Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Ruth Cadbury and Priti Patel(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Priti Patel
Absolutely. I pay tribute to and thank my right hon. Friend for all his support and work in this particular area. I will reach out and speak to him and we will join up on this.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Residents in Osterley contacted me last week. They have been suffering for months from antisocial behaviour, drug dealing and assaults, which came to a head last week. Councillors and local police have been working together to try to tackle the issue, but their efforts are hamstrung because there just are not enough police officers to do regular patrols in hotspots. Does the Home Secretary regret the 10 years of police cuts that leave my constituents and many others feeling unprotected?
New Plan for Immigration
Debate between Ruth Cadbury and Priti Patel(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Priti Patel
My hon. Friend raises such an important question. It is sobering, because over the years we have seen too many cases of adults posing as children. That is unscrupulous behaviour, and I say that because of the safeguarding risks that my hon. Friend highlights. He is right about the UK being one of the only countries; in Europe, they use scientific age assessment methods to determine a person’s age. Between 2016 and 2020, where age has been disputed and resolved 54% of the people involved were found to be adults, which presents a very serious safeguarding risk to our young people.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
This Government have form for lack of compassion towards those who have fled horrors that we can only imagine, from abandoning the Dubs child refugee scheme to the broken system that is leaving asylum seekers in limbo for months, if not possibly years, and their having to go to food banks because even the minimal support they are entitled to often is not arriving. So how can my constituents have any faith in this Government and whether they have one iota of compassion?
Priti Patel
As I have said, I am simply not going to take lectures about the lack of compassion from the hon. Lady or the Labour party at all. I have been abundantly clear about the reasons we have to tackle this system. She may be interested to know that there is not a single solution here; this is about end-to-end reform of the system. I know it might be an uncomfortable truth for her, but this does actually mean tackling the backlog of cases, tackling the people smugglers and stopping the criminal trade in human misery. I am only sorry that she cannot see that, because the way in which we demonstrate compassion is by fixing the system and supporting those who are in desperate need to come here.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Ruth Cadbury and Priti Patel(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Priti Patel
I refer my hon. Friend to the comments I made earlier. He will be well aware of the way in which we have empowered the police, who are going out there to ensure that victims are protected while at the same time going after the perpetrators of domestic abuse. My message is absolutely clear: if you are perpetrating abuse, the police will find you and come after you. We are putting more money and support into the system to protect the vulnerable, and we are asking those who are subject to domestic abuse to leave home and seek advice through many of the portals that we have stood up.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Priti Patel
Of course I will meet the hon. Lady. If she can give me the specific examples that she is referring to, I will look at them.