Stop and Search

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

In her inspectorate report of 2021, Wendy Williams confirmed that the majority of stop-and-search decisions were based on “reasonable grounds” —that is the legal test. She said that most forces have “good external scrutiny arrangements” and that forces are “better at monitoring” the use of stop and search, compared with previous years. She said that training has improved. That is the evidence I find encouraging.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Policing by consent depends on trust and confidence in the police. Officers are increasingly stopping law-abiding young people, under the spurious claim that they “smell cannabis” when none has been smoked or is present. And then the police are refusing to provide the necessary receipts and documents to those they have stopped. That failure to follow guidelines is shattering the trust that young people have in the police. What is the Home Secretary doing to address that?

[Suella Braverman]

I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Lady’s proposition. Stop and search can be used in the case of drugs and it is largely used in those instances. It is a vital tool in the fight against drug possession and supply and it can prevent young people from falling into the spiral of drugs.

Net Migration Figures

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady’s argument is not borne out by any available evidence. There is no material difference in unemployment and economic activity between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. The reports produced by the Migration Advisory Committee raise a number of questions for the Scottish Government about the policies that they could implement to make Scotland a more attractive destination for migrants and, indeed, workers from elsewhere in the United Kingdom.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

There are now 172,758 people in the growing asylum backlog. I have met asylum seekers in my constituency who have been housed for well over a year in overcrowded hotel rooms, many of them with small children who have nowhere to play. Will the Government finally admit that their illegal Illegal Migration Bill will make the backlog, and those people’s traumatic wait, worse rather than better?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady is entirely wrong about that. The Illegal Migration Bill creates a fast and simple scheme whereby those who come here illegally, in small boats or otherwise, will have their claims processed not in months or years but in days or weeks, and will either be returned home to a safe country such as Albania or sent to a safe third country such as Rwanda. That will break the business model of the people smugglers by infusing the system with deterrence, and will bring about a substantial reduction in the numbers entering the country in this manner.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Monday 22nd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue. The Government recently published our antisocial behaviour action plan. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and her colleague the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities are jointly chairing a taskforce to ensure that action is taken. We are setting up a number of hotspot patrols around the country to ensure that the blight of antisocial behaviour is heavily policed against and that, where it occurs, it is dealt with quickly and thoroughly and no one is left behind.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

T7.   If the Home Secretary insists on exempting private landlords from minimum housing standards for asylum seekers, local councils and fire authorities will not be able to enforce basic safety and overcrowding standards. Does that not mean that the worst landlords, instead of improving their properties, will make a fortune from Government funding while exploiting vulnerable families and young children who are waiting years for a decision on their asylum application?

[Robert Jenrick]

I can assure the hon. Lady that our intention is that there will be no diminution in accommodation standards, whether for asylum seekers or anybody else, but it is critical that we get those people out of hotels, saving the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds per year, and house them in the most appropriate forms of accommodation.

Illegal Migration Update

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be pleased to meet my hon. Friend and her colleagues. Again, I am acutely aware of the pressures that face Kent and the local authorities there. This policy will not only reduce the dependence on hotels but ensure that significantly increased funding is made available to local authorities such as my hon. Friend’s to alleviate some of the burdens they face.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

The Minister knows that while asylum seekers are living in often very difficult conditions in the hotels, a large proportion of taxpayers’ funding is not even going to the hotels or the food providers but is haemorrhaging out into the pockets of a network of often dodgy contractors and subcontractors. What is he doing to address this mismanagement of Government funds?

[Robert Jenrick]

I now meet very regularly with exactly those firms, our Home Office providers. The hon. Lady can be assured—in fact, I think I have said this to her privately—that I have been very clear with those companies that they have a job to do and we need them to find suitable accommodation, but the accommodation must be of good quality, must meet our contractual terms, and there must be value for money. They have been left in absolutely no doubt about my views and if the hon. Lady or any other Member of this House has concerns or criticisms, they should bring them to me and I will ensure that they are heard.

Metropolitan Police: Casey Review

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

The new Met commissioner has been in place for only six months. From the moment he was appointed, he has been clear and unequivocal about the size of the challenge he faces and what it will take to turn it around, which is why he set out in detail his plan to restore trust and raise standards. He now needs all our support to ensure he can achieve that plan as quickly as possible.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) specifically asked the Home Secretary about the seesawing, as well as the inadequacy, of funding. The report has a chapter on the inexperience of new officers. Does the Home Secretary now regret her Government’s decision to cut 20,000 officers?

[Suella Braverman]

As I said earlier, the Met police has done well on recruitment and now has a record number of police officers—higher than at any time under a Labour Administration. The force has a record number of police officers, thanks to this Government’s police uplift programme and our resource to increase and improve frontline policing.

Illegal Migration Bill

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend talks about pragmatism and fairness, and ultimately we are seeing a global migration crisis in which more than 100 million people will be displaced throughout the world. Many of them will want to come to the United Kingdom. The simple truth is that we will not be able to take in everyone who wants to come here, and we therefore need to develop a system that is fair, compassionate and pragmatic.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), I have hundreds of asylum seekers living in hotels in my constituency, and I have met many of them. They have fled war and terror. They want to work and their children are in school. They are living in shocking conditions, while murky layers of contractors and subcontractors are skimming off significant profits. Why is there nothing in the Bill to address the collapse of immigration decision-making that leaves these people in limbo?

Security Threat to UK-Based Journalists

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments. When he was Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, he was exemplary in supporting media freedom around the world. I completely agree with his comments on BBC Persian, which offers an extraordinary window—not just for the Persian but for the Iranian people—into the truth that is quite rightly highlighted by their broadcasts, and allows those of us who are lucky enough to watch BBC Persian here in the UK to understand what is going on in Tehran and across Iran. I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend and I give that same commitment.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his statement and for his work to ensure that Iran International returns to the UK before too long. Until a few days ago, it was broadcasting from Chiswick business park in my constituency, and I visited last year. It is beyond contemptible that the Iranian Government have attempted to export their crackdown on free speech and the freedom of the press, and to endanger not only the journalists but the other workers in the business park and local people. Iran International and I are hugely grateful for the steps the Metropolitan police have taken to ensure the safety of journalists and the wider public, but what are the Government doing to ensure that journalists in my constituency and across the country are never again forced to leave their workplace to protect the rest of the public?

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I agree entirely with the sentiment that the hon. Gentleman expresses. It is vital to stop younger people, perhaps early and mid-teenagers, falling into gang culture. Very often that is because they have suffered from family breakdown or are in difficult social circumstances. One action we are taking, which we need to accelerate and increase, is introducing violence reduction units. They are designed to identify individual young people at risk of falling into gangs, including county lines activities, and to take interventions, whether through social services, education or other interventions, to try to put them back on the right track. That is a Home Office-funded programme that we intend to continue, but the diagnosis the hon. Gentleman makes is exactly right.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

On that very point, last week I met an inspiring group of young students at West Thames College who are studying full time and having to work two or three jobs to make ends meet. It has not been easy for them. The message they asked me to bring here was that the best way to protect young people from going down a different route and getting sucked into county lines and violent crime is to have adequate, accessible and fully funded youth services. Does the Minister therefore regret the Government’s cuts to local councils since 2010, which have led to the decimation of universal youth provision?

[Chris Philp]

I have already referred to the significant amounts of money being put into violence reduction units, including funding some of the activity that the hon. Lady refers to—although it is not just that, it is much wider. It is important to divert younger people away from a life of crime and a gang culture that can all too easily take hold. It is for precisely that reason that we have established the well-funded violence reduction units, including in the London constituencies that both she and I represent.

Independent Cultural Review of London Fire Brigade

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

No: to be completely clear, for I think the third time, I have said that I will ask His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services to take a look at these issues. It obviously inspects the 44 fire and rescue services and the 43 police forces regularly. It can also—if it chooses, because it is independent of course—conduct thematic reviews on issues such as this, and I will be raising the issue with it.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I really appreciate that the Minister is appalled by the findings in this report, but he should not really be shocked, as successive reports from His Majesty’s inspectorate have shown similar findings. Why does he think that successive Conservative Governments have ignored the warnings in those reports?

[Chris Philp]

I would say, with great respect, that the reports have not been ignored. As I have said already, a White Paper was published just a short while ago with a number of very detailed and specific recommendations designed to address precisely these kinds of issues, so with respect, I do not accept the characterisation the hon. Lady has set out. Clearly, from this report, urgent action is needed in London, and that is why the 23 recommendations will be implemented in full. I think the commissioner, Andy Roe, has accepted that. I will be discussing the issue with the Mayor of London’s office as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his support and input on this challenging issue, and I was pleased to visit Manston with him a few weeks ago. He is absolutely right; there is no single solution to this problem, and international co-operation is a vital part of the solution. That is why I am very grateful to French partners for their effective work to date and also for their support for the positive step forward in the new deal that I signed this morning with my opposite number in France, which will greatly deepen our co-operation and further our response to illegal migration in the channel.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

In Hounslow there are more than 3,500 asylum seekers waiting for a determination on their applications in, at the last count, 12 interim or contingency hotels. They have been waiting not weeks, not months, but even years. They are existing in accommodation and eating food unfit for animals, and Clearspring Ready Homes and a network of unaccountable subcontractors are skimming off vast profits and ripping off the accommodation providers, the vulnerable asylum seekers and, of course, the taxpayer. As the Home Secretary admits, the Home Office has a challenge here, so why will she not contract with local authorities that have expertise in procuring accommodation and that will ensure the basic standards that the hon. Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) is concerned about, and ensure safeguarding as well—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. That is an important point but I have to get other Members in as well. We cannot have speeches; we must have short questions. I think the Home Secretary has got the drift of this one.