Ms Diane Abbott
MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington · Independent · United Kingdom
“Opposition Members seem to need reminding that the early release programme was devised by a Conservative Government. We have been debating at great length, in the media and among politicians, keeping people in prison for longer.”
“I have been in the House for some of them, and each one was accompanied by the same grand assertions that the Home Secretary has made this afternoon: that they would bring fairness to our immigration system and fairness to our asylum system. They did not. They simply took away rights and treated people badly.”
“People born here were deported. Families were split up. People lost their jobs. Others were denied re-entry to the country after holidays or travelling to family events, including funerals. That scandal is not over, and it is not something that we can move on from.”
“I listened with great care to the Home Secretary’s speech, and one of the things she said—she said it more than once, in different phraseology—was that her legislation is designed to remove the burden of asylum seekers from the shoulders of British people.”
“I would argue that that legislation has failed to do what Ministers said it would do; in fact, it has made people’s lives harsher and more difficult.”
“The Home Secretary will be aware of how important it is to make sure that Members of this House get the protection and defence that they need. At one point, I got as much abuse and as many threats of violence as all the other women MPs put together, so it is important that we take this issue seriously.”
The complete record
Every one of 602 lines we hold for Ms Diane Abbott, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 6 of 13.
“It has been tragic to see the chaos of the Taliban takeover, but, if we do the right thing by our veterans, the Afghan people and refugees, we can at least know as a country that we have followed on from the initiative we took 20 years ago to intervene in that region to bear down on terrorism and disorder. I did not vote for the intervention in Afghanistan 20 years ago; I am afraid it was foreseeable that it would end like this. However, it is not inevitable that we as a country and this as a Parliament will not do the right thing. I urge colleagues on both sides of the House to address the important issue being raised today, so that we can go forward in pride and confidence in our own understanding of our moral responsibilities.”
“The debate on refugees in the British Parliament is sometimes a little complex and difficult, and sometimes people have more to say about the burden of refugees than about our moral responsibility to them, but, speaking as someone who was in this House 20 years ago when we voted on an Adjournment for this military intervention, we have an extraordinary moral responsibility to these refugees. We have a responsibility to towns and cities all over this country, including Scotland, that may well need more support and finance from Government, but we cannot let down those refugees. Our political and moral responsibility is too great.”
“In the political solution, the debate and the discussion with NATO allies, we must have the future of those Afghan women and girls at the centre of everything we are talking about and trying to do. In the past 20 years, it is not just that 457 British soldiers died—although that is tragic, which is why I mentioned it. It is that we gave those women and girls hope. We gave them hope of a better future and of the prospects that women and girls all over the world, including here in Britain, have. We cannot just sit back and have them see that hope snatched away. We cannot let down the people of Afghanistan and we cannot let down those women and girls. Finally, we cannot let down the refugees who we know will be pouring out of Afghanistan.”
“Did I lose my legs for nothing, looks like it. Did my mates die in vain. Yep.” We as a House of Commons and as a Parliament should not and cannot let down Jack Cummings and those 457 British soldiers who died in Afghanistan. As a Parliament, we will have to continue this debate to understand the lessons to be learned from what is happening to Afghanistan at the present time. The other people we cannot let down are the people of Afghanistan. We know how many of them have died. We know that even as we speak, there are women and girls in their homes, in hiding or running away who are frightened for their future, their prospects and their lives under this Taliban regime.”
“We in this House and our constituents have all seen the chaos and speed of the Taliban takeover. One of the questions that we have to address today and in the days to come is: how did it happen and what lessons are to be learned? The points that I want to make this afternoon are about the people we, the British people, cannot let down. First, we cannot let down the British veterans who, over 20 years, fought in Afghanistan, particularly in Helmand—one of the most dangerous provinces to fight in. I can do no better than quote Jack Cummings, who has been quoted in recent days. He is a former British soldier who lost both legs on 14 August 2010 while searching for improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan. They are a few simple sentences, but they are worth repeating. He said: “Was it worth it, probably not.”
“All over the world, people are appalled by the dishonesty and cruelty of the way Martin Bashir secured his interview with a very vulnerable Princess Diana 25 years ago. It is right that the BBC itself reviews again its editorial practices and how Martin Bashir came to be employed, but does the Minister appreciate that it remains a very valued national institution, both here and overseas? There is concern that long-standing enemies of the BBC are using the Bashir scandal to attack, defund and potentially dismantle our national broadcaster.”
“The Minister said earlier that recognition of Palestine is not an issue for now, but I say to him that if justice for the Palestinians is not an issue for now, in the midst of this violence and death, when will justice for the Palestinians be an issue?”
“The Minister will be aware that, around the world, people want to see an end to the violence and the rising death toll—both of Israelis and Palestinians—and to see a ceasefire, and they welcome efforts to that effect. However, does he also accept that the long-term solution to these issues lies with the UK Government, among others, demanding an end to forced evictions of Palestinians in East Jerusalem; the UK Government insisting that sacred sites, including the al-Aqsa mosque, are treated with the utmost respect; the UK Government asking for an immediate halt to new settlements and an adherence to international law; and the UK Government recognising Palestine as a state, with full membership of the United Nations?”
“That seems an accurate description to many of us, as we are talking about the murder of unarmed civilians over the course of three days, and, as the House knows, the coroner has found that they were all innocent, they were all unarmed, and their killings were without justification. We are still awaiting official admission of many other deaths in former colonies, including Kenya. It is good to hear the truth about these events after all these decades, but sadly some of the relatives will have passed away. May I ask the Secretary of State: is anyone ever to be prosecuted for these crimes?”
“I am sure that the entire House would like to join me in offering our heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families of Ballymurphy. But we also want to congratulate them and their community on the fortitude and resilience they have shown over decades in their pursuit of truth, and to congratulate their legal teams, who have not always been treated with the respect and decency they deserve. I am glad to hear that the Prime Minister is writing to the families personally, because the families do deserve a personal apology. The Secretary of State will be aware that these events are widely known in Ireland and internationally as the Ballymurphy massacre.”
“I say to the Minister that surely black and brown British people who have contributed so much to this country deserve better than this report.”
“The Minister has accused people of criticising the report in bad faith. Is she really saying that Professor Michael Marmot, a world-renowned expert in public health, is acting out of bad faith? Is she really saying that the British Medical Association and other professional associations are speaking in bad faith? It would reflect better on the Minister if she were prepared to engage with genuine criticism by experts. Nobody denies that there has been progress on racial justice in this country. My parents left school in rural Jamaica aged 14; I am a British Member of Parliament. However, this is widely seen—particularly by people who have been quoted and misquoted—as a shoddy, cynical report that, to quote the UN working group, “repackages racist tropes and stereotypes into fact, twisting data”.”
“She described the peaceful protests by Black Lives Matter as “dreadful”. Can she understand why many people in this country believe that giving the police even more powers to crack down on peaceful protest can only lead to more distressing scenes like those the nation witnessed on Saturday at the vigil on Clapham common?”
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Sarah Everard’s family. The Home Secretary will be aware that the whole nation was upset by the images of women who had come to a peaceful vigil about violence against women finding themselves wrestled to the ground and handcuffed by police officers. The statement by the Metropolitan police sought to justify what happened on Saturday by talking about “the overriding need to protect people’s safety”. Is she aware that some people are puzzled by the idea that you can make people safe by manhandling them and handcuffing them? In relation to the policing Bill, which the House will be debating later, the Home Secretary herself has made it clear that it is expressly designed to crack down on peaceful protests by groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter.”
“Will she speak to Public Health England to make sure that local directors of public health make constituency-level data, particularly on ethnicity, available to constituency stakeholders, including Members of Parliament?”
“The Minister is insistent that the wildly disproportionate rate of infection and death among black, Asian and minority ethnic communities has nothing to do with the fact that they are black, Asian or from a minority ethnic group. Has it occurred to her that the fact that they are more likely to be in overcrowded, poor housing conditions and in the types of job that leave them liable to infection is not random, but is to do with race and ethnicity? Will the Minister do more in the area of data? First, will she speak to colleagues about having ethnicity routinely put on death certificates? Can we have more information on the Haredi and ultra-orthodox Jewish communities, who have had disproportionate levels of deaths from covid in America?”
“Will the Minister speak to Public Health England and ensure that local directors of public health make this information and other information in relation to specific cohorts available at a borough level to local MPs? He will be aware that the danger is that we could be hitting our vaccination targets overall, but certain groups are left behind. Many local MPs want to have some transparency about what is happening locally.”
“When black and minority ethnic people are on the frontline of the fight against coronavirus as health and social care workers, it would be a tragedy if there was an increased death toll because enough was not being done to encourage take-up of the vaccine.”
“The whole House has welcomed what the Secretary of State has had to say about the progress in fighting coronavirus, but he will be aware that there is a very real danger that one cohort will be left behind: black and ethnic minority communities. We already know that black people are four times more likely to die from coronavirus, and currently the statistics show that black over-80s are half as likely to be vaccinated as white people. I am conscious that the Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment is aware of this issue, but will the Secretary of State give the House an undertaking that he will drive forward a whole series of measures to increase vaccine take-up among black and minority ethnic persons?”
“The Government’s support package is welcome, but the Minister will be aware that many stakeholders do not think it goes far enough. There is a particular issue about students being required to pay full fees for courses that are nowhere near the quality and content of the course experience they would get if they were actually attending university. The Minister has said that individual students can take their concerns to the Office for Students, but this is a systemic problem. Rather than relying on individual students taking up their concerns, why do the Government not take responsibility themselves for ascertaining whether students are being offered full value in particular courses and universities, and take steps to make sure that students get a rebate?”
“The Prime Minister will be aware that, as school lessons move online, the cost of pay-as-you-go broadband is completely prohibitive for poor families in areas such as Hackney. He is talking about coming to cut-price arrangements, but what so many families need is access to free broadband—an excellent policy, which was in Labour’s 2019 manifesto. No child should be deprived of an education because their parents cannot afford the broadband cost, so will he look again at providing free broadband when it comes to accessing online education?”
“On the contrary, our access to Europol and to Eurojust has been compromised, and we will no longer have access to the European arrest warrant and to EU databases that allow for realtime data sharing, such as the Schengen Information System, and are valuable to our police and the National Crime Agency. The database was consulted over 600 million times by UK police forces in 2019. In closing, I have the greatest respect for the result of the 2016 referendum, but this shoddy deal falls shorts. It fails the British people and fails my constituents, and I have to meet my responsibilities as a Member of the British Parliament and vote against it today.”
“However, I voted against the Maastricht treaty not because I was opposed to freedom of movement or because I had fears and concerns about EU migrants or because I had the notion that migrants drove down wages; I voted against the Maastricht treaty and other aspects of EU integration because of a concern about fundamental issues of democracy and accountability. By driving this historic deal through Parliament in one day, with no time for proper scrutiny, this Government are trashing democracy. This deal falls short in many policy areas, but I want to talk about security. The Government claimed that they were going to get “a security partnership of unprecedented breadth and depth”.”
“In over 30 years in this House, this is the most important and consequential piece of legislation on British-EU relations that I have taken part in. Let me say at the beginning that I will not be voting for this Tory Brexit deal today, but that is not because I do not respect the result of the 2016 referendum. I think I have rather good Eurosceptic credentials. I voted against the Maastricht treaty in 1992, and I have voted against most other pieces of further EU unification that have come in front of this House.”
“Does the Minister accept that many people feel that this mass deportation is both cruel and potentially dangerous: cruel because he is separating, just weeks before Christmas, families of people who have served their sentence; and possibly dangerous because he is deporting vulnerable people—communities that we know are particularly vulnerable to coronavirus—in the middle of a pandemic?”
“Does my hon. Friend accept that the concern about TPIMs is not just the breadth of measures available but their indefinite nature against people who have not actually been tried and charged?”
“An impartial review of the Prevent programme is long overdue. The fear is that now there is too much political capital invested in the Prevent programme for it to change course, but the fight against terrorism is too serious to be taken lightly. If something is not working, we need to fix it. That is why the time is right to review Prevent and to start again with an entirely new programme with the same aims, but a programme that works with communities rather than demonising them.”
“It would not be imposed on communities, but it would be working with communities, relying on people’s intelligence information, their sensitivities and their very real concerns, and the very real concerns of the overwhelming majority of people in this country who are opposed to terrorism in all its guises. Working with communities and relying on them, not demonising them and ostracising them, is the way forward. In conclusion, all of us on both sides of the House have a great responsibility in fighting terrorism. The most important duty of any Government is to keep their citizens safe, and we on the Opposition Benches feel that very strongly, but the safety and security of our people in the fight against terrorism cannot be upheld by knee-jerk reactions, simplistic formulations or programmes that prove to be counterproductive.”
“I want to nail that one. As Ministers know, Prevent is only one strand of the Contest strategy and we support the other three strands of pursue, protect and prepare. Serious consideration should be given to how all of those can be enhanced and made more effective. But, from all the evidence and all the people and communities I have spoken to, I conclude that Prevent is in danger of being counterproductive, alienating communities and ultimately making the fight against terrorism harder. A more effective anti-radicalisation programme could and should be constituted. It would involve communities themselves.”
“In 2017-18, 7,300 people were referred to the Prevent programme, and the overwhelming majority of those were incorrect referrals. In fewer than one in five cases was there any discussion of these individuals at a Channel panel, and fewer than 400 people have received support from the Channel programme. No wonder, to many communities that find themselves targeted, it looks and feels like a trawling operation. I remember that in counter-terrorism debates with reference to the IRA’s mainland bombing campaign, it was former Army officers in this House—not people on my side of the Chamber—who argued against measures that could be a recruiting sergeant for terrorists. As we know, when Ministers are challenged on Prevent, they respond as if any criticism of it is leading to an attempt to abolish our counter-terrorism efforts altogether.”
“It is not just controversial; it is a toxic brand, and I would argue it is increasingly counterproductive in the fight against terrorism that we all want to support. We should look at a replacement for the Prevent programme. It is not that good work has not been done in the name of Prevent—I visited some of those programmes in another role—but increasingly it is not doing the job it was established to do and, because its reputation is so toxic, it is not as effective as it could be in combating terrorism. If we examine the terror incidents that have been inflicted on our communities in detail, we find that very few of the perpetrators have ever been in contact with a Prevent programme. At the same time, Prevent casts a hugely wide net over people, particularly in the Muslim community.”
“However, it is extremely appropriate that Parliament should not be nodding through counter-terror legislation but should be subjecting it to proper scrutiny, because that is in the interests of us all. At the heart of that scrutiny has to be: will this legislation help minimise terror attacks? Governments of all parties, including my own, have tended to want to argue that measures that undermine civil liberties are the answer to terrorism, but sometimes such measures run the risk of being a recruiting sergeant for terrorism. It is in that light that I address my remarks to the Prevent programme. The Government previously committed to a review of Prevent. I can only ask: where is the review? My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), speaking from the Front Bench, described Prevent as controversial.”
“I rise to speak in support of the amendments. The stakes in any debate about terrorism and how to combat terrorism successfully are extremely high, because these are issues that involve the lives and liberties of all of us. Children as well as adults have lost their lives in some of these terrible incidents, particularly in the horrific Manchester Arena bombing. Police officers have been murdered. We were all shocked by the murder of a fellow MP, Jo Cox, and I was a Member of this House in the ’80s and ’90s at the height of the IRA’s mainland bombing campaign, so, please, there is no one on the Opposition side who does not take the threat of terrorism seriously.”
“Is it a brighter future for the old, the sick and the infirm, because the institutions that they rely on will have enormous difficulty recruiting people when there is an end to freedom of movement? Is it a brighter future for society, when we pass a Bill that sends a signal to wider society—and to migrants in particular—that you are only as valuable as the amount that you earn, and that we will clap for you on a Thursday and put forward a Bill like this a few days’ later?”
“When the House debated Wendy Williams’ Windrush lessons learned review, there was a lot of hand-wringing on the Government side of the House about the Windrush scandal, but the review had some quite specific recommendations about immigration, including that the Home Secretary introduce a migrants commissioner; that the immigration department should re-educate itself fully about the current reach and effect of immigration and nationality law; that there should be a programme of training and development for all immigration and policy officials; and that Ministers should ensure that all policies and proposals for legislation on immigration are subject to rigorous impact assessments. The Home Secretary has said that the Bill is about a brighter future. A brighter future for whom? For EU nationals, who face a period of great uncertainty?”
“The Bill represents a missed opportunity. It is a missed opportunity on the NHS surcharge. It is quite wrong that migrants working for the NHS pay three times over: once through taxation; once through the surcharge; and, in some cases, with their lives. It should have ended the no recourse to public funds system. It should have brought in a 28- day statutory time limit for immigration detention. It should have brought back legal aid for article 8 immigration cases, and it should have reformed the law on deportations so that people who came here as children cannot be arbitrarily deported.”
“We know that the skills, the concern and the devotion that migrants are currently showing at this time of covid crisis cannot be measured by money, but Ministers seem to think that we can measure somebody’s value to society by an arbitrary financial threshold. EU migrants play a vital role not just in the NHS and the care sector, but in construction. In fact, they play a big role in construction, not because they are unskilled but because, as any developer would tell us, they have very important construction skills that developers are unable to recruit here. They play an important role in hospitality. They should have been granted settled status automatically. They should have physical documents, not a digital code, and we should not be moving towards extending the hostile environment towards EU migrants.”
“Anybody that has had to deal with the immigration system knows that one of the problems is ill-thought regulation piled on top of ill-thought regulation. The idea that the Government can construct a new immigration system without proper parliamentary scrutiny will make anyone who has ever tried to help anybody with an immigration problem fear for the consequences. The Bill is a slap in the face for the thousands of migrants, including EU migrants, who have been working so hard for the NHS and the care sector in this time of covid crisis. The idea put forward by Ministers that £25,600 is somehow a proxy level for skill is absurd.”
“Like my good friend the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), I shall be voting against this Bill. It is a bad Bill. It is bad in principle, bad in practice and it sends a terrible message to migrants and the children of migrants. The Bill does indeed abolish freedom of movement—although once this country voted to brexit, freedom of movement would have fallen in any event—but the Government are doing it in such a way and in such a manner that it seems to ignore the effect of this on around 890,000 British nationals in the EU. We feel that there was a better way of achieving the same effect. The Bill gives the Government a blank cheque to construct a new immigration system through statutory instrument.”
“The Minister will be aware that of the 17 doctors who have died from covid-19, 16 are from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. So will she be speaking to her ministerial colleagues in the Department of Health about the NHS surcharge for migrants? It cannot be right that NHS migrant workers, who are frequently BAME, pay twice for the NHS, first in taxation and then through the surcharge—and, increasingly, with their lives.”
“To any women and men at home today who are watching this debate, I think the message of this House to you is that you are not alone.”
“I fully support that case, but the service providers who operate— [ In audible ] — conjure up additional living accommodation overnight every day, so I propose that the Government should acquire vacant hotel accommodation to house these victims until alternative, decent accommodation can be found. We know that some hotel chains have offered to help by providing accommodation, and they should be taken up on that offer. The policy has already been announced in France, and Britain should do the same. If, at a later date, more appropriate accommodation can be found, that is excellent, but the victims need accommodation now. Mine is a practical proposal that could be announced immediately. I hope that it will command widespread support across the House.”
“The women of colour who are reluctant to approach— [ In audible ] —so Government and local authorities need to recognise the importance of providing support for refugees and of services that provide specialist services to black women and migrants. I pay tribute to Ngozi Fulani and her project Sistah Space in Hackney, which has helped so many black women who are victims of domestic violence. We know that “no recourse to public funds” regulations stop many women of colour who are the victims of domestic violence from accessing support at all. For this and many other reasons, “no recourse to public funds” should be scrapped, but I have a practical proposal in relation to all victims. Labour’s new Front-Bench team is dealing very ably with the Bill and they will make the case for their amendments— [ In audible ] — for extra funds.”
“There are no more frightened and desperate victims than women of colour, whether they are refugees, asylum seekers, migrants or— [ In audible. ] Women of colour are fearful of approaching the authorities, because of their immigration status or general fear of the police. I have had to support— [ In audible ] — who were too frightened to report abuse, because they were worried that their partner might report them to immigration. I think it is important for the House to say that all women have the right to be protected from domestic abuse, regardless of their immigration status. To achieve that, this Government need to move away from the hostile war between immigration control and public services, including services for women who are victims of domestic violence.”
“We live in extraordinary times. Unfortunately, there is nothing extraordinary about domestic violence. It affects women of all classes and in all walks of life, and the figures show that it has got considerably worse in the course of the coronavirus lockdown. I welcome this important Bill. There are ways in which it could be improved, but in principle it represents a real step forward. First, however, I want to honour the campaigners. It was they who moved domestic abuse from something that the police and politicians did not necessarily take seriously to the very seriously regarded crime it is today. Without those campaigners, this Bill, although it is by no means perfect, would not have been brought forward. Domestic abuse and domestic violence are often hidden. The victims are frightened and even too ashamed to speak out.”
“Does my right hon. Friend share my concern for that particular group of victims who are people with no recourse to public funds? They cannot work in a situation where so much of the economy has been closed down, and they have no legal rights to benefits of any kind—even the paltry level of benefits that the Government are talking about. They are not the only group, but these people face destitution. I raised that with the Home Secretary on Monday. We have still not heard anything about what the Government are going to do to protect people and their children who have no recourse to public funds”
“There were women there who were married to British men and had British children but who, because they were caught up in the Windrush scandal, found themselves quite unfairly, having committed no crime, in a detention centre, and there were very many such cases. We will be supporting the compensation scheme, because we think it is important that the money gets to the victims as soon as possible. The Opposition are happy to help in any way with outreach to encourage people to claim. Clearly, with the current public health situation, we cannot have meetings about it and so on, but there are other means—provided, possibly, by new media—by which more could be done on outreach.”
“We also think it is important to stress that it applies not just to persons from the Caribbean but to people who came from other Commonwealth countries before January ’73 and people who had a right of abode or settled status and arrived to live in the UK before 31 December 1988. We also think it is important that, in moving forward on the compensation scheme, which is so important to the people who have suffered, we look at all the important aspects of family life that were severed by the Windrush scandal, whether that was people being deported, people’s children not being able to establish their right to be here or the misery of people seeing their parents thousands of miles away, having been consigned to deportation by what seemed to them a very cruel state. I remember visiting Yarl’s Wood detention centre last year.”
“This is a generation—I know something of it as my own parents were part of it—who came here with their UK and Colonies passports and believed that they were British. I will argue that it is the humiliation that cut to the quick. I have had various meetings in this House with members of the Windrush cohort, and that is the thing I come up against time and time again: how humiliated and hurt they felt to be, as it were, rejected by what they had always regarded as the mother country—a country they came to after the war to help to rebuild. It is important to stress how poor the take-up has been and to say that Ministers must do more to encourage better take-up. We think that Ministers should consider putting the compensation scheme on a statutory basis.”
“I have said to the Minister and officials that I am happy to help with that outreach work—not as an apologist for the Government, but as someone who is very anxious that people should get what they are entitled to. The reason I think it is so important that people get what they are entitled to is not the money. As I have said before in the House, in the end, the cruellest thing for the Windrush cohort was not the problems, the difficulties, the possibility of deportation and all those practical things. The cruellest thing for the Windrush generation was the humiliation of being told by the British state that somehow they were not British or were trying to mislead the state in that matter.”