Select Committee
Parliament

Image source, HoC

SNP MP Stuart McDonald asks about detention centres and what discussions the home secretary has had with G4S in relation to Brook House.

Amber Rudd says "G4S have been in to see her", following the BBC Panorama investigation and that she was as "horrified as everybody else" at the programme.

What happened is "hugely regretful", she says.

In September, a BBC Panorama investigation led to the suspension of nine members of G4S staff at Brook House detention centre near Gatwick airport.

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour's Sarah Champion claims the indications are clear that Burmese authorities have been "deliberately targeting" Rohingya with landmines as they flee.

She agrees with Conservative Paul Scully that this poses a threat to life not just now but for years to come.

She cites a counterargument that the Rohingya are to blame for the current situation, the Myanmar government says Rohingya militants attacked security forces on August 25th. But Sarah Champion says "nothing can justify" what is happening to them.

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative Will Quince tells MPs the Rohingya are "fleeing the most horrific violence".

He adds that those living in refugee camps are subject to unsanitary conditions and lack satisfactory accommodation or education for their children.

While Bangladesh is doing all it can to help them, he says, the pressure it is under is "unimaginable".

Image source, HoC

Chair Yvette Cooper asks about police funding, especially in light of the recent terrorist attacks in the UK.

The Home Secretary says this year has been "particularly challenging" and the police have "stepped up" in an "exceptional way".

Ms Rudd recognises this has put "incredible strain" on the police services and assures the committee that the government have provided "additional funds" in light of events this year.

There have been five major terrorist attacks in the UK this year: Westminster, London Bridge, Manchester Arena, Finsbury Park and Parsons Green.

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour's Lyn Brown admits she used to think Myanmar's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, was a "great woman".

But, she continues, "great women do not allow ethnic cleansing to take place in their own country".

"Great women do not stay silent," she says.

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, HoC

Conservative Anne Main speaks about her visit to Bangladesh, saying she promised to give the people she met there a voice.

She says she spoke to people who had been subject to "the most brutal attacks" and "any suggestion the Rohingya are doing them to themselves are absolute lies and fantasy".

If the UK believes such lies, she goes on, "we are complicit".

Select Committee
Parliament

Image source, HoC

Labour MP for Croydon Central, Sarah Jones asks about the rise in knife crime and says the ages of the perpetrators "has been falling".

The home secretary says a new community fund of £500,000 has been set up to combat knife crime and assist communities in early prevention.

Ms Jones says organisations only have two weeks to apply for the community fund which is a "struggle". Ms Rudd said she would look at how many applications there had been, and let her know if it could be extended.

The number of knife-inflicted injuries in London was 1,234 in 2016.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Labour's Rushanara Ali is opening this afternoon's backbench business debate on the persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar.

She tells MPs they have faced years of oppression and violence but the current human rights abuses are "extreme" and "unimaginable".

Evidence has been gathered of random shootings, arson of dwellings and sexual violence targeted at the Rohingya by the Myanmar military, she says.

Select Committee
Parliament

Image source, HoC

Conservative MP Tim Loughton asks about the future of the UK's relationship with Europol, after Brexit.

The home secretary says the UK has designed a lot of the security databases that are currently used by other European countries, and she is confident the UK will have a "largely identical" relationship with Europol, but "from outside".

Ms Rudd says she has been advised that the UK has "as close as possible access" to Europol when the UK leaves the European Union.

Europol is the law enforcement agency of the European Union to handle criminal intelligence and serious organised crime and terrorism.

House of Lords
Parliament

Image source, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Lib Dem peer Baroness Northover asks what action is being taken in the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the dual British-Iranian national currently detained in Iran.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested at the end of a trip to visit family in Iran last year, accused of espionage and imprisoned for five years. Her young daughter had her British passport confiscated and has not been allowed to leave Iran.

This week it was reported Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe could face a further 16 years in jail. She is a project manager at the Thomson Reuters Foundation and has previously worked for BBC Media Action, the BBC's international development charity.

Foreign Office Minister Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon says the case was raised at the UN General Assembly in September, and that the ambassador in Tehran raised it yesterday in a meeting with the deputy foreign minister.

He says the government has not yet seen the details of any more charges Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe faces but there is a "complexity" about the action the UK can take because Iran doesn't recognise dual nationality.

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative Christopher Chope speaks against the Middle Level Bill.

He says more discussion on the "nitty-gritty issues" is needed, and bargees and boat-dwellers are concerned about it.

He is also concerned that it could become a "Christmas tree" bill on which other powers are hung.

Nevertheless it's later passed without a vote.

Select Committee
Parliament

Image source, HoC

Chair Yvette Cooper asks about future guarantees for EU citizens living in the UK.

"I cannot envisage that there are such circumstances" and it is "unthinkable" citizens that living in the UK would be asked to leave, Amber Rudd says.

The home secretary adds that it is "unwise" to guarantee rights at this moment, in the midst of the negotiations.

House of Lords
Parliament

Conservative backbencher Baroness Warsi asks if the government has a definition of Islamophobia and if so, what it is.

Answering for the government Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth says "we are clear that hatred and intolerance towards Muslims has no place in our society".

But he says the government doesn't currently endorse a specific definition of Islamophobia because no suggested definition has found consensus.

Select Committee
Parliament

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Chair Yvette Cooper says there is "scepticism" about the Home Office's capacity to register the three million EU citizens leaving in the UK, after March 2019.

She asks how 1,200 members of staff is "sufficient" to "smoothly register" over three million people in less than three years.

"We will be on our toes" to recruit where necessary, she says.

EU citizens will be required to officially register interest in acquiring documentation allowing them to live and work in the country after 2019 when Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union.

House of Lords
Parliament

Image source, HoL

Labour frontbencher Lord Kennedy of Southwark asks what percentage of the UK population owns their own home, and what assessment has been made of whether this figure will go up or down.

Minister Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth says there has been a fall in ownership from the 71% of people who owned in 2003 and that the percentage of owners has "stabilised" at 63% since 2013.

Lord Kennedy asks what the government is doing to help the "teacher, the classroom assistant, the small businessperson" who are priced out of the market, "particularly in London".

Lord Bourne says that the government is taking "many measures" to extend home ownership as well as "seeking to diversify supply". He says the government has just announced £2bn for "social rent" houses, and wants to build a million homes by 2020.

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative Kevin Foster is introducing the Middle Level Bill, which aims to reinforce flood defences in the Fens.

"The current system is hopelessly out of date" and deals with waterways belonging to a different era, he tells MPs.

House of Lords
Parliament

Labour peer Baroness Thornton has the first question of the day. She's asking what assistance the government has given to British American Tobacco in challenging a claim for unpaid VAT by the government of Bangladesh.

Last month The Guardian reported, external that the UK's High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Alison Blake, lobbied on behalf of the company. The Bangladeshi government says it is owed £170m by BAT.

Minister Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon says the government has "engaged" with the government of Bangladesh on the issue and that the engagement was done in line with international norms.

Following up, Baroness Thornton says that tobacco causes 100,000 premature deaths a year in Bangladesh, and asks if the High Commissioner intervening is consistent with the WHO's Convention on Tobacco Control, of which the UK is a signatory.

Lord Ahmad says the High Comissioner works to ensure "our business priorities are protected" in Bangladesh.

He says the Convention allows diplomats to intervene when policies towards a tobacco company "could be considered protectionist or discriminatory". He adds that the VAT demand has been made retrospectively and that some in the Bangladeshi government believe the demand is unlawful.