Immigration Rules: Supported Accommodation

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend is quite right that hotels are being used in central London and, indeed, in other cities. That is a consequence of the very short-term pressures created by coronavirus. It is our intention, as we go into next year and as the coronavirus pandemic abates, to get hotel numbers back down again. For financial and other reasons, it is not ideal to have to use hotels and we would like to phase out their use as quickly as we possibly can in the coming year.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab) [V]]

On Christmas eve, the first asylum seekers are due to arrive at the remote site of Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre, where they will be housed in prefab-style accommodation. We have seen a similar approach in Kent and Wales, where Army barracks are being used, and other sites are planned. That is a lot of activity for what we are told is a temporary arrangement. Will the Minister explain the new policy approach to housing asylum seekers in hostile environments and tell me exactly when it will end?

Windrush Compensation Scheme

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend. As ever, he succinctly and clearly highlights the contribution that his family and his parents’ generation made to our incredible country. As Members have heard me say previously, we live in an open and tolerant society. It says a great deal that the children of immigrants are now represented in the House of Commons, given the hardships that our parents and previous generations dealt with when they came to this country. They made a great success of their time here. We should celebrate the successes of all communities, and yesterday Windrush Day was a celebration. We should not lose sight of that.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab) [V]]

My constituent Dorian Green came to the UK 52 years ago at the age of nine. In 2008, the Home Office wrongly told his employer that he did not have the right to work. He has been in a battle with the Home Office ever since, and crucial documents were lost or deleted. I am pleased to say that he finally has his British passport, but only after suffering the shame of being unable to work and the indignity of being treated as a second-class citizen. Does the Home Secretary think that £1,000 is enough to compensate Mr Green for his ordeal in proving what was always true: that he was and is a British citizen?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Gentleman has just highlighted a case going back to 2008. If he would like me to look at it in further detail, I would be very happy to do so.

Public Services

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher).

Never has a Government agenda looked so hollow. Everything on this Prime Minister’s wish list, masquerading as a Conservative party broadcast, being read out by Her Majesty in Westminster, was utterly dependent on what was happening in Brussels with Brexit. Brexit, not this Government, will dictate fiscal strategy. It is clear to me that the Prime Minister is refusing to listen to the voices of those on the frontline of public services who are telling him and all of us how damaging his Government’s reckless strategy will be.

The Prime Minister is pretending and telling us that his Government are the guardians of law and order when it was his party that slashed police officer numbers. Under the austerity agenda, for the last decade, his party has systematically under-resourced the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and legal aid. It has also closed courtrooms, including in my constituency, Bedford, leading to delays of years in cases coming to trial.

The Home Secretary claims that a law billed as a crackdown on foreign criminals would make the UK safer, but this dog-whistle policy, which is estimated to cost the taxpayer about £100 million a year once it kicks in, would apply to only about 10 people a year. Terrorism, cyber-crime and other serious and organised forms of crime have no borders. We rely on working with our European counterparts and joint working with EU police forces to keep our country safe. That is where the Government’s focus needs to be in order to keep the public safe, not on vanity projects that appeal to populist sentiment.

For years, Bedfordshire police begged the Government for more funding. I will not forget that only a year ago the former chief constable of Bedfordshire police told me and this Government that in his 35 years as a police officer he had never seen such high demand on his force, yet he had to deal with a surge in serious violent crime with fewer officers than he had in 2010 and with a £47 million budget cut. He simply could not find enough officers to attend all 999 calls. Since then the Bedfordshire police force has received more funding, the brunt of the cost of which will be shouldered by taxpayers through the council tax precept. They will see only 54 new officers in the next two years, but that will not even replace those lost or those who will soon be retiring. It falls very short of the 440 police officers and 80 detectives that the Conservative police and crime commissioner for Bedfordshire says our county force needs.

It is a similar story with the hollow promises for our NHS. NHS England has made it clear that core treatment targets cannot be met within the funding settlement offered by the Government. How many more times will this Tory Government promise to bring forward proposals to improve social care and then produce absolutely nothing? We need urgent action, not empty words, reviews or vague proposals. The Tory cuts have hit funding by an average of 9% per person since 2010, leaving the social care system close to collapse. Social care services cannot continue to be the victim of political turbulence. Hundreds of thousands of older people, many living in poverty and loneliness, have already suffered years of inaction and broken promises.

The Prime Minister cannot be trusted on the NHS. His grand announcements collapse under scrutiny. The Prime Minister promised 40 new hospitals but will deliver only six new buildings or refurbs—and that is only if they win not just this election but the one to follow. It is totally unclear what criteria were used for which hospitals would receive extra funding, but in the Bedford, Luton and Dunstable merger Bedford Hospital got nothing from the £99.5 million proposed investment. Next to nothing is being done to address the severe staffing crisis at all levels of the NHS. Bedford Hospital had to recruit 237 nurses from the other side of the world to fill vacancies that were largely left by EU nurses leaving because they feared for their future in the UK.

The Prime Minister’s hints at rail reforms also have a hollow ring for my constituents, who have experienced a severe reduction in services. Thousands of my constituents who moved to Bedford because of the fast train services to London and the north have been let down. Commuters from Bedford face almost daily misery because of unreliable services. Rail privatisation has failed completely. No one is fooled by a commercial model. What is needed is an integrated system run by the people for the people.

The Queen’s Speech is a sham. Much of it is not even new policy. There is no plan, no vision and no honesty about the state of crisis in our public services. The Prime Minister may want to distract us from Brexit by trying to focus on fixing the public services that his Government decimated, but it is his Government who are making a mess of everything.

Rwandan Genocide: Alleged Perpetrators

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend knows better than anybody else about the judiciary and its relationship with the Executive. I absolutely understand the importance of urgency when it comes to evidence. It is important that we produce trials that are successful. All I can say is what I have said to many hon. Members: I will impress the need for urgency on the counter-terrorism police when I next see them. I promise to update the House on the progress of war crimes prosecutions. My hon. Friend and I know that we must respect the rulings of the judiciary. There has been too much bashing of the judiciary in the past 20 years, and that does not help our society. They made that decision, and we abide by it. We must now prosecute in this country, and we will do so urgently.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

Not long after my election, I met a constituent who had seen their family members brutally killed during the Rwandan genocide. Her story was heartbreaking. It is unbearable for her that one of the alleged perpetrators of those horrific acts of violence now lives in her town and is free to continue with his family life without fear of extradition. She is asking when she will see justice for her brothers.

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman will have heard my earlier answers. As the police progress whatever cases they have, we stand ready to support them. Subject to the complexities and the courts, I hope we will see prosecutions sooner rather than later.

Far-right Violence and Online Extremism

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

When I see Islamophobia in the media, it breaks down into three reasons: laziness, because the journalist could not be bothered to find out about what they were writing about; ignorance, because they do not know anything about the religion, people or communities they are writing about; and naked racism or aggression. We can deal with two of those factors quite well.

We need to make sure that we educate people about different faiths in this country, so that they understand the differences within the faiths and across the faiths. We need to bring more people together to understand our different communities. That is why the £63 million for building strong communities is a good place to start. If we can remove the ignorance and teach tolerance and respect for each other, together we will make a difference. That is a strong message to send.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

It is very clear that the Government are not doing enough to tackle this crime. The Home Office reported recently that religious hate crime rocketed by 40% across England and Wales in just one year. More than half of it is directed at Muslims. What are the Minister’s Government going to do now to tackle the rise in far-right attacks against British Muslims and other minority communities?

[Mr Wallace]

As I said to one of the hon. Gentleman’s honourable colleagues, we asked the Law Commission to review hate crime to make sure that the legislation is fit for the 21st century, and can deal with, for example, the online aspect and how things have changed. We will fund that with £1.5 million. We will also make sure that we tackle the ignorance that I talked about in communities; that is the first thing we need to do. At the same time, we need to deal with online harm to make sure that people stop spreading it. We have also funded work with groups such as Tell MAMA, so that people can report hate crime better, because by them reporting it and our getting better data, we will be able to do something about it.

Antisocial Behaviour

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) on bringing this very important debate to the House.

Last November, Bedfordshire police had to suspend its 101 call service for a few hours because of budget cuts and a steady rise in emergency 999 calls. Faced with difficult choices, the police have had to prioritise serious violent crime at the cost of others, especially those related to antisocial behaviour, even though those crimes are still very important. There simply are not the resources to tackle antisocial behaviour properly. The funding formula for Bedfordshire police has failed. Bedfordshire is funded as a rural force, but with the force’s responsibilities ranging from an airport that requires a complex and expensive counter-terrorism strategy to a town centre prison that places high demands on police and emergency services, and with two large and expanding urban centres, it faces all the problems a force such as the Met would expect to deal with.

The community is still reeling from the spate of fatal knife crimes. I have concerns about knife crime prevention orders, because they risk criminalising a generation of young people. The police do not need more powers; they need more officers. Bedford is a particular target for county lines crimes, and gang culture is a fast-growing problem in our area. The emergency funding grant, which is designed to be used in periods of acute crisis, had to be used by Bedfordshire police to meet the costs of day-to-day policing. The force is still overstretched and under-resourced. Tough choices have to be made.

Channel 4’s “Dispatches” reported in October that 57% of burglaries in Bedfordshire had to be screened out as there were not enough resources for the police to attend them. That is the highest proportion in the country. If police are unable to attend burglaries or car-related crimes, they will not be able to turn up to a group of teenagers who are street drinking or someone who is urinating in a public place. There is no police presence on the streets to deter such behaviour, yet antisocial behaviour is one of the most important issues for my constituents by far. It makes them feel that their home is unsafe and their town no longer belongs to them. We must tackle the root causes of antisocial behaviour. In the Bedfordshire area, we require early intervention and some work to prevent these issues.

Bedford has done well to retain its support services, against all the odds, given the cuts to Bedford Borough Council and social care funding, but we need more, not less. We need to fund local authorities properly and to provide adequate youth and sport services, which have been proven to work well as a driving force against antisocial behaviour. That cannot be done until the Government recognise that the level of antisocial behaviour on the streets is due to their failed policies, and until the Government really end austerity and fund our police properly.

Police Pension Liabilities

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue. Anyone who speaks to the police finds a consistent message from across the system: a growing frustration about the amount of time our police are spending supporting people on mental health issues—the estimate across the system is at least 25%. Some of that I would class as core policing but some of it is not, so we are working with PCCs to get the evidence base and establish what is good practice in terms of triaging some of this demand. Part of what I welcome in the Budget is the additional investment that this Government can now make in local mental health, and I am determined to ensure that one dividend from that investment is reduced demand on policing.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

In the past five weeks, three youths were stabbed, two fatally, and one 20-year-old man was shot dead in Bedford. Will the Minister support the bid from Bedfordshire’s police chief constable and the PCC for emergency extra funding from the police special grant before another young person is killed on our streets?

[Mr Hurd]

I was delighted to see the hon. Gentleman take part in the cross-sector summit we had on serious violence in Bedfordshire. What I said then was clear: we have received an application for exceptional funding and we expect to take a decision on that by the middle of the month. Our ability to meet that comes from the fact that we increased the contingency pot available in the Home Office for those situations, in a funding settlement that he and other Labour MPs voted against.

Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 26th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) on his success in getting the Bill through the House. I will focus on the registration of stillbirths because parents and coroners have asked me to support that aspect of the legislation. As the law stands, coroners have no jurisdiction to investigate stillbirths that occur after 36 weeks, which is generally regarded as full term. Coroners can hold an inquest in cases where it is appropriate, particularly when either the family or medical staff are critical of the level of care, but all deaths after 36 weeks should be examined.

As it stands, the system for reporting and investigating deaths is inconsistent, and that matters because the UK has one of the worst stillbirth rates in the developed world, with one stillbirth in every 200 babies born. The grief and sorrow that the parents go through at the loss of the child is unimaginable, and we all recognise that a bereaved parent may not feel that they can face the extra intrusion of a coroner’s inquest. That may not be appropriate and, of course, the decision must still be one for the parents, but an investigation is the only way to understand the circumstances of prenatal deaths so that recommendations can be made to improve future outcomes.

Police: Financial Sustainability

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Wednesday 12th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I have received assiduous representations on that point from Lincolnshire MPs, the chief constable and the police and crime commissioner. Some work has been done on fair funding and more work needs to be done. I recognise that the Lincolnshire police force is stretched and challenged. We have done what we can to help in the short term. I give my commitment that I will continue to do what I can there, if that is what the evidence shows, but in the context of the CSR, which is the most important event in terms of framing the future of police funding for the next five years, I undertake that we will look again at the fair funding.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

The chief constable of Bedfordshire, Jon Boutcher, told me this morning that in his 35 years as a police officer he had never seen such a high demand on his force, yet he has to deal with this with fewer police officers than he had in 2010 and a £47 million budget cut. He simply cannot find enough officers to attend all the 999 calls. Our police force is at breaking point. When will the Minister’s Government admit that their funding formula is broken, understand what forces such as Bedfordshire are dealing with and give them the funding they need to protect the public?

[Mr Hurd]

I am in regular contact with Bedfordshire’s chief constable and the police and crime commissioner. I am extremely aware of their concerns, and we are doing more than listening. We have put an additional £3.2 million into Bedfordshire policing this year, and I have already signalled that we intend again to give PCCs flexibility over precepts in 2019-20. We are engaging with Bedfordshire about applications to the special grant pot, which we increased in the funding settlement that the hon. Gentleman voted against. We are serious about the work that needs to be done for the CSR, both in terms of increasing the resources available to the police and the fair allocation of the cake once it has been established.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

12. What recent assessment he has made of the effect of changes in the number of police officers on the level of serious crime.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

In April, we published our serious violence strategy, which sets out a range of factors driving increases in violent crime. Our analysis shows that changes in the drugs market are a major factor behind the recent increases in serious violence.

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the hon. Lady for that question. She will know that the South Yorkshire constabulary is receiving an extra £5 million this year and that the Government have protected police funding since 2015. Indeed, police constabularies across the country will see up to £460 million more in funding with the help of police and crime commissioners. Serious violence has to be tackled as part of a national strategy, which is exactly what we have set out.

[Mohammad Yasin]

Bedfordshire police are under unprecedented pressure: violent crime is up; they face the third largest terrorist threat in the country; and they have had to support the visit of President Trump and deal with an increase in mental health cases. Can the Secretary of State explain how the police can keep the people of Bedford safe when they do not have the resources to attend 999 calls?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary would agree with me that the way in which Bedfordshire is kept safe is through the excellent work of its police officers and its Conservative police and crime commissioner, who has managed to increase officer numbers in her constabulary by 6.5% over the past year.