YouSaid · the spoken record
Diane Abbott
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On the record 2001–2026
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This is everything the corpus holds for Diane Abbott. It is not everything they have said on the record.
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“We have long supported the policy that works: the establishment of legal routes for asylum seekers and refugees. This is what all responsible stakeholders propose and meets our obligations under international law. We cannot assume that because of the way in which someone enters the country, that person is necessarily an illegal migrant. We should not dismiss the risk to the lives of people who, as I have said, are crossing one of the busiest sea channels in the world. We want to arrive at a sustainable solution that does not involve suspicion of people because of the way in which they cross the channel, and that means each case is dealt with on its merits. This is a difficult situation, not least for the people who are so frightened, so desperate and so exploited that they seek to make the crossing in unseaworthy craft.”
House of Commons4 June 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That has been tried and has failed spectacularly and tragically. The mere existence of a naval patrol will not deter desperate people. According to the Missing Migrants Project, there have been 543 deaths in the Mediterranean this year alone. A maritime policing approach—let alone just turning back people who might be in British waters—does not work. It is a stain on our humanity and is shameful. I am sure that the majority of Members understand that these deaths are terrible and unacceptable and that we should do everything we can to reduce their number. The Opposition support the right policies—the legal policies: policies that work, preserve our humanity and uphold human dignity, wherever people are from and however they came to this country.”
House of Commons4 June 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What the Home Secretary should have said is that we will do everything to uphold the law, and that means not making assumptions about the people crossing the channel but examining all applications impartially, granting asylum where it is justified and denying it where it is not. Each application must be judged on its individual merit, irrespective of how that person reached this country. That is the law. As I said, I query the framing of the urgent question. The Minister seemed to accept it. Does she accept that she cannot be sure—that no one in the Chamber can be sure—whether the people arriving here are doing so illegally until their cases have been examined? On the wider issue of migration and asylum seekers, commentators and some Members appear to believe that more naval patrols can resolve the issue.”
House of Commons4 June 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is no comparison to D-day, or whatever flights of imagination some of our media resort to. When the issue of asylum seekers crossing the channel last arose, back in February, the Home Secretary was roundly criticised for his comments. He questioned whether the people apprehended were genuine refugees, and he added: “If you somehow do make it to the UK, we will do everything we can to make sure you are ultimately not successful because we need to break the link”. That is not correct. It does not conform to international law. As I said, no one can possibly know whether every one of these cases is not a genuine claim for asylum. That decision must await the application itself and its examination.”
House of Commons4 June 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I query the framing of the urgent question, which talks about “illegal seaborne migration”. We cannot know whether these people are genuine refugees until we have had the opportunity to examine their cases. I am glad the Minister mentioned the risk to life in the busiest sea lane in the world. We all agree that it is tragic that these men and women are the victims of organised crime and people traffickers. I have visited Calais, and although many of these people do not come directly from there, the people one meets in and around Calais are hugely exploited and vulnerable, and Members should show a bit more concern for the risk to life and the vulnerability of these persons. We need to be careful not to be unduly alarmist. We are not being invaded.”
House of Commons4 June 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Crime prevention efforts have also been undermined, partly because of the cuts to community police officers.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In our communities, on our estates and in other communities, young people need a properly resourced general youth service, not just because someone is on the verge of committing a criminal atrocity, but because, sadly, in the 21st century, with the break-up of the nuclear family and many mothers out of work who might not choose to be out of work, many young men—and women—need to interact with role models, particularly male role models. That is what the youth service offers. It is not just a question of dragging somebody from the brink of violent crime.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“However, as Opposition Members have said, that does not begin to offset the cuts in youth services up and down the country. I stress to Ministers that it is not a choice between targeted intervention and a properly funded general youth service: we need both. If the money goes into just targeted interventions, the danger is that those young people feel stigmatised and do not want to engage. Ministers talk as if, on any given estate, a couple of guys are on the verge of committing some terrible violent atrocity, and for all the other young men on that estate, everything is just fine.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is almost inevitable that there will be more deaths from violent crime this weekend in one or another of our great cities. I have to begin by talking about the effect of the Government’s policies in the round. Violent crime does not happen in a policy vacuum, and the Opposition contend that the Government’s austerity policy has contributed to the causes of increased crime in almost every conceivable way. That is one reason why the Government have presided over a rise in violent crime. Ministers cannot be right in saying that the rise in violent crime is all down to better recording. If someone is a victim of violent crime, that is one crime that they will report and that will be recorded. We have heard about some of the extra money being spent on different initiatives, particularly the £22 million for the early intervention youth fund.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We heard earlier about the tragic death of a man in Anglesey who was killed by a crossbow, and we hope that the Home Secretary will look into the regulations on crossbows. Secondly, there is the fear that your child could be the victim of violent crime. As a long-standing east end MP, I have sat with too many mothers who had said goodbye to their son in the morning as they saw him off to school or college, only to get a call from the emergency services later telling them that their son was dead. When you have sat with so many of those mothers, you understand how harrowing violent crime is for our communities. Thirdly, there is the fear that your child could be a perpetrator. It can be almost as traumatising to discover that your child is involved in violent crime as it is to find that they have been a victim.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This is a very important subject, and it is at the forefront of many of our constituents’ minds. The House respects the fact that the Home Secretary chose to open this debate himself, even though we may not agree with some of his conclusions. Up and down the country, communities are haunted by the fear of the rising tide of violent crime. This is happening in metropolitan areas such as London and Birmingham, as well as in cities such as Grimsby. The fear and the concern are universal. Generations ago, young men solved their disputes with their fists. Nowadays, the same disputes—even the same criminal interactions—are settled with guns and knives. The fear in the communities is threefold. First, there is the threat to yourself.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This is not about party politics for me. It is about the lives of people I live among—my friends’ children’s lives and the lives of some of the women and children on the street where I live in Hackney. The hon. Gentleman denigrates the issue by reducing it to mere party politics.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do not think I was confused at all. I know the point that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle is trying to make, and my point is that this is so much more than party politics; it is people’s lives.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend makes an important point, and this is not just an issue for councils of a particular political colour. Austerity is hitting the ability of councils of all political colours to deliver the services we need to effectively combat violent crime.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend makes an important point about the importance of having statutory youth services, and more so because most young people spend most of their life outside school, which is why a properly funded youth service is so important. The Home Secretary has announced another pot of funding for young people’s advocates, but that does not begin to compensate for the thousands of community police officers who have been cut. I would say that community police officers, inasmuch as they engaged with families and young people in the community on a day-to-day basis, were very much the frontline against criminality, including violent crime. This Government, and this is a fact, imposed austerity on the police, which led to falling crime detection rates.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Absolutely. I have always argued that evidence-based stop-and-search has an important role to play. The Opposition fully support targeted, evidence-based stop-and-search. What has proved problematic in the past is non-evidence-based, random stop-and-search. I accept that one thing that has helped in the use of stop-and-search, as the Home Secretary says, is body-worn cameras, which minimise accusations on either side—by the person who has been stopped and searched or by the police officer. Evidence-based stop-and-search is a good thing; random stop-and-search has a very chequered history of exacerbating community tensions.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Sadly, there are still tensions in many of our communities between young people and the police. Those tensions will be easier to deal with when we have the right levels of police funding and the right number of police officers. I do not doubt that my hon. Friend is correct when she says there are young people who do not necessarily report the injustices they think they have experienced.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In March 2018, there were 122,400 police officers in the police forces of England and Wales. That is a fall of 15% since March 2010, or a decline of 21,300 officers. All the new law, all the new orders, all the committees and all the reviews in the world cannot compensate for losing 21,300 officers. It is also relevant that the rate of those leaving the police force has almost doubled since 2010. Stress and overwork are taking their toll on under-resourced officers. There are now fewer police officers in England and Wales than there were in 1982. Of course, the under-resourcing of individual forces by this Government means that some forces are in an even worse position.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Are they supposed to stop the crisis in funding and police strength getting worse? If so, is that not a tacit admission of the huge damage that Government cuts have caused? I have mentioned the overall cuts in central Government funding for the police. However, as was mentioned earlier, the head of the National Crime Agency says that an extra £2.7 billion is needed to tackle organised crime. As it happens, that is close to the amount that has been cut from the police budget since 2010. We also learn that there is now a cost over-run in the emergency services network of £3.1 billion pounds. Ministers have not yet come to the House to explain that and what they intend to do about it—and that at a time when billions have been cut from police budgets. The effect is clear.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Offensive Weapons Bills and knife crime orders are one thing, but communities also need actual police officers in place to make use of those new legislative options. It should be clear that Ministers are in danger of tying themselves in knots. On the one hand, they have tried to insist in the past that there is no correlation between the cuts they have imposed on the police and rising serious violent crime. On the other hand, the Home Secretary has boasted to us today that the Government are now providing more resources to the police. Which is it? Do police resources and police strength have anything to do with rising crime and falling arrest rates? Or are the recent, relatively modest resources provided to the police purely decorative and designed to get Back-Bench Tory MPs off Ministers’ backs?”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) will perhaps explain to Conservative Members, is that it inevitably falls more heavily on poorer areas than on wealthier areas. We are saying that the claims about increased spending are not as impressive as they might seem, once we take away the cost of police pensions, which had to be met, and once we realise that much of that increased spending actually comes from the precept rather than central Government spending. In any event, this is a sticking plaster on a gaping wound—a wound inflicted by the Government’s own cuts. The National Audit Office, which I hope will not be accused of being party political, has previously shown that central Government funding for the police has been cut in real terms since 2010.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“People should stop using that old Whips Office line. The reason we voted against the Government’s proposal on funding was that we did not think it was enough money. Hopefully, nobody will raise that point again. Government austerity has contributed to increases in the factors underlying the causes of serious violent crime, undermined prevention and cut police numbers, so there are inevitably fewer arrests and convictions. Ministers and other Members will say that the Government have recently increased spending on the police. In real terms, if we take away the precept, and once the cost of police pensions is taken— [ Interruption. ] We are talking about central Government funding. The problem with the precept, as my hon.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I argue that, as we move into a weekend where, inevitably, we will hear about more violent crime and more knife crime, it is well past time that the Government left behind words, good intention and pots of money and showed genuine intent and provided the genuine level of resources that are needed.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is next to no mention of violence in Public Health England documentation, including in Public Health England’s outcomes document. I understand that there is a consultation going on, but people will not take this Government seriously on a public health approach until that begins to be reflected in the actual practice and the actual close working between Public Health England, education and the NHS. Violent crime haunts our communities. We argue that it is not just a failure of individual boys, young men and, increasingly, women, but an overall failure of Government policy, and it is partly caused by austerity. When it comes to violent crime, words are easy, but providing the proper resources and taking the right actions are difficult.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Those individual pots of money do not begin to compensate for nearly a decade of cuts to policing, to youth services and to mental health services for young people and adolescents, and Ministers should not pretend that they do. All the summits, the committees, the reviews, the new legislation and even a new statutory duty cannot compensate for an overall lack of resources. As for the public health approach, in her evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, Chief Constable Sara Thornton stressed the importance of strong drive, co-ordination and a concerted approach, if the public health approach was to succeed in England. Chief Constable Dave Thompson of the West Midlands police pointed out that, although the Home Secretary’s strategy alludes to a public health-based approach, it is not yet a public health-based strategy.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We argue that the underlying causes of crime, and the opportunities for crime, are rising, and the prospect of criminals being caught are falling. More money for violence reduction units is welcome, but while austerity continues, they are unlikely to be as successful as they could be. As money is trickled into violence reduction units, the Government have carved a big hole in the bottom of the bucket with austerity. When it comes to law and order, the Government cannot take with one hand, with the big cuts in local authorities, and give with the other, through individual pots of money for things such as violence reduction units and the youth endowment fund.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We welcome the £80 million that the Chancellor has provided in funds for the new violence reduction units—it is a policy that we have long advocated on the Opposition Benches and we are pleased that the Home Secretary is copying the Labour party—but violence reduction units alone are not enough. The Glasgow violence reduction unit was established when public spending was rising under Labour. The allocation of the latest funds takes place as austerity still rules. That means that poverty and inequality will continue to rise, as will zero-hours contracts, no proper apprenticeships and the burden of student debt. Pupils continue to be excluded, and find themselves in pupil referral units. The Government have a failed drugs policy combined with police cuts.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That means a reduction of summons and/or charges in 41,000 individual cases. Police strength does have an impact in the fight against crime. Cuts do have consequences. I have long taken an interest in disorder and crime—since long before I had the honour to represent my party on home affairs from the Front Bench—and my view on serious violence is, as with all policy matters, that we should focus on what works. From the inception of the violence reduction unit in Glasgow, we have seen a system that works: homicides due to knife crime in Glasgow have plummeted.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I visited Cardiff last year, and the senior police officers and the police and crime commissioner put to me the case for more funding. That case is well made. On the question of knife crime, as of March 2011—not long after the coalition Government took office—there were 30,600 offences with a knife or sharp instrument; by 2018, that total had reached more than 40,800. That is a rise of nearly a third. In the latest year, there was a 12% increase in homicide, even if we exclude the cowardly terrorist attacks in Manchester in London. It is an appalling record; it is actually shameful. Government cuts have consequences. The Home Office’s own data shows that almost half of all crimes are closed with no suspect identified. In the past year, the proportion of summons or charges fell from 11% to 9%.”
House of Commons15 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The terrorist incidents that we have been seeing are both frightening and tragic. We as a House must assure vulnerable communities of our intent to support them, whether financially or in other ways. I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement, but he can be assured that we will be following up how it actually unfolds in practice.”
House of Commons7 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We are not accusing Ministers of bad faith, but we are saying that all too often, when it comes to allocating such funding, the people who know about it and are skilled at making applications benefit, although they may not necessarily be the most vulnerable and needy communities. We welcome the fact that the police are providing vital protection to all places of worship, although I say gently to the Home Secretary that the situation is not helped by the cuts in police numbers since 2010. Our main point is that nobody should have to go to their place of worship and feel fear. Nobody should feel that horrible incidents such as we have seen internationally may be reflected in their mosque, church or gurdwara. We also say that some Muslim community centres are next to mosques; we hope that they can get some help, support and protection also.”
House of Commons7 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“For instance, the Opposition will wish to know where the worship protection security fund is being allocated, and which organisations have applied for and been awarded the funding. My experience is that sometimes those who obtain Government funding are better at putting in applications, rather than necessarily being the organisations in most need. We will want to know about where the £5 million fund to provide security training for places of worship is allocated—that the money is going to the appropriate communities in appropriate parts of the country. We will be interested to hear from Ministers about their consultations with religious communities and will want to know who is able to access and benefit from the Ramadan package of support for mosques.”
House of Commons7 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Tell MAMA, the Muslim community organisation, said that there was an almost sixfold increase in reports to its monitoring service immediately after the Christchurch attack. Separately, the Community Security Trust also reports rising incidents. My own Haredi Jewish community in Stamford Hill have seen a steep rise in attacks; sadly, they do not always report them to the police, although I am working with them to encourage them to go to the authorities after all such incidents. There have been similar reports from police forces and monitoring community organisations across the country. The proposals that the Home Secretary has announced are both timely and appropriate, but we will follow up some of the measures.”
House of Commons7 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On this side of the House, we want to make it clear that these terror attacks are murderous and vile, whether they come from admirers of al-Qaeda or ISIS or from admirers of tinpot Adolf Hitlers. As we move towards the European elections, sadly, we may well see a rise in far right activity, which may seek to mirror some of the terrorist attacks that we have seen. That is why we believe that this statement is timely and to be welcomed. These terror attacks spread ripples of violence throughout communities and countries. The Metropolitan police report that racist and religious hate crimes in London hit their highest levels in a year immediately following the Christchurch mosque shootings.”
House of Commons7 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We all saw the images of the terrorist entering the church with the rucksack on his back, patting a small child on the head and then proceeding to blow up the innocent worshippers. This followed the terror attacks in Christchurch on Muslim worshippers, which claimed the lives of 50 people and injured 40 more. The attack was livestreamed on Facebook. Most recently, a gunman stormed a synagogue, killing an innocent woman on the last day of Passover. The concern must be that, in this era of online, when someone can literally livestream their terror, there is a danger of copycat incidents. That is one of the things that has inspired fear in different communities.”
House of Commons7 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Home Secretary for prior sight of his statement. The Opposition welcome his statement in principle, particularly the Ramadan package. We are aware that there is particular fear in some of our communities as we enter the period of Ramadan. However, we reserve the right to return to the subject as the detail of implementation becomes clear. Across the world we are seeing a rise in terror attacks especially on people in their place of worship. The House should contemplate what it means to be gathered together to pray to your God and find yourself a victim of murder and terrorism. In Sri Lanka we saw more than 200 people die, including hundreds of people at Easter services in Christian churches.”
House of Commons7 May 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have the utmost confidence in the British legal system, but we in the Opposition would be very concerned, on the basis of what we know, about Julian Assange being extradited to the US.”
House of Commons11 April 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What this has to do with Julian Assange’s case is that this could be the type of treatment he could expect if he is extradited to the US. In this country, we have protections for whistleblowers, including the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 and others—even if some of us feel that these protections should be more robust. Underpinning this legislation is the correct premise, not that anyone can leak anything they like but that protection should be afforded to those who take a personal risk to disclose wrongdoing where that disclosure serves the public interest. Julian Assange is at risk of extradition to the US precisely because, as we in the Opposition believe, he has exposed material that is in the utmost public interest. This is now in the hands of the British law courts.”
House of Commons11 April 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Julian Assange is being pursued not to protect US national security, but because he has exposed wrongdoing by US Administrations and their military forces. We only have to look at the treatment of Chelsea Manning to see what awaits Julian Assange if he is extradited to the US. Ms Manning has already been incarcerated, between 2010 and 2017. She was originally sentenced to 35 years. Her indefinite detention now is because she refuses to participate in partial disclosure, which would allow whistleblowers to be pursued and not the perpetrators. Her human rights and protections as a transgender woman have been completely ignored— [ Interruption. ] Her human rights as a transgender woman have been completely ignored, and I hope that Government Members will take that seriously.”
House of Commons11 April 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have precedent in this country in relation to requests for extradition to the US, when the US authorities raise issues of hacking and national security. I remind the House of the case of Gary McKinnon. In October 2012, when the current Prime Minister was Home Secretary, an extradition request very similar to this one was refused. We should recall what WikiLeaks disclosed. Who can forget the Pentagon video footage of a missile attack in 2007 in Iraq that killed 18 civilians and two Reuters journalists? The monumental number of such leaks lifted the veil on US-led military operations in a variety of theatres, none of which has produced a favourable outcome for the people of those countries.”
House of Commons11 April 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Home Secretary will know that Mr Assange complained to the UN that he was being unlawfully detained as he could not leave the Ecuadorian embassy without being arrested. In February 2016, the UN panel ruled in his favour, stating that he had been arbitrarily detained and that he should be allowed to walk free and compensated for his “deprivation of liberty”. Mr Assange hailed that as a significant victory and called the decision binding, but the Foreign Office responded by saying that this ruling “changes nothing”. I note that the Foreign Office responded then, not the Home Office or the Ministry of Justice. The Foreign Office has no responsibility for imprisonment and extradition in this country, but it is interested, of course, in relations with allies and others.”
House of Commons11 April 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Home Secretary for his account of events. On the Labour Benches, we are glad that Julian Assange will be able to access medical care, treatment and facilities, because there have been worrying reports about his ill health. Of course, at this point that is all a matter for the courts. We in the Opposition want to make the point that, even though the only charge that Julian Assange may face in this country is in relation to his bail hearings, the reason we are debating this this afternoon is entirely to do with his and WikiLeaks’ whistleblowing activities. These whistleblowing activities about illegal wars, mass murder, murder of civilians and corruption on a grand scale have put Julian Assange in the crosshairs of the US Administration. For this reason, they have once more issued an extradition warrant against Mr Assange.”
House of Commons11 April 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Ministers did not make all the information available to Her Majesty’s Opposition when we were able to respond to the scheme. Some might say—I will not say it—that Ministers were attempting to conceal the reality of the derisory nature of their scheme. Above all, the Home Secretary said there was no cap. These tariffs are a cap. We are asking Ministers, even at this late stage, to review these unfair tariffs, remove the cap, and give this generation the justice they deserve.”
House of Commons9 April 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Secretary of State for the Home Department, the courts upheld three common law principles. First, detention is more traumatic for a person of good character. Secondly, a higher rate of compensation is payable for the first hour. Thirdly, historic damages awarded in precedent cases must be adjusted and uplifted to present-day values. The deputy High Court judge in that case awarded Mr Sapkota £24,000. This proposed scheme provides nothing like those common law damages. The amounts offered for wrongful denial of access to higher education are pitiful. The scheme offers just £500, but all the research shows that the lifetime benefit of access to higher education is counted in tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of pounds. This scheme is shoddy, unfair and unjust.”
House of Commons9 April 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They are also allowed legal aid for those appeals. None of that is true in any meaningful sense in the case of the Windrush victims. How can the Minister possibly justify that? The Opposition believe that the Home Office must pay for losses actually incurred. For instance, claimants will be paid just £1,264 for denial of access to child benefit. It is easy to quantify what people would have lost altogether. Why cannot they get that exact sum of money back, plus interest? There is only £500 for denial of access to free healthcare. It is easy to quantify how much people had to spend when they had to access private healthcare. Why cannot they get that money back? On awards, the scheme provides compensation for detention. However, in the false imprisonment case of Sapkota v.”
House of Commons9 April 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on securing this important urgent question. The whole House knows that the Windrush generation was let down by successive Governments, Labour and Conservative, but with this derisory compensation scheme, the Windrush generation has been let down once again. I draw it to the attention of the House that although I did get early sight of the Home Secretary’s statement on 3 April, I was not provided with early sight of the scheme rules, and I appreciate the opportunity to question the Minister on them today. This scheme compares very unfavourably with the criminal injuries compensation scheme, whose awards are aligned with compensation for loss under common law. Claimants are also allowed a statutory right of appeal of awards.”
House of Commons9 April 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Parents will not be impressed to hear of further reports or further enquiries. We need to resolve the Appleby case quickly, but we also need to make sure that no other families of sick children have to suffer in the way the Appleby family is suffering.”
House of Commons8 April 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Is the Secretary of State aware that cannabis oil is not the same as cannabis, and that it has no psychoactive or addictive effects? Is he aware that in other jurisdictions a range of conditions qualify for treatment with cannabis oil and related products, including cancer, AIDS, muscular dystrophy, Crohn’s disease, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease and arthritis? Is he aware that the Home Secretary has previously commissioned Sally Davies to examine the scheduling of cannabis as a whole? She reported as long ago as June 2018. Is the Secretary of State aware that Ms Davies’s report has been with the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs since that time? Is the House to understand that the Home Secretary has just been sitting on it? What is the Secretary of State going to do to speed up the processes around this issue?”
House of Commons8 April 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is shameful that we saw those scenes at Southend airport, and that families continue to suffer because the arrangements are so slow. It is, however, appropriate that we are discussing this issue on the day on which my hon. Friend the new Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) has taken her seat, because her predecessor, my friend Paul Flynn, was an indefatigable campaigner for many important causes, including the legalisation of cannabis for medical use. Last year Charlotte Caldwell, the mother of another sick child, Billy Caldwell, said: “It’s absolutely incredible, it’s amazing. The compassion and speed that the Home Secretary has moved with is just incredible.” That is the impression that Ministers sought to give, but it was a misleading impression, as the plight of the Applebys revealed this weekend.”
House of Commons8 April 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Surely there must be a formal legal obligation. I do not think we can rely—”
House of Commons3 April 2019Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗