully investigate such horrible reports? This Government have made very important strides against horrible practices such as modern-day slavery. Will the Minister agree to tackle this equally revolting practice? It is especially important now, as the Chinese Government seem to be expanding their persecution to Uighur Muslims. The UN has reported that 1 million Uighurs—innocent Chinese citizens; peaceful practitioners of Islam—have been detained in “re-education” camps in Xinjiang. Although I am a great believer in the importance of studying, I do not think that even I would want that kind of education. Also, The Guardian reports that millions of Uighur Muslims have been arbitrarily detained for unwanted blood, tissue and DNA tests. Why? What could possibly be the motive for that? Given the evidence mentioned earlier, one could be forgiven for concluding that it is preparatory work for including Uighurs in the forced organ transplant system. Can we really stand by and not look into this?

I shall finish my discussion of freedom of religion or belief in relation to China by quoting a passage from a report produced in 2016 by the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission:

“This is an issue that emerged in 2006 and was initially met with official scepticism. Yet…the evidence has continued to accumulate, and the issue shows no sign of fading away. The United Kingdom should address it head on. Working with others within the international community, Britain could help commission an independent investigation to examine the size of China’s organ transplant industry…the United Kingdom could enact legislation making it a criminal offence to travel to China for organs. The UK Government should raise detailed questions about organ transplant processes and facilities with the Chinese Government, specifically around how waiting times for compatible organs are so short and where organs are sourced from.”

I hope that the Minister will take those recommendations to heart.

On my recent trip to Pakistan, I was shocked to learn about the ongoing persecution of another group that I was unfamiliar with until recently—the Ahmadis. The Pakistani penal code, which the Member for Strangford mentioned, is used to prevent Ahmadi Muslims from identifying as Muslims or even using Islamic greetings, although they are Islamic people. Ahmadis are routinely arrested arbitrarily on false charges of blasphemy and have been subjected to vicious attacks in public, including acid being thrown at them. Hundreds of Ahmadis have been murdered on grounds of faith. Ahmadis are also technically prohibited from voting, because to vote they are required by the state to register as non-Muslim, which many refuse to do.

[John Howell]

I have a lot of association with the group of Muslims the hon. Lady talks about. They came to my constituency and asked whether they could hold a meeting showing that the Koran was a book of peace, rather than a book of war, because they have a great attraction to the legitimate government system within a country. It was a fantastic event. I hope that the hon. Lady will, with me, endorse their great feeling for the British system, which they showed at that meeting.

[Ms Rimmer]

I will; I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. It is good that the Ahmadis felt that they could come. When people who have come from a country where they were persecuted have the faith and strength to go to someone who is completely alien or slightly alien to their religion, it gives some confidence that they believe in us and this country.

[Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)]

It is not only in Pakistan where intolerance is being displayed towards these people. In Glasgow in 2016, there was a case in which a man travelled a considerable distance—I cannot remember how far; he might have come from the north-east of England. [Interruption.] It may have been Birmingham. He came to confront a newsagent in his shop and kill him—stab him to death—simply on the basis of his religious conviction. That is something that has been visited upon our own shores.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Rimmer]

I hope that the Minister will discuss with his Pakistani counterparts what can be done to support this beleaguered population, especially given that the Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religious belief, Lord Ahmad, is an Ahmadi himself. If we fail to stand up for the freedom of religious belief of Ahmadis in Pakistan, we place ourselves in the rather ridiculous position of failing to stand up for the freedom of religious belief of our own special envoy for freedom of religious belief! It is urgent that we deal with that.

One thing that could really help, and which I urge the Minister to push for, is the implementation of the 2014 Pakistan Supreme Court judgment, which ordered the Government to, among other things, establish a national council for minority rights. This body has yet to be established, but if it were set up and the judgment implemented fully, it could have a significant impact on the welfare of Pakistani religious or belief minorities.

The hon. Member for Strangford mentioned that religious minorities in Pakistan do not have sufficient skills to obtain more valuable employment. The chairman of the Public Service Commission in Pakistan suggested an interesting idea to our delegation to address that problem. He mentioned the possibility of gathering all those who had just fallen short of the qualifications needed for a particular job, and training them to get them to the required standard, so that they would be ready when the next job came around that is put aside for these people. He specifically mentioned nursing as an area where such a program could be especially effective, and that he would appreciate support from the UK. Similarly, the Punjabi Ministry for human rights specifically asked our delegation to suggest that the UK earmark aid funding to help religious minority groups to overcome the significant barriers they face in Pakistan, which, believe me, are quite shocking. Will the Minister consider those ideas?

Before I finish I want to talk about refugees from Myanmar. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees recently declared that Chin State in Myanmar is stable and secure from a refugee perspective, and that it would begin to return Chin refugees from India and Malaysia. The Chin Human Rights Organisation has, however, produced a report detailing how systematic violations of freedom of religious belief, including killings, torture and other forms of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, are still prevalent. Is the Minister willing to ask the UNHCR to share the information on which it based the conclusion that Chin State is stable and secure?

I thank the Government for their work on freedom of religious belief and for graciously meeting and supporting our delegation in Pakistan. I hope the Minister will do all he can to investigate and evaluate claims of forced organ harvesting in China, including pushing for an independent international tribunal on the issue. I trust that he will also work with his Pakistani counterparts to push for implementation of the recommendations made by the hon. Member for Strangford, and to support religious minorities in Pakistan, such as the Ahmadis, by calling for the establishment of a national council for minority rights. Finally, I am sure that refugees from Chin State, Myanmar would be immensely grateful if the Minister asked the UNHCR for the evidence showing that the state is stable and secure.

Refugees and Human Rights

Marie Rimmer Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the universal declaration of human rights, one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century, but the current climate raises serious questions about our ability to uphold those human rights in an ever-changing world. We have seen a rise in populist nationalism across Europe, and particularly in the United States. Some of the traditionally liberal democrat states have increasingly treated refugees very poorly and overlooked state-led human rights abuses for financial benefit. Such is the case with our Government’s arms exports to Saudi Arabia.

It is the UN’s responsibility to uphold human rights around the world, and the UN is weakened by the membership—and the vetos—of Russia and China. It is the UK’s responsibility to prioritise human rights in our policy towards refugees. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, has recently announced that he will not be seeking a second term because, as he stated, that might involve bending a knee and lessening a voice. His view seems to be that the UN’s founding members and key human rights advocates are favouring at best silence, and at worst complicity in the current state of affairs.

Meanwhile, the Rohingya face forced repatriation and a return to state-sponsored violence in Myanmar. Thank goodness that a pause has been put on that—for now. The Yemeni people face slaughter and starvation, already displaced people in the Central African Republic are being killed, and 5,000 children have died, including of diphtheria.

There are also known to be 500,000 Palestinian refugee children living in the west bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Last week the US Government cut their financial support for those children by half—$65 million gone from children in desperate need, all because the President felt he had been shown insufficient appreciation and respect. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) and my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) wrote to the Foreign Secretary about the issue last week. I was going to ask what measures he plans to take, but the Minister advised my right hon. Friend earlier about the efforts to encourage the release of the $65 million and to augment it with finance from other nations. That is desperately needed.

We must stand up and fight for the fundamental human rights that equalise us all and for the refugees, among the most vulnerable people on earth, who need us to advocate for them. The world has changed, and it has changed substantially. The bipolar world is long gone, and multipolarity has replaced it. The UN must adapt accordingly and we must work collectively to sharpen its teeth when it comes to human rights.

The UN declaration of human rights was conceived at a time of consensus about the direction in which the world should head. We may never see its like again, but no matter how fast our world may be changing, and no matter what technology may be designed in the future, that does not mean that we should abandon those ideals. We need to explore how we can change, and we need to adapt. I therefore call on the Government to show strong leadership in the UN and to work through international organisations to uphold those rights.

Budget Resolutions

Marie Rimmer Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

As I listened to the Chancellor talk about driverless cars in the Budget speech last week, what struck me was how few of his measures will help the residents in St Helens, Whiston and Prescot in my constituency. He said nothing about the fact that we are facing the longest fall in our living standards on record. A reasonably waged family in my constituency with two children will be £800 worse off every year after 2021.

There was nothing in the Chancellor’s speech about securing a long-term solution for funding care for our older and vulnerable people. There was no additional funding for care packages, and our elderly and disabled still face savage cuts from the £10 million general grant reduction announced in previous Budgets. Despite the council raising the social care precept of 3% for this year and next year, with £2.5 million from previous years, there was no additional funding to meet the ever growing demand for social care year on year. The slight increase in funding to help cope with the annual winter crisis at A&Es was welcome, but even with the pioneering work of St Helens Council and St Helens and Whiston Hospitals, it will not ward off the increase in the number of elderly and infirm people at A&Es.

I asked the Prime Minister how she would use the Budget to address police funding, but the Chancellor said nothing about funding for the police—he did not mention the police—or about how to fight the 20% rise in violent crime given the 22% cuts to frontline policing in Merseyside. He ignored the increases of 19%, in domestic abuse, of 20% in violence and of 26.5%. in rape. There are outstanding prison recalls, and gun and knife crime is increasing. There have been two candlelit vigils for murdered young people in my constituency this weekend. Merseyside exports more organised crime groups and county line issues than any other area in the country. Merseyside police dealt with 8,729 missing people, of whom 64% or 5,601 were aged 16 and under. These children and vulnerable adults are at high risk of extreme physical and sexual violence, gang recriminations and trafficking. My constituents fully support our police and are trying to rebuild their communities as safe places free of knives, guns and exploitation, and my constituents are petitioning for more police.

We need a Government who support the public and public services—a Government who care. The Chancellor said nothing about the ongoing 3% real annual cut in benefits. Of course, nothing was said about replacing the eye-watering £94 million funding taken from St Helens Council services by 2020. Yes, there is some hope for those poor individuals sleeping rough on the streets, although the money will not go that far.

The help for a few young people to buy homes is welcome, but we need to be clear that the Chancellor’s housing proposals will not work in St Helens and Knowsley. None of my people earns anything like enough to buy a property worth £300,000. The stamp duty cut for first-time buyers only works if they are one of the small number of households who can afford such a property. Help with the deposit for a mortgage is no use to people who have already bought a small terraced house that their growing family can no longer fit into. The stamp duty change will channel much of our hard-earned income to those in the south. Less than 0.5% of my constituents would be able to buy a property at £300,000, and because the Chancellor has abolished brownfield land regeneration funding, the Government are not acting now against companies that hoard building land and their advisers.

The Budget feels a bit like the Government’s new cars: driverless and heading down the wrong road and on to reckless destruction—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order.

Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad

Marie Rimmer Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke). However, I have to start by disagreeing with him. He claimed a few moments ago that the leave campaign was saying that millions of Turkish criminals were about to flood the country. That is not true. The actual claim of the leave campaign is that only 1 million are coming over in the next eight years, and not all of them are criminals! Indeed, I have here the quote from Vote Leave:

“Since the birth rate in Turkey is so high, we can expect to see an additional million people added to the UK population from Turkey alone within eight years.”

That accompanied a statement from a Government Minister who had never heard of the word “veto” in relation to the accession of states.

I am grateful to The Times this morning for adding just a little insight into this subject. Under the heading, “Turkish delight”, it says:

“One of Vote Leave’s key warnings is the threat to public services posed by Turkey joining the EU. But what’s this? Big-name Outers Johnson, Daniel Hannan and Douglas Carswell are all listed as founder members of Conservative Friends of Turkey, set up to ‘lobby in favour of Turkish membership of the EU’”.

It is now clear that such are the Machiavellian tactics of the leave campaign that that triumvirate have been campaigning for Turkish membership of the European Union so that they can use that as a reason for the removal of Britain from the Union. What an extraordinary array of political talent and consistency we face!

I want to restrict myself to three points, because we have been well round the houses today with Foreign Office questions, the statement, and now this debate. I want to make an argument about British and Scottish values with regard to immigration; to talk a little about Libya, because I am not sure that we are hearing the full story from the Government about where we are with military action there; and lastly to talk a bit about the European referendum, and particularly “Project Fear”—a subject of which I have some experience and knowledge from the past.

First, I will look at the question of immigration. The nonsense from the leave campaign on immigration can be juxtaposed with the reality of where we are in Scotland with many immigration cases. I want to talk about the plight of the Brain family—Gregg Brain, Kathryn Brain, and their son Lachlan, who is seven years old. This family came from Australia to Dingwall in the Scottish highlands as part of the Homecoming Scotland programme, which was initiated by my predecessor as First Minister, Lord McConnell, and carried forward by my Administration. The family came—this was heavily advertised in Australia—to encourage those of Scottish descent to return to Scotland to help re-populate and reinvigorate the highlands and other areas of Scotland.

Gregg and Kathryn both have Scottish roots. They first visited Scotland on their honeymoon in 2005, and returned in 2011 to do further research on whether a move to Scotland would be the right thing for them to do—to up sticks from Australia and invest accumulated capital in Scotland to make a new life. Between 2005 and 2011, they applied for visas, and Kathryn eventually secured a student visa after enrolling in a degree in Scottish history and archaeology. Her husband and son were listed as her dependants. Kathryn finished her degree last year, and the family’s visa expired in December 2015. The Home Office has rejected their case to stay. It is believed that a further visa application was rejected as they had not succeeded in finding jobs that completely fulfilled the visa requirements. This is despite the fact that Gregg Brain had been working, and was working, but then had to give up his job as a result of the Home Office decision.

This family—let me stress that their son Lachlan has known no other home than Dingwall and Scots Gaelic is his first language—are fully integrated into the community. They have massive community support. They have the support of just about every Scottish MP in his House. They have overwhelming support from the newly elected Members of the Scottish Parliament, as well as their own two excellent constituency Members in both Parliaments. This story affects an area where the dominant issue for the past two centuries has been not fear of immigration, but fear of emigration. This family, having so much to contribute and having already contributed so much to our country, having been attracted to it by a Scottish Government-sponsored initiative inviting them to come, and having qualified and worked and sustained themselves, are now to be kicked out of the country next Tuesday unless the Home Secretary and her Ministers have the courtesy to look again at this matter and exercise the ministerial discretion that most certainly should be exercised in this case. If a Home Office Minister would like to say a word, I will gladly give way at this stage.

The silence from the Treasury Bench should be a matter of shame. There is a substantial injustice being inflicted on this family and a substantial discredit on our country. This is not just an immigration issue or a community issue—

[Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

And human rights.

[Alex Salmond]

And a human rights issue, as the hon. Lady rightly says. The Home Office is turning its face against the massive support of just about every parliamentarian from Scotland and refusing to accept and acknowledge that this family came to our country on a Government-sponsored scheme. I do hope that Ministers will find it in their heart to look at this case in the next seven days.

Secondly, I come to the subject of Libya. The Foreign Secretary referred a few minutes ago to his visit to Tripoli, where he said the UK was ready to provide training to the new Administration’s armed forces. He said that

“it will be possible for us and our partners to support the military training programme.”

Such a mission would not require a Commons vote because, he said:

“That does not extend to non-combat missions.”

The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who is in his place, rejected the idea of a training mission, stating that:

“Even if you say it is just a training mission rather than a combat one, any foreign troop presence in Tripoli will be seen as a Western intervention.”

The commander of Libya’s air force warned:

“If any foreign soldier touches our soil with his foot, all Libyan people will be united against him. Our problems will be aggravated with the coming of foreign troops.”

Interviewed in RT, former UK ambassador to Libya Oliver Miles warned against “loose talk” of military intervention in the collapsing state. He said:

“There’s been talks for weeks and months of the possibility of military intervention. But I don’t think it’s helpful at the moment because intervention is not what they need.”

Following the Foreign Affairs Committee’s visit to north Africa in mid-April, the Chair of the Committee, the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), wrote to the Foreign Secretary accusing him of being “less than candid” and

“deliberately misleading to the uninformed reader”

over plans to send British troops to join an Italian-led training mission.

In a few weeks’ time, on 6 July, the Chilcot report will be published. One of the key issues that many of us hope will be identified and brought out in that report is that of pre-commitment—what commitments were made in 2002 by the then Prime Minister to the American President that dictated all his subsequent actions. I ask the Foreign Secretary for a straight answer to this question: what, if any, commitments have been made in relation to intervention in Libya at this stage—not just on combat roles, which the Defence Secretary referred to earlier—or is it genuinely the case that, before any such commitments are undertaken, there will be a debate and vote in this House to ascertain the wisdom or otherwise of such an intervention?

Finally, I come to the European campaign and to “Project Fear”. The term was actually devised in an internal briefing in the Better Together campaign in the Scottish referendum, where the writer self-described the campaign as “Project Fear”. I want briefly to discuss why I think that is entirely the wrong campaign and the wrong tactic to adopt.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has substantial form on the matter. On 13 November 2011 he gave an interview on BBC Scotland television in which he predicted a collapse in inward investment in Scotland because of the referendum of 2014. That was followed by record years of inward investment in Scotland in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. The current Secretary of State for Scotland had the brass neck in a statement on 17 June last year to claim the credit for the record inward investment figures of 2014. No one in the leave campaign should be surprised by the nefarious activities of Her Majesty’s Treasury, given the even more nefarious activities it engaged in during the Scottish referendum campaign.

My question today is whether this sort of material wins hearts and minds in a referendum campaign. I do not think it does.

--- Later in debate ---

[Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

I will try to get my speech flowing now that I have cut it so much. I wish to focus my remarks on justice and prison reform—a key aspect of keeping people safe in this country.

It is a pleasure to serve on the Justice Committee under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), and along with the hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), who has had to leave the Chamber.

The current state of the prison and criminal justice system means that that system is seriously failing society as a whole. I reiterate the comments I made in the House on 27 January, when I warmly welcomed and supported the statement by the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, in which he expressed his desire to reform our prison system. The Ministry of Justice has sought to improve prison safety through a range of legislative, operational and staff recruitment measures. The Ministry hoped that prison safety would stabilise. In reality, it has deteriorated further and continues to do so. It is imperative that further attention is paid to bringing prisoners back under firmer control, reversing recent trends in the escalation of violence, self-harm and suicides. If we do not bring this under control soon, that will seriously undermine the wider reforms we are awaiting.

Ministers frequently assert that problems in different areas of the public services are not all about money. Of course, this is the case. Appropriate management, support and effective allocation of resources is essential, but in the prison and criminal justice system this is no longer a viable line of argument. We need sufficient resources and we need them now, or a crisis will become an absolute catastrophe. Our prison population continues to rise, with 7,000 fewer prison officers and 2,500 more prisoners. Psychoactive drugs are being dropped in by drones, and other drugs taken in.

There has been a serious recruitment and retention problem. Last year, 2,250 extra prison officers were recruited. That resulted in a net gain of 440, but many of them left. In fact, that figure has now gone up to 530 because we have recruited since 2015. How can officers be retained in an environment that is regularly on the verge of riots? That gives rise to questions about health and safety policy and the management arrangements for implementing the policies in prison. We need to get prison officers in, and we need them immediately. That requires money. It also requires an acknowledgement that warm words about efficiency and getting more for less are nonsense when it comes down to potentially bringing down the whole system.

I have to ask Members of the House who they think would do a prison officer’s job at the moment. A prison officer’s basic starting salary is £17,735 basic, or £9.22 per hour, exempting antisocial hours payments, and having had years of real-terms pay cuts. By 2020, with the full implementation of the Government’s national living wage, their basic pay will be very little over the legal minimum, disregarding the antisocial hours premium.

I warmly recognise and accept the letters dated 18 and 19 May that we received from the Secretary of State. However, we need to address the problems across the whole prison estate, not just in six prisons. It must be done, and done quickly.