Clandestine Migrants (Harwich)

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

My hon. Friend makes an important and powerful point. Our international and regional development assistance plays a key part in providing long-term solutions to help prevent the flows of people across continents and in confronting and combating the traffickers who are engaged in this pernicious trade. Yes, he is correct, and we certainly do want to see that focus on international development assistance to support our own domestic priorities.

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

As the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) said, only 6% of vehicles are stopped. We know that there is an issue around infrastructure as well as around resources at ports. What conversation is the Minister having with the ferry companies, which often plead commercial pressures as well, to ensure that there is space and willingness to engage with the Border Force to tackle this issue?

[James Brokenshire]

As I have already told the House, it is not correct to talk about any specific percentages at any one port given the very flexible way in which resources are directed to meet the threat, but we continue to discuss the matter with the maritime and other sectors. Indeed the round-table discussion that I had with the hauliers in March focused on how we could work with them, the need for greater security and the support they need to help them with their role. We will certainly continue those discussions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

I totally refute the hon. Gentleman’s assertions. This Government have a record to be proud of in the work we have done on domestic abuse, not just the ring-fencing of stable funding of £40 million but the introduction of new laws, protection orders, and measures on stalking abuses. We have done more in the five years we have been here than the Labour Government before us did in all their 13 years. What is more, I seem to recall that Labour Members are not proposing to reverse any of the legal aid cuts, and we have preserved legal aid for cases in which domestic abuse plays a part.

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

On legal aid for victims of domestic violence, I and other colleagues have come across women who are victims but who have had to fork out from their own pockets, and some have just given in after spending too much, moving too often and finding that the system does not work. Surely the Minister must acknowledge that there is a problem. What is she going to do about it?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I reiterate that the £2 billion annual cost of legal aid, combined with the economic circumstances left by Labour, meant that hard choices had to be made. Labour was also committed to reducing legal aid. We have retained legal aid in key areas impacting on women, particularly with regard to injunctions to protect victims from domestic abuse and in private family law cases where domestic abuse is a feature.

Terrorist Attacks (Paris)

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I absolutely agree. Freedom of the press means that the press should be free to publish what it chooses within the law. As the Prime Minister reiterated earlier, freedom of the press, which we all believe in, means that we should accept that it can publish what it wishes to publish within the law, and we should not set artificial boundaries on that.

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

Will the Home Secretary update the House on how well the Prevent strategy is working in reaching people at the grass roots who work with young people? Whatever the House does, quite rightly, to protect people’s primary civil liberty—that of life and limb—through new legislation, the security services cannot be everywhere and that network on the ground is most important.

[Mrs May]

I am happy to give the hon. Lady some figures on Prevent. Thirty local authority areas are currently classified as Prevent priority areas, and 14 more supported areas are eligible for funding for Prevent projects. Since early 2012, local projects have reached more than 45,000 people. This is an extensive piece of work, and we continually look at Prevent and consider how we can help it to do its job better, hence the statutory duty in the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

We have been very clear in all the changes we have made to the immigration system that we welcome the brightest and the best to the United Kingdom. We have no limit on the number of people who are coming here genuinely to study in a proper educational establishment. I am pleased to say that visa applications from university students rose by 2% in the year ending September 2014, with an increase of 4% for the Russell Group universities. We also need to recognise that the latest survey showed that in one year 121,000 students came in from overseas and only 50,000 left. Figures suggest that in the 2020s, we will see 600,000 overseas students each year in this country.

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

Entrepreneurs in Shoreditch to whom I speak greatly welcome migration. The Home Secretary’s colleague the Business Secretary came to an event organised by Tech City News to applaud the input of migrants in Shoreditch, so who is right: the Home Secretary or her colleague the Business Secretary?

[Mrs May]

There is no difference between two members of a Cabinet in a Government who believe that the brightest and the best should be able to come to the United Kingdom to work. We listen to business, and when we changed the system for non-EU economic migration we made every effort to do it in a way that business applauded.

Passport Applications

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Commons Chamber

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

rose—

[Mrs May]

I will give way to the hon. Lady, but then I must make some progress.

[Meg Hillier]

Will the Home Secretary confirm that the Immigration Minister receives weekly updates on passport performance? Back in 2009, when I was the passports Minister, we saw a big dip in passport applications, and at that point we discussed what would happen when the inevitable increase came, as it now has. All the talk about solving problems is a sticking plaster to cover a problem that should have been identified by Ministers in good enough time for them to tackle it.

[Mrs May]

Of course Ministers receive regular reports on what is happening in the Passport Office, just as other parts of the Home Office receive regular reports on various aspects of the immigration system. Of course, the Immigration Minister is currently receiving updates more regularly than is usually the case. [Interruption.] Members are asking me a number of questions which I shall be able to address later in my speech if they will be a little patient and allow me to make some progress.

Let me now say something about the package of additional measures that I announced last week. First, as I said earlier, when people have an urgent need to travel and their applications have been with the Passport Office for longer than three weeks through no fault of their own, the Passport Office will fast-track them without charge. To qualify, they must have booked to travel in the next seven days, and they will need to provide proof of their travel plans. The upgrade will be available until further notice, and I can tell the House that since its introduction, 800 customers have used it to ensure that they receive their passports.

HM Passport Office

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend’s point about the qualification for urgent travel was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), and as I said to him earlier, the Passport Office will of course put full details on its website. Either I or the Minister for Security and Immigration will write urgently to Members of Parliament with the full details, so that every Member of Parliament is aware and can advise their constituents fully.

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

The Home Secretary has come to the House today to announce a series of desperate measures in the Passport Service—extending passports, reducing security checks, fast-tracking some applications and adding in many more bureaucratic hurdles to getting a passport. Yet, as I know, Ministers receive weekly updates about the flow of applications and turnaround. It is beyond belief that Ministers were not aware of this problem before it was raised in the House. When will she and her Ministers take responsibility for this? As a former Minister, I know that I discussed ebbs and flows every time that I met officials in the Passport Service, and if there was a problem, I would be on to them about it. What is she doing to make sure that this never happens again?

[Mrs May]

First, I and the Minister for Security and Immigration have said in the House and I have said elsewhere that for some months—since the beginning of the year—it has been clear that the number of applications was increasing. The flow has gone up, has steadied, and has gone up and down. Over that period, the Passport Office has taken action by increasing the number of staff and by increasing the hours during which considerations are done. It is now operating seven days a week from 7 am to midnight, and it is looking at increasing those hours further. The hon. Lady said that we have relaxed the security, but there was no relaxation of security, as I made clear in my announcement to day.

Finally, the hon. Lady talks about a series of measures being taken. Yes, a series of measures is being taken. As I made clear in my statement, there is no single thing that will suddenly change the way in which the Passport Office is able to deal with these applications. What is necessary is not a grand political gesture, but the slow, careful consideration that we have been giving and which will now lead to urgent action by the Passport Office in increasing the number of staff.

Stop-and-Search

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

There are two elements of the extra community involvement that we are introducing. One is the requirement that forces will have policies at local level to enable members of the community to apply to go out on patrol with them, so that they can see what is happening and can comment on that. The other is the new community trigger in relation to complaints. We will work with forces to ensure that there is a process, such that if there has been a considerable number of complaints about the use of stop-and-search in an area, the police will need to engage with the community about it.

I want to see what is anyway supposed, under the code of practice, to be there, which is that police forces are working with their communities—talking to them about where particular powers are used, and explaining how those powers are targeted—so that police forces can get community buy-in from the very start.

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

The Home Secretary’s comments are very welcome. One of the big issues in my constituency and around the country is not the number of stop-and-searches, but the manner in which officers conduct them. I hope that the training will take into account schemes such as a “changing places” scheme that has been pioneered in Hackney. She has talked about the proposals being taken up voluntarily, and I hear her argument about that being quicker in the short term, but will she tell us how many forces have said that they will sign up?

[Mrs May]

In response to the hon. Lady’s last point, as I said in my statement, the Metropolitan police has signed up and I have written to every other force asking them to sign up. The police and crime commissioners in the major metropolitan areas, where the power is likely to be used to a significant extent, are of course Labour police and crime commissioners, and I entirely trust that Labour Front Benchers will encourage them to adopt such processes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Norman Baker]

Obviously, as my hon. Friend will appreciate, I cannot comment on cases that are before the courts. I strongly support the efforts of the Director of Public Prosecutions to ensure that prosecutions take place, and the police forces who are taking the matter forward in a productive way. I mentioned a moment ago the action that the Department of Health is taking and she will be aware that guidance has been issued to schools by the Secretary of State for Education, so there is a joined-up approach across Government. The question of mandatory reporting will be considered by the Department of Health and others as the initiative unrolls.

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

In the past month, two women in Hackney have been killed by violent partners, one with her 23-month-old child. Those women had talked to their friends about the risks that they faced. What action is the Minister taking to ensure that funding for organisations such as the Family Rights Group, which is based in Hackney, is not stopped by the Department for Education so that friends and family members, as well as potential victims, have somewhere to go?

[Norman Baker]

I am not familiar with the DFE funding, but I can tell the hon. Lady that the Home Office has allocated £40 million to deal with these important matters. I am deeply sorry to hear of the events in her constituency. We seek to learn lessons from each case. I remind her that we have introduced domestic violence disclosure orders and protection orders to help women in such situations.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 10th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I agree completely with the hon. Lady that this issue needs addressing. I am happy to tell the House that it is being addressed. The Metropolitan police plan to recruit 5,000 new constables between now and 2015, and their aim is that 40% of them should be from a minority background, to reflect the population of London as a whole. This indeed is a serious issue, which the Metropolitan police are addressing.

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

13. What assessment she has made of the potential effect of the Immigration Bill on red tape for businesses.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

The Government have published a number of impact assessments in relation to the provisions in the Immigration Bill, setting out the costs and benefits of the proposals. These include an assessment of the impacts on businesses.

[Meg Hillier]

I welcome the Minister to the Dispatch Box. It is good to see another woman on the Conservative Front Bench—one who is speaking this time.

During the Immigration Bill Committee, the former Immigration Minister, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), promised that there would be a mechanism to enable constituents who were extending their leave to remain to have the right documents in order to prove that to landlords and others, as required under the Bill. Can the Minister give me any update on how long that will take to come into place? If not, perhaps she could write to me.

[Karen Bradley]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I know that she worked very hard on the Immigration Bill Committee. We will look carefully at what she said and respond shortly.

Modern-day Slavery

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

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

It is a great pleasure to speak on this very important topic and I congratulate hon. Members on securing the debate. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), whom I want to defend, because her opening speech was not party political, as the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) claimed. My hon. Friend’s work over many years, including leading the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, and the way in which she has challenged Governments of any colour belie that claim.

The Minister is a good Minister and I do not think he is afraid to be challenged by Opposition or Government Members on this issue. I know that he welcomes challenges to improve legislation and that he genuinely listens and will take on board our points. My hon. Friend’s comments were made in that respect. It is unfair to bring party politics into an issue on which we all agree that something needs to and must be done.

It also gives me great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay), who made some typically thoughtful comments. I want to pick up his point about bank accounts, which is a big issue for the Minister and it is at the heart of not only this but other questions. Over the years, I have employed people to look after my children. One young woman was unable to get a bank account. It did not mean the end of her employment—it ended eventually—but she repeatedly could not get one. That is often a convenient excuse, because it means that people can dodge being in the system.

The issue is important in relation to people who are trafficked and become victims, because they are told that they cannot get a bank account, and those trying to hide below the radar. There is a genuine issue about the ability of banks to provide people with basic bank accounts. The number of hoops people now have to go through in providing identification can make it genuinely challenging, and it is sometimes seen as very difficult. In that respect, the Minister may want to challenge the banks, through his ministerial contacts, to address the point made by the hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire.

I have had a long interest in modern-day slavery and other issues that I want to raise. I first came across unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the mid-1990s, when I was chair of neighbourhood services on Islington council. Young children would be found wandering up and down Holloway road with no papers and very vague stories about where they had come from, and they ended up being put into the care of social services. Many of them had been trafficked, but identification was very difficult. The borough of the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall), Hillingdon, was also greatly affected. Two of the hot spots were Hillingdon—perhaps obviously, because of the airport—and Islington.

That demonstrates that trafficking takes many forms. We have heard a lot about the workplace, and I will touch less on that than on other matters. As hon. Members have said, not all victims are locked up: freedoms can be restricted in many ways.

I recently visited Nigeria with the all-party group on Nigeria, which I chair. We went to look at human rights, but we were very shocked to discover some of the issues concerning children’s rights and child trafficking in particular. Nigeria is the main source country for people trafficked into this country, so it is vital that great thought is given to whether a British Bill can help to tackle the issue in the countries of origin. We need to prevent and tackle trafficking at source, not just carry out enforcement, although I agree with other hon. Members that enforcement is also important.

Benin City in Nigeria is the capital of human trafficking. As we have heard, people who have been trafficked become traffickers in turn, and there is a sort of career progression in Benin. The Nigerian authorities are aware of and keen to tackle that real hot spot. The all-party group met those at the national agency dealing with child trafficking, which is working hard to identify, tackle and prosecute people, as well as to prevent trafficking from happening in the first place, but they are few in number and resources are limited, while Nigeria is a huge and populous country.

From a British perspective, there are also deeply ingrained and worrying cultural attitudes, but I know from speaking to many Nigerians in this country and Nigeria that they share such concerns. The domestic servitude of children is widely accepted, and the all-party group was shocked to hear it defended very often when we raised it in talking to people in various circles.

Child traffickers are aided by the poverty, and by profits that can be made along the line. Those profits, as someone is trafficked through the hands of perhaps 12 traffickers, are immense. Until we look at the supply chain involving trafficked people and work out how to tackle each of its stages, we will not solve the source problem of people being brought into the UK, although enforcement should continue.

[Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is speaking with a good, deep understanding of the problem. Along with Hillingdon and her constituency, Solihull has also been a dispersal area for asylum-seeking children. Her point about it being very hard for certain local authorities with many trafficked children to have the necessary expertise at local government level to reach into foreign, and sometimes very chaotic, countries of origin makes the case for a multi-agency, multi-departmental approach, particularly to assist local authorities that are severely affected.

[Meg Hillier]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. For the record, I should make it clear that I was talking about my time in Islington in the mid-1990s, but there are issues in Hackney in my constituency, and I will touch on them.

In Nigeria, the all-party group saw some good practice. I would particularly highlight the yellow card for children’s rights that Lagos provides to as many agencies as possible to tell people what children’s rights are, which the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) described. There is strong legislation in Nigeria to support children’s rights, but the desire to tackle such problems is not as widespread as it could be and they are often excused. We heard of terrible situations in which very young girls are raped and the rapist then buys off the family for less than the price of a parking ticket in the UK because of the shame. The girl will find it very hard to get married if she has the stain of rape on her and it brings shame on the family. Sometimes that is just a criminal matter, but sometimes it is to do with trafficking.

I commend the report of the all-party group to the Minister. It is worth reading because it highlights the challenges in Nigeria and the need to highlight human rights across that country. That is a wider issue than the subject of this debate, but the report makes interesting points about trafficking and its impact on children.

I want to make a couple of points to the Minister while he is forming the modern slavery Bill. I reiterate what colleagues have said about domestic worker visas. Many families in Nigeria see domestic servitude as the norm. People excuse it and say, “The girl from the village is getting educated. What’s the problem?” However, the girl from the village does not have the freedom to move. Sometimes, families bring such individuals to the UK. Domestic worker visas did provide some protection. The Minister will know that no immigration system is perfect and that people will exploit bits around the edges whatever system is in place. However, things have gone too far the other way and the Minister needs to ensure that domestic workers are supported. If he does so, it might stem the flow of such workers into the country and act as a preventive measure.

The Minister for Immigration mentioned in a recent sitting of the Immigration Public Bill Committee that Operation Paladin is still in operation. I would be keen to hear more details from the Minister, if not in this debate then at another time, on how it is working across different airports. The operation was introduced in Gatwick. Trained professionals watched the people who were coming into the airport to see whether the children were related to them. They could recognise whether a child was trafficked and intervene. That does not prevent trafficking, but it does stop it at the border. Given the announcement about further cuts to the Home Office budget, I would be interested to hear whether there is a threat to Operation Paladin or whether there are plans to extend it. At the very least, it should be continued. As the hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire said, if we are serious about a human trafficking Bill, we should be enforcing the law as it stands and keeping the mechanisms that work.

Identifying the victims is obviously a big issue. I have had experience of that in my constituency. The national referral mechanism is important, but it should not be an alternative to well briefed local agencies, whether they be social services or schools. There is an opportunity, perhaps not in legislation but certainly in practice, to ensure that schools can recognise and understand trafficked children. Churches and community groups can also have a role. Often, vicars in my constituency meet trafficked people and are able to have a more honest conversation with them than others can. I have met trafficked people, but it has usually been long after they have been trafficked.

Schools in Hackney praise the forced marriage unit for its swift action. If they report a suspected forced marriage, the team is down there straight away. Usually that is the day before the school holidays or very close to them. We need something similar to happen if there is a suspicion of trafficking while the child is in a safe place. Schools and other agencies need to have somewhere they can go. That goes back to what the hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire and the right hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) said about the need for a national approach.

We know that the most trafficked group of people is children. In 2012, 500 children were identified, but we know that the number of trafficked children is likely to be higher. That is one reason why having a commissioner would be a good idea. It would help us to get proper data, which would allow us to see what progress is being made and to highlight the scale of the problem for the public. In reality, a lot of trafficked people live below the radar for many years. That makes it very difficult to track down the perpetrators.

There is a delicate balance to be struck, because if anyone who said that they had been trafficked 10 years ago got to stay in the country, it would provide traffickers with an incentive. I am aware that the Minister has to tread that line. We must not incentivise people to use children as a way to get different treatment in the immigration system. It is important to acknowledge that issue, but that does not mean that we should not take robust action or support trafficked children as much as we can.

My big concern is people who are trafficked and appear many years later. I regularly meet young people in my surgery. Usually they appear at the point when they might want to go to university and therefore need status in this country. On questioning they are vague about what happened—an aunt or friend of the family brought them in, but they have lost touch with that adult. That child is not at fault, but the people who trafficked them have gone—although sometimes we cannot be sure—and they have great difficulty getting through the system.

Sometimes people are not enslaved, as such, although it is difficult to be sure. I spoke to one woman at my surgery, and we eventually got to a point in the conversation where I said, “You have two children, who is the father?”—I was asking about the father’s citizenship. I said, “Did you want to sleep with the father of the children?” and she shrugged and said, “He gave me somewhere to stay.” In some ways she did not consider herself a victim because she had been downtrodden to the point where she needed a roof over her head, and in return the man got what he wanted. There are real challenges in identifying victims who have been under the radar for so long that there is no likely prospect of finding their trafficker. That is a two-pronged issue for the Minister: tackling the perpetrators, but also supporting the victims.

The national reporting mechanism includes a reflection period of 45 days to decide what to do with a potential victim of trafficking, but that does not capture people who have some freedoms but no paperwork or the ability to do what they want, even if they can come and go out of the house and are not locked away. The system also does not cover the needs of those who will be slow to tell their story, often for reasons of fear—I will touch on some issues with African abuse in a moment.

Victims must be eligible for legal aid. I know that is not the Minister’s Department, but we must not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I have criticised much of the Government’s attitude to legal aid, but I recognise that that is where we are. For the purposes of this debate, however, I say to the Minister that I—and Members across the House, I am sure—will be behind him if we can ensure that people have the right advice once they have been identified as a potential victim of trafficking. That is important because it helps the system work better. In the long term it will save the Home Office money, as well as ensuring that that person has the best support possible to get their case across and be relocated home, if appropriate, or supported in the UK.

At the beginning of my remarks I said that prevention was the most important thing. The Home Office is promising to work with source countries, but we need resources for that to happen. We hear that often a law passed in this Parliament helps Nigerians to tackle corruption and so on, and similarly, if we get this issue right we may help tackle it in Nigeria. I think we need a review of our national reporting mechanism.

I said I would touch on issues concerning child abuse in Africa, although adults are trafficked too. Traffickers often use witchcraft and juju as a means of control. Juju priests are held in high esteem and command a great deal of respect which, when combined with a fear of witchcraft, means that many people are very vulnerable. People are afraid of what will happen to them if they declare they have been trafficked. That fear is hard to understand from the perspective of many Members in the Chamber today, but it is very real. People are much controlled and will not escape even if given the chance—it is as much of a ball and chain as a physical one would be. Trafficking victims in the UK often display signs that are identifiable with juju and witchcraft, and the torso of Adam, found floating in the Thames, first highlighted that very spectacularly to the UK.

The key issue is identifying victims, as too often that is a barrier. I hope that an anti-slavery commissioner can be genuinely empowered with investigation arms and good links to the National Crime Agency and other police as appropriate, and I will be watching the Government on that issue. The modern slavery unit should not be a passing fad in the Home Office, but something real that will engage people. I commend my colleagues for initiating this debate, and look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.