Money Laundering

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I note that Members only on the Opposition Benches—a large number of them—are standing. True to form, I am sure that they will want to behave in a comradely fashion towards one another, recognising that a long question by one will stop another. I am sure that they are not the sort of people who would want that to happen.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Further to the questions that have been asked, the Minister might hide behind operational independence, but what does it say about this country when we are the only one that does not believe the threshold of evidence has been met? What leadership is the Minister providing, so that the UK takes this seriously, as all these other countries are doing?

[Mr Wallace]

Unless the hon. Gentleman can come up with an alternative to operational independence and the rule of law, he has to understand that that is how we operate. The National Crime Agency has been asked on a number of occasions, before a number of Select Committees in this House, about exactly that case. I refer him to the answers that the National Crime Agency gave to those Committees.

Child-to-Parent Violence

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered child-to-parent violence.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. Child-to-parent violence is a very significant issue that, too often, is not spoken about. A parent in Chesterfield first raised the issue with me as part of a wider discussion about the paucity of support that they had received from Derbyshire County Council. As an adoptive parent, I was alarmed to learn of Adoption UK’s recent survey to which 3,000 of its 8,000 members responded. The survey revealed that as many as 63% of parents said that their adopted child had displayed aggressive behaviour. That followed Al Coates’ survey, which showed that 30% of adopters have experienced regular child-to-parent violence. The issue also affects around 3% of all families—some 330,000 children.

I will take this opportunity to highlight this important issue and invite the Minister, and all of us, to consider the extent to which current local authority interventions equip social workers and parents to tackle CPV. I will reflect on recent research in more detail and on the role that local authority funding cuts play in our ability to support successful adoptions. I will also ask whether the balance between protecting children and supporting their families is appropriately weighted. Finally, I would like to learn more about the specific steps that the Government are taking to investigate the scale of the issue and the support that they could put in place to help families.

Much of my contribution will focus on violence in families with adopted children, but clearly this is not purely an adoption issue. Families who have not adopted and do not have social services’ input or a diagnosis that explains why there are such problems can be even more isolated and alone, but my focus is predominantly on child-to-parent violence in adoptive families.

As parents, many of us worry that we are failing to live up to a media ideal of the perfect parent—I say that as the parent of a 19-year-old and a 15-year-old. As a nation, we are ludicrously time poor. The pressure on families to make ends meet and the demanding working environment that many families face, coupled with competing demands on our children, mean that modern parenting is a fraught business under the best of circumstances.

For adoptive parents, those pressures are often magnified. Three quarters of adopted children enter the care system because of abuse or neglect. Babies and children who have been victims of violence or physical, sexual or psychological abuse or have witnessed it routinely, who have been left to scavenge in bins because of neglectful or substance-dependent parents, or who have been left in the appalling situation of having to take over the parenting role at a very young age because of the inadequacy of their parent, will have experienced a level of trauma that can stay with them all their lives. Even in the womb, many children have disadvantages such as foetal alcohol syndrome or foetal alcohol spectrum disorders placed in their way. Chaotic, disruptive and disorienting experiences in the early years of children and babies, when they are at their most vulnerable, inevitably stockpiles future crises. It is a truism that hurt children hurt, and many adopted children have been badly hurt by the time they are adopted.

Adopting a child is not much like the brochures would have us believe. Adoption is not a silver bullet that takes children away from a bad situation and places them in a benign and friendly one that washes away all the scars of the past. One third of adoptive parents surveyed said that their local authority had withheld important information about their child before the adoption. Of course it is important that adopters are encouraged to come forward, and it is gratifying that despite all these problems, 88% of adoptive parents say they would still adopt and are glad they did. However, attracting adopters should never come at the expense of a pragmatic and realistic description of what life for an adopting parent can be like and of the many challenges that their children and family are likely to face. An appalling statistic that should give us all pause for thought is that children who have been adopted are 20 times more likely to be excluded from school and twice as likely not to achieve five good GCSEs.

Our starting point in countering child-to-parent violence must be to recognise the scale of the issue and ensure that it is widely discussed within the social work profession and more widely among adopter families. Parents who experience child-to-parent violence often question their own parenting and start to blame themselves. They wonder whether it is because of something that they have done, and whether if they had only taken a different strategy things would have been different. They take all sorts of steps to try to prevent it and they think it is a mark of their own failure. What they need is a support network that offers them strategies and understanding, rather than reinforcing the idea that they are to blame and that they and their families have become victims of violence as a result of their parenting.

We need a culture in which social workers realise that their work is not finished the minute the care order is signed and that adopted children need more support than other children. Supporting the family is part of that. After my wife and I adopted in 2004, we had a couple of cursory meetings in the run-up to getting the care order but, broadly speaking, that was it. After that stage, unless parents phone the social workers to say that there is a problem, they often get no further contact.

Many parents who experience violence from their children worry that if they highlight the extent of the problem, their parenting ability will be questioned and they will be taken down the route of child protection and investigations into their parenting, rather than the supportive environment they should have. Al Coates MBE—an adopter, a qualified social worker and a member of the Adoption Support Fund expert advisory group to the Department for Education—has interviewed many social workers and discovered that very few had had any formal training about child-to-parent violence.

The work of Al Coates and Dr Wendy Thorley, based on a survey of approximately 260 adopters, has led to a report called “Child-Parent Violence (CPV): an exploratory exercise”, which uncovered that as many as 30% of adopters had experienced violence. It also undermined the preconception evident in the Home Office report on adolescent-to-parent violence that this is an issue that relates to adolescence. It exposed the fact that the incidence of violence to parents is higher among seven to 11-year-olds than among children aged 12-plus. It also revealed that child-to-parent violence is at the heart of many families in crisis and is a growing problem that, like many other forms of domestic violence, is hugely under-reported. Highlighting the issue and ending the culture of parental blame will help to address that under-reporting. It is important that we all play a role in ensuring that adoptive parents recognise that child-to-parent violence is a common challenge faced by many others, not a sign of their own failure. The Government should commission or support much more detailed studies of child-to-parent violence in adoptive families.

CPV will not begin to be addressed until there is wider acceptance of the scale of the crisis in child social work. A combination of growing caseloads, shrinking budgets, higher public and Government expectations, a more violent society and more family breakdowns is stretching the system to breaking point. A BBC freedom of information request has revealed a 25% increase in long-term sick leave among social workers since 2012-13. In the 135 councils that responded to the request, 1,911 social workers had been off sick for more than a month. That mirrors my own experience and that of many adopters whom I have supported or met: when we try to pursue issues or get support, the social worker dealing with the matter is often off sick and the person who comes in instead has only a very scant knowledge of the case history. They take an immediate look at whether the child is in danger, but if that is not the case, the support the family receive is very small.

The scale of social worker absenteeism and sickness is simply unsustainable. It inevitably means that corners will be cut, warning signs will be missed and the quality of interactions with families will be diminished. An obvious impact is that social worker caseloads will grow and many of the interventions that would support families and prevent them from reaching crisis point will play second fiddle to addressing immediate crises. Children who hurt others but who are not themselves at risk of being hurt will be seen as less of a priority.

Recent research by the British Association of Social Workers showed that social workers put in an average of 10 hours of unpaid work each week to try to manage their case loads. The scale of local authority cuts makes tragedies inevitable. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that English councils faced a 27% cut in their spending power under the five years of the coalition Government and that the pace of those cuts has continued since then. In the early years, there may have been fat for councils to trim, but that fat has now gone. Every day, social workers battle with life-and-death decisions that undermine their ability to provide the service that their clients have a right to expect.

Councils in the areas of greatest deprivation have faced the largest cuts, which is indefensible. In recent weeks, we have seen the dam start to burst, with Tory councils in Northamptonshire and Surrey sending out warning signals about their finances. If those councils are struggling, imagine how difficult it is for councils in areas of greater deprivation. To continue to deliver spending cuts of the size currently being implemented is to accept that social worker absence will continue to rise, and more children and families will fail to receive the support they need. I make a real plea for future local government spending rounds to recognise that further council cuts will cost vulnerable children their lives and leave far too many families in crisis.

In addition to addressing the funding issues, the Government should look closely at the direction provided to social workers and to all those involved in the support of children and families. Child protection and the needs of the child are at the core of the Children Act 1989, but using them as the guiding principle often leaves families outside the room when key decisions are being made about their future.

I question whether a relentless focus on protection of the child that overlooks the needs of their families is actually advantageous to the children who we seek to protect. Often the prioritisation of social work case loads will be based on whether a child is at immediate physical risk. Often, children who are violent to their parents or siblings are not themselves seen as being at risk, even though such violence can often be the cause of an adoption breaking down. A more holistic view, which recognised violent children within a family unit as a crisis in itself, would lead to better outcomes.

Given the scale of adoptive families who are affected by this issue, as suggested by the research I have cited, there is an argument for greater counselling and therapies for children post-adoption before the crisis manifests itself, and a much more substantial commitment to adopter support would prevent families from reaching crisis point and may well save money in the long run.

The Government’s Adoption Support Fund is a welcome development, but the cap on funding and the number of councils refusing to match fund therapies demonstrate the limitations of the current approach. When the Minister responds to the debate, can she say what representations she will make to the Treasury about the scale of the financial crisis facing councils, and the difficulty that crisis places on the Home Office in supporting local authorities to keep people safe?

I was very conscious in calling for this debate that this issue goes across three different ministerial Departments: the Department for Education, which has a child social work purview; the Department for Communities and Local Government, which deals with local authorities and their funding; and of course the Home Office itself. That was why I specifically focused my speech from an education point of view, although the Government have chosen to respond to it from a Home Office perspective. Nevertheless, all those different Departments have an important role in relation to this issue and inter-departmental work will obviously be very important.

I wonder to what extent the Minister, who is a Home Office Minister, accepts that local government finances will inevitably have an impact on the quality of child social work and the outcomes for adopted children. What steps will the Government take to ensure that new generations of social workers receive better training on the occurrence of child-to-parent violence, particularly among adopters, and ensure that parents are supported and not blamed? Will there be mandatory training for child social workers on child-to-parent violence, and will future continuous professional development of child social workers place an emphasis on child-to-parent violence?

In addition, will the Government ensure that there is skilled and appropriate therapy available to children who have been removed from violent or neglectful family situations at the start of the adoption, rather than waiting for a crisis to manifest itself? Will there be an assumption that children who have experienced early trauma are likely to become violent themselves if that trauma is left untreated? Why do we wait for the crisis to grow until it is too large, when it could be more easily treated if it was addressed earlier? What steps can the Government take to ensure that the founding principles of the Children Act 1989 do not prevent the impact of violence by children being investigated because the child is not seen to be at risk?

What more can be done to ensure that the link between attachment difficulties and the education system is closer? Will the Minister commission a report to identify the scale of this issue and expressly recognise that this is not purely or even primarily an issue of adolescent violence but one that affects families with children of all ages?

Child-to-parent violence blights the lives of too many families; it must be a hidden problem no more.

Women’s Suffrage Centenary

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I am delighted to join the hon. Lady in commending those women and welcoming their participation. Participation in public life can start with some small civic act and lead, as it did for many women here, to becoming a councillor and then a Member of Parliament. That first stage of activism in civic life is so important in encouraging women eventually into Parliament.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Chesterfield is very proud today of Winifred Jones, a suffragette who was jailed twice during the suffragette struggle. I am sure that Winifred would be delighted to know that Chesterfield Borough Council now has a woman leader and a woman deputy leader and that the chair, the secretary and the treasurer of Chesterfield Labour party are all women. The Minister is absolutely right that this is no time for partisanship, so it was disappointing that she reflected purely on the misogynistic abuse from the left. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) faced appalling abuse from people on the right. Would it not be best today to recognise that across the political spectrum there are people who engage in misogynistic abuse and that we all have to work collectively to get rid of them from our political discourse?

[Amber Rudd]

I would be cautious about not calling out abuse where it happens. The hon. Gentleman is right up to a point—as I have said, there has been appalling abuse of Labour Members as well. If, however, we tiptoe politically too much around the cause—I refer him to Claire Kober’s comments last weekend—we do not help women who themselves would like us to call it out.

Oral Answers to Questions

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing out the very important work that many voluntary bodies do in raising awareness. Citizens Advice, Age Concern and Victim Support make sure, including in the lead-up to Christmas, that people are aware of the pitfalls that await them online and of the scandalous fraudsters who pick on some of the most vulnerable people in society.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I certainly welcome any voluntary work that can be done, but as the level of fraud now stands at £193 billion a year and as local police forces are clearly completely unable to cope, we really need a far more serious strategy from Government to tackle the spectre of online crime. Will the Minister tell us what more can be done to support local police forces and provide some protection for our constituents?

[Mr Wallace]

First, that is why we established the joint fraud taskforce, which includes police and crime commissioners, police forces and victims groups, to make sure that we co-ordinate better our response. It is also why the Government have sponsored and supported the Cyber Aware campaign and Cyber Essentials, to help to make businesses aware of the fraud that awaits them, and banks have sponsored the Take Five campaign. In addition, the national cyber-security strategy sets out a programme in which the Government have invested billions of pounds to make sure that our law enforcement agencies have the capacity to tackle that crime when it is presented to them.

Football Fan Violence: Euro 2016

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Yes, and we should give that clear message to the England fans. As I said, the England captain and manager have urged and encouraged fans to go and enjoy the football, to show respect for the authorities, and not to get involved in violence or hooliganism.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I was at the match on Saturday in Marseille, and the scenes that we saw in the stadium were of a sort that we thought we had left behind 30 years ago. It was an appalling, co-ordinated and violent assault on England fans by the Russian fans, and it was very worrying. It is clear that the French police were entirely focused on preventing terrorism, and they had no real strategy for preventing hooliganism. By taking responsibility for running the tournament at this time, the police have a responsibility to keep fans safe. How will the Home Secretary ensure that the French police—who were non-existent three minutes after the attacks had started—police all aspects of the tournament, including hooliganism and violence, and are not just looking at terrorism?

[Mrs May]

UEFA’s rules about police presence in the stadium are different from the rules that we tend to operate in the United Kingdom, where we do have a police presence in the stadium, but those sorts of discussions are currently taking place at an operational level. I have spoken to Assistant Chief Constable Roberts, who is leading UK policing involvement. The police are sitting down and discussing with the various authorities how much policing can be put into the stadium, and what action can be taken for security outside the stadium for those who are entering it, as well as those inside.

Hillsborough

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I must point out to the hon. Gentleman that human rights were not invented when the convention was granted. However, my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General responded to an urgent question yesterday, and responded well to the many questions that he was asked by Members.

The whole question of deaths that happen when there is some involvement of some element of the state is one of the concerns that I have had, which is one of the reasons why, for example, I have set up an inquiry into deaths in police custody. I think that we see many examples in which it is not clear whether the system is actually getting to the truth as it should, and it is right that we should look into and investigate that.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

This has been one of those occasions when I have felt very proud to be a Member of Parliament, and I commend both the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary for the roles that they have played. I also commend Liverpool football club, which I do not think has been mentioned yet. The club never told the fans that it was time to move on; it has always taken ownership of a terrible, terrible tragedy.

This was allowed to happen because, in the eyes of the establishment, football fans were less than human. As soon as the police and the establishment see groups of people not as individuals but as less than human, we enter very dangerous circumstances. Before these people, it was the miners who were less than human. Perhaps we should think about the way we treat disabled people, asylum seekers or the victims of child sex abuse today, and wonder whether we think that they, too, may be less than human. Perhaps that is a lesson for all of us to consider.

As soon as this tragedy unfolded, the first instinct of South Yorkshire police was to protect their institution and their reputation, and to think nothing of the people who died, and their families, because they considered those people to be less than human. That instinct that they experienced instantly in April 1989 appears to be just as strong 27 years later, given the way they have conducted themselves during this latest inquiry. I commend everything that the Home Secretary has done, but may I ask her to consider whether she believes that the people of south Yorkshire should have confidence in the current leadership of South Yorkshire police, and whether, indeed, she has confidence in the chief constable of South Yorkshire police? Might she take the opportunity of the final moments of this exchange, during which she has conducted herself so magnificently, to ask the chief constable of South Yorkshire police, from the Dispatch Box, to consider his position—not just for the sake of the families, but for the sake of all the people who rely on that police force?

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman has referred to the leadership of South Yorkshire police. As I said earlier, people will vote for a police and crime commissioner next week, thus conferring that democratic accountability.

I responded earlier to questions from my hon. Friends about the wording of the statement issued by South Yorkshire police, but let me say again that I think it behoves them to recognise the import of yesterday’s verdicts. I hope that we will not see attempts to suggest that those verdicts were somehow not clear, or were in any way wrong. That jury sat through 296 days of evidence, and they were clear about the role of South Yorkshire police officers.

Border Force Budget 2016-17

Toby Perkins Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I will say to the hon. Gentleman exactly what I said to the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne). As Manchester airport expands, we will talk to the officials there and discuss what resources they consider necessary. The issue of a misdirected flight to which he refers is something that we have taken up with Manchester airport with regard to the staff whom it has on the ground to deal with these flights. This is an important issue and we are very serious about how we deal with it.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I concur with the commendations of colleagues for the excellent work that is done by border staff, but numbers are also important—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. A rather unseemly exchange is going on between the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), who has just put a question and was dissatisfied with the answer, and the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) who, in the exercise of his duties as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Secretary, always feels compelled to display a level of fealty unsurpassed and indeed unequalled by any other Member of the House of Commons. That is not necessary. We all know of the fealty bordering on the obsequious that is on evident display from the hon. Gentleman on a daily basis, but it must not be allowed to interrupt the eloquence of the flow of the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins)—or even the flow of his eloquence.

[Toby Perkins]

I will endeavour to re-find myself, Mr Speaker.

The Prime Minister received a report from experts saying that 30,000 was the right number of Border Force members to protect our borders. Does that still reflect the policy of the Government, and can the Home Secretary tell us how many border staff we currently have?

[Mrs May]

The report to which the hon. Gentleman refers proposed the creation of an entirely new police force at the borders. When we came into government and looked at what was necessary, we decided to approach the issue in a slightly different way, creating the National Crime Agency and a specific border command within it. The staff operating at borders are not just Border Force, but border command from the NCA and special branch at the ports, and, of course, they also work with immigration enforcement. For the first time in this country, we have a specific border command within the National Crime Agency.

Bill Presented

Property Ownership in London (Registration) Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Frank Field, supported by Mr David Lammy, Andrew Rosindell, Mr Gareth Thomas, Tom Brake, Siobhain McDonagh, Wes Streeting, Stephen Timms, Jon Cruddas, Stephen Pound and Mr Virendra Sharma, presented a Bill to require the creation of a register of owners of property in the Greater London area, including details of the name of the owner of each property and the name of the beneficiary owner in the case of properties owned by a trust or similar body; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 6 May, and to be printed (Bill 163).

Oral Answers to Questions

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2016 Commons Chamber

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

Tackling knife crime is a priority for this Government. Knife crime is 17% lower today than it was in June 2010, but I know that is little comfort to anybody affected in the way that my right hon. Friend’s constituents have been. May I suggest that I meet him to discuss specific measures that could be taken in Chelmsford related to the work we have been doing across the country on gangs and other antisocial behaviour?

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

T2. People across the country are rightly very anxious that the Government do everything they can to keep our borders safe at this moment in time. On that basis, for the Secretary of State to stand there and blame a Government that have not been in power for five and a half years is an absolute dereliction of her duty. What can she say to constituents across the country who want to know what she is doing and what responsibilities she is taking to keep our borders safe, in the light of the incidents raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), which people are justly concerned about?

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman mentions people’s concerns about border security. It is precisely because this Government recognise the importance of border security that we have taken the steps to enhance our border security that I outlined in response to the shadow Home Security, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham). It is this Government that have ensured that the UK is now a member of SIS II and can join Prüm. It is this Government that have introduced exit checks. All these are measures that enhance our border security.

Oral Answers to Questions

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I think we would all agree that people attending any party political conference or people working there should not need to go through the type of abuse that took place there. This is a matter for the Metropolitan—I mean the Greater Manchester police; it is usually a matter for the Metropolitan police— and, to be fair, I have already had conversations about this issue. A review is going to take place, and I believe that the Conservative party will be having consultations, too.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

May I say that Labour Members share the disgust of the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) for what was seen to happen there, which does not have any place in legitimate protest? Those involved in no way spoke for anyone on the Opposition Benches.

High-profile policing is incredibly important in Chesterfield, and the Minister will be as alarmed as I was to learn that there has recently been a significant increase in the number of burglaries in Chesterfield and Derbyshire. Will he listen to representations from the police and crime commissioner about the real pressure on our police force and will he help the police and the police and crime commissioner to cut burglaries in Chesterfield?

[Mike Penning]

Of course I will work closely with the police and crime commissioner and chief constables in the 43 authorities for which I have responsibility. As for the conference itself, the vast majority of police officers did a fantastic job. It was often decisions made above them that told them what they had to do. I am naturally concerned if there has been an increase, which is against the national trend: crime has continued to fall under this Government.

Refugee Crisis in Europe

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the shadow Home Secretary, for securing the debate, and for the tremendous way in which she has led the fight. Labour Members are of the view that the Government’s response is inadequate, but the Government have responded more generously than they did a few weeks ago. The shadow Home Secretary deserves great credit for getting the Government at least to take the steps they have taken.

The tragic death of Alan Kurdi is a bucket of cold water over the whole of our nation and the Government. It was the moment at which public opinion changed and when people said we must do more. We recognise that the appalling suffering of those refugees is a moment in history. History will look back on our generation, and on this Parliament and this Government, and ask what we did when we faced this appalling moment. I believe that we are failing to live up to our historical role as a place of safe haven, and to live up to the incredibly proud role that Britain has played over many years to support refugees, whether that is the 10,000 of the Kindertransport in the late 1930s, the 300,000 Poles who came here after the second world war or the 42,000 Ugandan Asians who came to Britain after the historic situation there. When history looks at our generation and our current response to this appalling situation, it will judge us badly for the failure to take more refugees.

In the Government’s response, they not only fail to appreciate the suffering that people are experiencing, but underestimate the capacity and desire, which the harrowing pictures have evoked, to help people. I said yesterday to the Prime Minister that if ever there was an opportunity for him to make the big society something that means something to people, this is it. People all over our communities are saying that they want to make a difference.

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Toby Perkins]

With respect to my colleagues, I will not give way.

People are saying that they want to make a difference. They are saying, “Please let me know how I can help.” Councils in Derbyshire have offered to act as reception centres for refugees. The Labour council in Chesterfield has said that it stands willing to do whatever is needed to support people in that terrible situation. The Government underestimate the capacity in our country to make a stand in the once-in-a-lifetime atrocious situation that we face.

The Government should explore the far greater potential that there is among proud Britons who are standing ready and willing to help people in their hour of need. In our history, when the world has needed heroes, Britain has so often come forward and shown how truly great our nation can be.

Let us not let this generation, when the world is expecting so much of us, be the one that lets our country’s reputation down. Let us not be the ones who, when we tell our children and grandchildren about the roles we played, have to look down at our shoes and say that when this country was needed we did not do what we could. There is more we can do. We should be taking more refugees. In all our communities, we know we can do more. Let this Parliament and this Government be the ones to say we will do more. Let us lift what we are doing right now.