Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

2. What steps she is taking to tackle backlogs in (a) asylum and (b) other immigration applications.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

14. What recent progress her Department has made on reducing the backlog of asylum applications.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be happy to look into the case that the hon. Lady raises. With respect to visas, I would just say that the UK visa service is now meeting or exceeding every one of its service standards, so the Government are providing a good service generally, but I would be happy to look into that case.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

The Minister says that the Government are providing a good service, but that is not my experience, either of asylum cases or across the piece. There are so many cases of work visas, visitor visas and so on being delayed for longer than I have seen in the 18 years I have served as an MP, which have included serving in the Minister’s role. When will he get a grip? It is all very well saying that he is dealing with asylum, but it is like whack-a-mole: he puts effort into one area, and another area goes badly wrong. When is he going to get a grip?

[Robert Jenrick]

I prefer to trade in facts, and the fact is that in every single one of the visa categories the UK visa service is at or exceeding the service standard. It is true that we moved a number of people away from work and visit visa duties to ensure that we met the demands of the Homes for Ukraine scheme last year, but those people are now back on the job and the service is performing well. If the hon. Lady wants to give specific examples, I shall be happy to look into them.

Knowsley Incident

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I am aware of the site in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and the protests around it. I spoke to officials earlier today regarding it and they gave me an update. I would be happy to connect him with those officials so that he can raise his concerns and they can support him in any way.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister speaks as though all of the issues were someone else’s problem. He has acknowledged some changes he is bringing into the asylum system. I am one of the top six customers of the Home Office for my constituents and it is the worst it has been in 18 years, but in truth what we are seeing here is the chickens coming home to roost in the impact on communities, the appalling situation that many asylum seekers are living in and the danger around these sites. When we will see a real change, a step change, as a result of the changes he is introducing? I cannot see it happening any time soon.

[Robert Jenrick]

The Prime Minister set out a plan at the end of last year and I am working every day to implement it. We are already seeing significant progress on the asylum backlog, with cases falling significantly with every passing week, and we are recruiting more decision makers into the Home Office to do this. We are working intensively with local authorities to find better and greater value for money accommodation through the national dispersal scheme, rather than hotels. If the hon. Lady, as a valued Member of this House, has suggestions as to ways in which we can improve the quality of service, I would be happy to meet her to discuss them.

Windrush Lessons Learned Review: Implementation of Recommendations

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Miss Dines]

I understand that that was part of the argument put forward in the seemingly inaccurate article in The Guardian. The level of engagement has been incredibly high, and engagement is a key part of delivering the review. Home Office officials are actively engaging with internal and external organisations and staff at all levels, including unions, support networks and the Department’s race board, to ensure that the findings of the review are implemented. Across the whole community there have been many engagement exercises, but, again, it is not appropriate to comments on leaks or news articles that may not be accurate.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

One would think from the way the Minister is speaking that this was an urgent question on an article in The Guardian. This is an urgent question about a Home Office that, as the Home Affairs Committee and the Public Accounts Committee have both repeatedly pointed out, failed to recognise the pattern of behaviour despite many flags in the system, introduced a compensation scheme that then did not deliver, had to review the compensation scheme and is now goodness knows where. One of the recommendations from the Public Accounts Committee was that more work be done to identify people from Commonwealth countries other than from the Caribbean who were also impacted. Can she update the House on progress on that?

[Miss Dines]

It is regrettable that some of the work the Home Office has done has not been acknowledged. There has been a sea change. Things have changed. The process has been improved and there is a constant system of review; even since the August changes were made, more work has been done. I mentioned earlier the introduction of preliminary payments for close family members, which allows for part of a compensation payment to be made far earlier, meeting one of the core concerns of close family members about receiving that assistance and money. The commitment is definitely there. It has been suggested that this has now become a UQ on The Guardian, but that is because of the fallacious and inaccurate information in The Guardian that has seemingly led to these questions being asked.

Hotel Asylum Accommodation: Local Authority Consultation

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

On asylum seekers working, there are respectable arguments on both sides of the issue. I take the view that, for a range of different reasons, there are already significant pull factors to the UK and it would be unwise of us to add a further pull factor. However, I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman takes a different view.

With regard to the backlog, we are now going to institute the processes piloted at our Leeds office, which will ensure that productivity is increased significantly. However, he is right that we need to get through the backlog. It should never have been allowed to get to this level in the first place.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Added to the chaos, we now see a bidding war where local authorities find themselves competing against Home Office procurement for temporary accommodation. That is not new. The Public Accounts Committee highlighted those very issues in its report in November 2020 and made a recommendation to the Home Office, which the Government accepted, that:

“The Department should, as a matter of urgency, communicate with NHS bodies, MPs and other key stakeholders such as police, setting out how it will consult and engage with them in future.”

We also asked the Department to write to us further about that approach. So this failure was on the desk—everybody knew that it was happening—and it is still a failure now. Why?

[Robert Jenrick]

As I have said in answer to other questions, we want to move forward to a much better level of engagement with local authorities. From my prior experience in local government and seeing the confluence of issues from Homes for Ukraine, the Afghan resettlement scheme, the Syrian scheme, the number of asylum seekers and the general lack of social housing, it is important that Departments such as mine and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities work closely together and that the Government take a place-based approach where we understand the specific pressures that we are placing on particular local authorities and work with them as closely was we can.

Remote Observation and Recording (Courts and Tribunals) Regulations 2022

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2022 General Committees

[Miss Dines]

In relation to the finances, a great deal of money has been put aside by the Government to fund the infrastructure and technology generally, and for the draft regulations. In 2021, we spent £15.8 million on audio and video technology in our courtrooms. The Government are investing more than £1.3 billion to transform HM Courts and Tribunals Service, and invested a further £142 million during the pandemic to upgrade court buildings to ensure that they are digitally enabled. On the specific costs, digitally enabling Crown courtrooms costs £90,000 and magistrates courtrooms £70,000. About 70% of courts and tribunals have audio and video technology in place, and for Crown courts the figure jumps to more than 90%.

There have been extensive informal consultations. Judges and tribunal leaders have discussed implementation regularly. I stress that we do not in any way find that the draft regulations impose any fettering of the already wide discretion of every judge to have control of his or her court. There is nothing new here.

In relation to the protection of witnesses and other participants, exactly the same principles are in place. Judges, being in charge of their courts, look very carefully at each and every application for somebody to observe, whether it is remote or in person. The general nature of the draft regulations is to make observation more transparent and to make it more possible, including for those whom I mentioned earlier who might not find it physically easy to attend. I hope that responds to most of the points made by the hon. Member for Stockton North.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the Minister to her position. I have two questions. First, when we looked at the issue in the Public Accounts Committee—at all issues around remote proceedings—no proper evaluation was planned by the Ministry of Justice for the impacts on how justice is done, in particular with regards to witnesses. Secondly, while people have to give their name, address and details to the judge before any agreement for them to watch something remotely, what safeguards are in place to ensure that they are not doing so in an open environment? That might be against the law, but it is very easy for someone, whether a journalist or another, to be watching, or for someone even just to wander through the space in which it is being watched. There are sanctions in law, but what safeguards are in place to prevent that happening inadvertently or deliberately?

[Miss Dines]

As I mentioned earlier, under section 199 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, it is an offence punishable by a fine of £1,000 and up to two years in prison if found to be a contempt. That is a high level of punishment for any unexpected forward transmission, which would be against the law. The courts take this extremely seriously. The hon. Member will probably recall from newspapers and the media that contempt of court has been dealt with extremely seriously by judges. I have no doubt that this would be dealt with in the same way. I emphasise that the measure is to create more open justice, but in a safe way, where there has been proper evaluation.

HM Passport Office Backlog

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House censures the Minister for Safe and Legal Migration, the hon. Member for Torbay, for his handling of the crisis at Her Majesty’s Passport Office; and directs him to come to the House, no later than 20 June 2022, to apologise for the tens of thousands of people who have waited more than six weeks for their passport.

I will start from the outset by saying what this debate is not about. It is not about the hard-working staff who have been so badly let down by the management and the Government. There are countless examples of the fact that the infrastructure that holds our country together is creaking—indeed, in some cases, at breaking point. There can be no doubt that the frankly shambolic state of the Passport Office is an example of the systemic failure that has been designed and delivered by successive Conservative Governments since 2010, because by the time covid hit us in early 2020, a decade of underinvestment had left us with our defences down, lacking resilience and ill prepared for an external shock such as a global pandemic. NHS waiting lists were already at record highs and there were already more than 100,000 staff vacancies. A steady stream of Conservative Chancellors had failed to grow the British economy in line with western competitors, thus depriving the Exchequer of an eyewatering £12 billion of potential income that could have helped us through the pandemic—or indeed £30 billion if the growth trajectory that was established by the last Labour Government had continued.

Manufacturing had been at best ignored and at worst actively undermined by successive Conservative Governments, with 230,000 job losses in manufacturing since 2015 alone, thus leaving our country staggeringly overdependent on China for everything from personal protective equipment to lateral flow tests, and culminating in the disgraceful spectacle of the Government wasting £8.7 billion of taxpayers’ money on PPE that did not even meet the required safety standards. A toxic Tory decade of incompetence and indifference left us in early 2020 with a high-tax, high-inflation, low-wage and low-resilience economy, so that when the pandemic struck, we were left stranded in the storm without so much as an umbrella for protection.

But the catalogue of failure that left us in the lurch when covid struck has been matched only by the litany of errors that characterised the Government’s chaotic approach to planning for the end of lockdown restrictions.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Speaking as the last passport Minister for the Labour party, we saw the problem coming when the banking crisis hit, with a dip in passport applications, and had a plan for what would happen. This Government seem to have no plan and understanding that after two years of no travel there would be an increase in passport applications. Does my hon. Friend not think that the Government were asleep on the job?

[Stephen Kinnock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A Government who fail to plan are a Government who plan to fail, and that is what we have seen throughout this process. We have seen nothing but a Government who are asleep at the wheel, and the British people are paying the price. The catalogue of failure that left us in the lurch is exactly as she says.

Of course, this failure to plan applies to the Passport Office, as set out in the motion before us, but it also applies across Government. The Government are presiding over a country that is mired in bureaucracy, red tape and waiting lists, crippling our economy, costing the taxpayer billions of pounds in emergency spending, and preventing the British people from simply getting on with their lives.

Global Migration Challenge

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The permanent secretary at the Home Office concluded that he could not tell whether this was value for money, but on every number and every question of cost, the Home Secretary has failed to answer. Can she answer the point made by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May)? If this deters certain people from crossing, surely the people traffickers and smugglers will just load the dinghies up with women and children and make sure that they get their money somehow; it does not break the business model.

[Priti Patel]

I am sorry, but I want to dispute that point. It is our moral responsibility and duty not to just wring our hands and let the people-smugglers carry on trading in human misery. We have a responsibility to find solutions. It is disappointing, as I have repeatedly said, that the Opposition just sit on the sidelines carping and playing political games. The message to the British people is obviously that they just want uncontrolled immigration, they do not have a solution to this problem, and they are not prepared to work with the Government to stop this awful and evil trade of people smuggling.

Support for Black Victims of Domestic Abuse

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I warmly congratulate the Petitions Committee for having the foresight to take on this debate. Before I talk about the subject, I pay tribute to Valerie Forde. Valerie was my constituent. Her daughter is still a constituent. Valerie is still very warmly remembered. She was a big community figure and very active in the Hackney Marsh Partnership. She was very popular and is fondly remembered by anybody who ever met her. Valerie’s daughter is clear that today we need to remember what she gave in life as well as how she left it. Her daughter, Jahzara, was bright and bubbly with everything ahead of her, but her life was cruelly cut short by an awful act of violence.

Valerie’s family have asked me to reflect on the impact that her and Jahzara’s murder has had on them. The impact goes on forever and ever. It will be felt by the family members and friends for a very long time to come. There are big issues, of course, about what happened at the time, which I will not repeat here in the time I have available. I refer hon. Members to my Adjournment debate in June 2020, when I highlighted some of the disparities in support for black women victims of domestic abuse. I put on record my thanks again to Sistah Space for its work in highlighting the disparities in support and, crucially, in understanding of black women victims of domestic violence.

The figures are stark. Freedom of information data from 30 police forces shows, as my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) highlighted, that between 2016 and 2020 police forces were one and a half times more likely to bring forward a charge when the victim or survivor was white than when they were black. The proportion of black and minoritised victims since the start of the pandemic is higher than the previous 15-year average for domestic homicides and higher than the 2019 data by five percentage points. The number of high-risk domestic abuse cases heard in Hackney increased by 20% in the first year of the pandemic—that is, the financial year 2020-21.

Those are stark figures, and there are many reasons for that. Much of it is about misunderstanding, to put it politely; some of it is about unconscious bias; and some of it is about racist attitudes that lead to stereotyped views of how people should be treated. That is unacceptable. Domestic violence is a horrible thing to happen to anyone. It rips apart families and causes grief all round, but for there to be a disparity even in this horrendous field because of the colour of your skin is unacceptable. Each of those domestic violence figures is one too many, so what needs to be done?

As well as Valerie’s law, which is a really good initiative, there are wider things that can be done. Small specialist organisations that work with specific groups—in this case, black women—often find it hard to compete for the contracts that are let by local authorities, the Metropolitan police or the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, due to the funding cuts we have seen in local authorities over many years and the knock-on effect on the services those councils provide. We know that however good a council is, very often people need specialist services that are from the community and understand it, and can make sure that where there is a gap in understanding, it can be bridged. There is also clearly a need for greater representation of black women at policy level, as well as delivery level. Too often, we hear the phrase “BAME”, which glosses over the many differences between different groups. It is really important that black women specifically have a space marked out for them to get the support they need.

If we are talking about things not being done about people without people, it is heartening that we are finally seeing far more black women in Parliament. For a very long time, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) was the only black woman in this place, and then for some time was one of only two. It is only in recent years that we have seen far more people in this place and, indeed, in government who have, and should have, more understanding of what is going on—a voice at the table to argue for people, which is a start. However, I think all my right hon. and hon. Friends would agree that that is not enough. It needs to happen at community level, from local council level right down to local delivery level—so that simple things, such as the colour of a bruise on black skin, do not have to be explained because somebody in that situation knows what they are looking for.

Valerie’s law is a simple, proportionate step, and I hope the Minister will be sympathetic to it. It is about mandating guidance to police forces at the first stage of their training. It is not a difficult thing to do, and it can be taken beyond just black women, because it is important that the cultural sensitivities of other communities are understood. We are in the midst of recruiting a large number of additional police officers; that programme is going quite well in terms of numbers, but as the National Audit Office report that was published on Friday highlights, recruiting is only one step. Those officers then have to be trained and deployed—trained in training, but trained on the streets as well, the training that happens when a young officer turns up for the first time to a domestic violence situation.

Depending on that officer’s background, they may never have met a black woman before. We know that happens in the Met, so it is really important that Valerie’s law is brought in now so that those new police officers can start out to hopefully help transform the culture of the Met, which—as my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead has highlighted—has been rocked from top to bottom through a series of unacceptable racist and misogynist incidents. This law is a proportionate step that is simple to introduce, and I hope the Minister will embrace it quickly, so that those new police officers who are being recruited can learn from the beginning how they need to support black women who are victims of domestic violence.

Daniel Morgan Independent Panel Report

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I am hesitant to intervene in an independent process. Given the hon. Lady’s experience in policing, she will know that. If she thinks a meeting with me and her constituent would be useful once the IOPC has concluded, I would be more than happy to do so.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It has been a torrid time for the Met, but I am not so concerned about the Met; I am concerned about constituents of mine and those of us all who worry about policing. We had the report just last week about child Q. People in my constituency and elsewhere, and particularly black parents, black pupils and parents of black pupils, are worried about what the impact is on them. I know that the response has to be done in 12 months, and I worry that that will divert the Met to dealing with corruption, which obviously has to be dealt with. Can the Minister give some comfort from the Dispatch Box today that the issues of racism and inappropriate action against child Q will be dealt with much quicker than waiting for an IOPC report? Action needs to happen quicker. Tackling corruption has to happen, but not just that.

[Kit Malthouse]

As I said in the urgent question on child Q, I am hopeful that the IOPC will conclude its investigation on that matter shortly, and then we can quickly learn the lessons from that, exactly as the hon. Lady says, and hopefully ensure that that does not happen again. Just to be clear on the timeline, the Mayor has a statutory duty to respond to this inspection within 56 days with an action plan. The IOPC has put a 12-month time limit on implementing its 20 recommendations for change. Some may be done quicker than that, and some have already started. For example, my understanding is that inexplicably, the Met police is the only force in the country that does not have the software in place to monitor the inappropriate use of its systems. The work to implement that has started already, and I hope that will done before 12 months. Such is the importance of this issue, I am happy to commit to coming back to the House at some future point, when completion is in sight or done on all these 20 matters, and report that to the Members who are concerned.

Refugees from Ukraine

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I have always made it abundantly clear in the House that our approach is always under review —it is under review for a range of issues, for example, as the situation changes or the security threat level changes. The hon. Lady has just asked why we cannot just let people through. There is a range of advice that I have to consider. Having considered all the advice and looked at the approach we can take, my priority has been to streamline the approach. Clearly, it is not appropriate to keep sending people who do not necessarily need to go to visa application centres to those centres. We can now prioritise those who are more vulnerable and do not have documentation, and we want to focus on those individuals. The final point to make is that not only are we as a country generous in our approach to people fleeing persecution, but this is how the Government’s approach has always been, in terms of safe routes, legal routes, Afghan refugees and British nationals overseas who have come to the UK. That has been at the heart of the Government’s work. For every crisis that takes place in the world there is no single solution. We have to develop bespoke solutions, which is what we have done.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

As one of the top six customers of the Home Office on immigration issues, I have seen how this situation underlines the chaos in the Home Office’s immigration system. It is really struggling to keep up with the basics and when dealing with this surge it has understandably crumbled under the pressure. I am concerned that we have been waiting for all these days. We know that security checks need to take place, but what security risk is there from 90-year-old women, from people in their 60s, from mothers and small children? Has the right hon. Lady not given some thought to progressing them through faster and doing more checks on them here in the UK?

[Priti Patel]

Yes, and that is exactly what we have been doing.