Chris Philp MP: speeches

Speeches

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

  More

  I will try anyway. If the Home Secretary is really serious about controlling immigration, will she vote later today for the immigration cap, and will she vote to repeal the Human Rights Act for all immigration matters?

• 12 May 2025 · Immigration System · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement—not that it was necessary, given the extensive leaks and pre-briefing. The Prime Minister claimed all of a sudden this morning that he wants to control immigration. I must say, it came as something of a surprise to me. He seems to have undergone a miraculous conversion, and has apparently repudiated everything he has ever believed. Perhaps he is doing what he always does: saying whatever he thinks people want to hear at any given point in time. Perhaps he sees his minus 36% approval rating, and this White Paper is his desperate response. We know what the Prime Minister really thinks about immigration, because he has often told us. He once described immigration law and border control as racist. He signed a letter opposing the deportation of dangerous foreign criminals, including murderers and rapists. He pledged that he would reintroduce full free movement of people, and he sermonised enthusiastically about the benefits of migration. He even said that the Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre should be closed down. Perhaps the Home Secretary can tell us if she will be following the Prime Minister’s advice on that one. Given what the Prime Minister really thinks about immigration, it is no surprise that this Labour Government have presided over the worst start to a year for the number of illegal immigrants crossing the English channel in history; that number is up 30% since the election last year. It has been the worst start to a year ever, and it happened under this Labour Government. It is also no surprise that this plan is so weak that it barely scratches the surface. On its first page, it seeks to create a false impression. It says—the Home Secretary repeated this—that “visa applications are down…40%” since the election, implying that that is somehow down to the Government. Why are visa applications actually down by 40%? Because of the changes made by the last Government, which came into force in April 2024. From the previous peak, net migration is already forecast to reduce by about half a million. If the Home Secretary is all of a sudden so keen on reducing migration, will she explain why she suspended the Conservative plan to increase the family visa threshold to £38,000? That was due to come into force last month. When will that change now be introduced? The truth is that this plan is weak and will have little impact. The Home Secretary admitted on Laura Kuenssberg’s programme yesterday that the measures will reduce net migration by only 50,000, which is just one 10th of the impact of the previous Conservative changes. The honest truth is that we need to go much further than this White Paper does. Immigration needs to come down a lot more. Under new leadership, the Conservative party is taking a new approach. [ Interruption. ] Labour Members can vote on this later, if they are so keen. High immigration has put pressure on housing, public services, social cohesion and the economy. Mass low-wage, low-skilled migration undermines our economy’s productivity and costs other taxpayers money, because low-wage migrants consume services that cost the Exchequer more than they pay in tax, particularly where there are dependants, so we need to go much further. That is why later today the House will vote on two Conservative proposals in amendments to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. [ Interruption. ] I can see Labour Members are excited about the prospect. The first amendment would create a binding annual cap on migration, to be set and voted on democratically by this Parliament. It would allow full democratic parliamentary control over migration numbers, deliver complete transparency and ensure that immigration is drastically reduced. I see the Minister for Border Security and Asylum talking enthusiastically on the Front Bench; I assume that means that she will support the measure. The second amendment would repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 from all immigration matters. We would not just tinker with article 8, as the Home Secretary says she will, but stop foreign criminals, and others who have no right to be here, abusing human rights laws in UK courts, including article 3. I have a simple question for the Home Secretary.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Irish Republican Alleged Incitement · Hansard source

  More

  Our thoughts today are with our dear friends Sir David Amess and Jo Cox. They were brutally murdered on a surgery Friday doing their job on behalf of their constituents. Tragically, they were not the first MPs to be murdered; the crest of Airey Neave is up there above the door, with those of Sir David and Jo behind me. Those who incite the murder of MPs are attacking democracy itself. Will the Minister join me in condemning unreservedly the despicable evil that Kneecap represent in the appalling comments they made? I would like to ask about the funding. In November 2024, the Department for Business and Trade decided to end its support for the legal challenge—a decision that resulted in the band winning and becoming entitled to the money. Why did the Government make that decision? In the light of what we now know, will they appeal against that decision? Critically, will the Minister give categoric assurance from the Dispatch Box that this band will never, under any circumstances, receive public money again from any source, including the National Lottery and Northern Ireland Screen? This organisation has also expressed support for Hamas and Hezbollah, which are proscribed terrorist groups. The Minister said that he did not want to comment on the police investigation. However, the Government commented quite extensively on the investigations after Southport, so I would like him to make clear, as the Government did last summer, that they consider it in the public interest that the police investigate and, if there is evidence, prosecute these offences or potential offences. If he is not willing to do that now, he risks the perception of two-tier justice. Finally, I had a meeting very recently with Sir David’s widow Julia and his daughter Katie, who bear an enormous burden of grief. They want to make sure that the lessons are learned from Sir David’s murder. As the Minister knows, the perpetrator had been in the Prevent programme previously, like the perpetrators in Reading and Southport. Julia and Katie Amess would like Sir David’s murderer and the failings of Prevent to be looked at alongside the Southport case, which is being investigated, and the Reading case. Will the Minister honour his memory by agreeing to that today?

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

  More

  The whole nation is shocked by the rape gangs scandal. Thousands of young teenage girls were systematically raped over years by men of predominantly Pakistani heritage—girls such as Jane, who was repeatedly gang raped at the age of just 12. The police found her being abused by an illegal immigrant, but instead of arresting the illegal immigrant, they arrested her. That is sick. The last Government took action by setting up the wider Jay inquiry and the grooming gangs taskforce, but the truth is that that is not enough. There is now clear evidence that those in authority covered up these rapes because the perpetrators were mainly of Pakistani heritage. Last week, I met retired Detective Chief Inspector John Piekos. In Bradford, he witnessed the abuse of a young girl in a car, but he was then instructed by a chief superintendent to drop the matter in order to avoid antagonising Bradford’s Muslim community. Covering up the rape of young girls for that reason is one of the most immoral things I have ever heard, yet not a single person—not one—has ever been held to account for these cover-ups. That is why we need a national statutory public inquiry that can compel the production of evidence. Even last year, authorities in Manchester were still covering up, leading the chairs of the local Manchester inquiry to resign. Five local inquiries, which cannot compel the production of evidence, just will not do. Fifty towns were affected, not five. Bradford, where some of the worst abuse occurred, is refusing to co-operate with any inquiry at all. There has never been an inquiry in Bradford, because the council is refusing to participate. The Home Secretary promised on 16 January that Baroness Casey would complete a rapid audit within three months. Three months have now passed and we have heard nothing whatsoever. The Government said there would be five local inquiries, but we know nothing about four of them. The man charged with setting them up, Tom Crowther, told the Home Affairs Committee on 1 April that he had been sidelined by the Minister over there, and “did not know” what was going on. Finally, I recently met Marlon West, whose daughter was trafficked, abused and raped by mainly Asian men, including in Bradford. He said that this Government should be ashamed of themselves, and they should hold a national inquiry. Jane, who was trafficked and gang raped at 12, also wants a statutory national inquiry. Labour Mayor Andy Burnham, Harriet Harman and the Labour MP for Rotherham—the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion)—all agree. So will the Minister do what they, and Marlon and Jane, are all begging for, and hold a national inquiry so that those who covered up this scandal are at last held to account?

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

  More

  (Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary to make a statement on the child rape gangs scandal.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

  More

  When?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Foreign Influence Registration Scheme · Hansard source

  More

  I start by thanking the Security Minister for advance sight of his statement, which he provided with his customary professionalism and courtesy. We on the Conservative Benches welcome the commencement of the FIRS regime, legislated for in the last Parliament, and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friends the Members for Witham (Priti Patel), for Braintree (Mr Cleverly), for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) and for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman), for their work in bringing that legislation forward. I also welcome the announcement that Iran and now Russia will be included on the enhanced list, meaning that all activity undertaken in the UK by those countries or those acting for those countries must be registered. However, I will address the bulk of my remarks to the elephant in the room, which the Security Minister did not mention at all in his statement: China. MI5’s director general, Ken McCallum, said in July 2022, almost three years ago: “The most game-changing challenge we face comes from the Chinese Communist Party. It’s covertly applying pressure across the globe.” In October 2023 he added: “We have seen a sustained campaign” of Chinese espionage on an “epic scale”. In January 2024 the director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, said that China is “the defining threat of our generation”. As such, I have a very simple question for the Security Minister this afternoon. He had plenty to say about Iran and Russia, quite rightly, but why is he silent on China? We know that China engages in industrial-scale espionage, seeking to steal technology from Governments, universities and industry. It represses Chinese citizens in this country and has sought to infiltrate our political system. In 2022, MI5 exposed that China sought to infiltrate this very Parliament via its agent Christine Lee. It has set up undeclared and illegal police stations in the UK, and in December last year it placed a bounty on the head of three Hong Kong dissidents living in the UK. I would like to ask again a question that was not answered last time: why has the Chinese ambassador not been summoned to explain that? There is no question in my mind that China should be in the enhanced tier of FIRS, and it is an astonishing omission that it has not been listed as such already. Why are the Government silent on this issue? In the past, Governments have prioritised economic growth in their relations with China, but we now know a lot more about how China operates than we did 10 or 15 years ago—we know what it is up to. Is the truth not that, in their desperation to get economic growth going after the Chancellor’s rather unfortunate autumn Budget, the Government seem to be prioritising economic links over national security when it comes to China? I imagine that is why the Government appear to be intending to grant planning permission to China for its super-embassy, which we all know will be a base for espionage activity. The Minister has rightly spoken about the threat posed by Iran and Russia. He is right to take action, and we support him in doing so. However, MI5 and the FBI have both warned about the epic threat posed by China, so will he please answer this simple question: will he place China in the enhanced tier?

• 31 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  I completely agree with the Home Secretary that people should stand equally before the law and be treated exactly the same, regardless of their race or identity. I agree with the Home Secretary about all of that, but unfortunately the anti-racism commitment published last week does not say that—in fact, it says the opposite. It expressly says that “It does not mean treating everyone ‘the same’ or being ‘colour blind’”. Given that the Home Secretary and I agree that the law should be blind to race and that everyone should be treated the same, will she join me in tabling an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill to override those provisions in the anti-racism commitment?

• 31 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  Has the Home Secretary seen the police’s anti-racism commitment that was published last week, which says that the police do not have to treat everyone the same regardless of race and calls for arrest rates to be artificially engineered to be the same across racial groups? Does she agree that this two-tier approach to policing is totally unacceptable?

• 31 Mar 2025 · Points of Order · Hansard source

  More

  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to make it clear that in the first question I asked, the number I intended to ask about was the 30,000 people who have illegally crossed the channel since the last election, which is a 31% increase on the previous period; and for the period since 1 January, the number was the highest in history. To be clear, the figure is 30,000 since the election. —[ Official Report , 31 March 2025; Vol. 765, c. 3.]

• 31 Mar 2025 · Syrian Asylum Claims · Hansard source

  More

  Many seeking asylum, including from Syria, enter the UK by illegally crossing the channel, which is, of course, completely unnecessary, as France is a safe country with a well-functioning asylum system. In relation to those channel crossings, will the Minister accept that the Government’s plan to smash the gangs lies in tatters? Crossings are up by 31% since the election—they are about to break 300,000 [ Official Report , 31 March 2025; Vol. 765, c. 25.] (Correction) —and the first three months of this year have been the worst on record. Does the Minister accept it was a catastrophic mistake to cancel the Rwanda deterrent before it even started? I was in Berlin last week, and the new German Government, and other European Governments, are looking to implement removals deterrents very similar to the Rwanda deterrent. Will she now do a U-turn and implement a removals deterrent so that all illegal arrivals are rapidly removed to a safe third country?

• 25 Mar 2025 · Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings · Hansard source

  More

  (Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary to make a statement on asylum hotels and illegal immigrants crossing the channel.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings · Hansard source

  More

  Last summer, the Government were elected on a promise to end the use of asylum hotels. Well, it has now been nine months, so let us see how they are getting on. The use of asylum hotels has gone up by 8,000 since the general election—it has not gone down; it has gone up. Some 38,000 mainly illegal immigrants are now in those hotels, costing hard-working taxpayers around £2 billion a year. It is completely unacceptable that taxpayers are asked to foot a bill that size. The people living in those hotels broke our laws by coming here from France, which is a manifestly safe country that nobody needs to leave. I have a very simple question for the Minister: when will the Government end the use of asylum hotels? During the election campaign last summer and subsequently, the Government also promised to “smash the gangs”, but that promise now lies in tatters. In the nine months since the election, 29,162 people—nearly 30,000 people—have illegally crossed the English channel, which is a 31% increase on the same period 12 months before. In fact, 2025 is even worse. Since 1 January, more people have crossed the English channel illegally than in any year in history—this is the worst year. It is 38% worse than the previous worst year, so things are getting worse not better. They have not smashed the gangs, but capitulated to them. The hon. Lady mentioned returns. Most of those returns do not relate to people who arrived by small boat. In fact, those people being returned who came by small boat amount to only about 4% of small boat arrivals; I do not know how letting 96% of people who arrived by small boat stay here is a deterrent. At the weekend, we saw briefings—to the press and not to Parliament, Mr Speaker—that the Government are now considering some kind of offshore removal scheme. That sounds vaguely familiar! At last they have realised that some kind of removals deterrent is needed. Will the Minister now apologise for cancelling the Rwanda deterrent before it even started and, as a consequence, losing control of our borders?

• 10 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I am just going to answer the question, if I may. One of the relevant metrics to consider is the overall volume of crime that the police have to investigate. That might be the number that one looks at in deciding whether police numbers need to go up.

• 10 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

  More

  My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we are to prosecute these offences, put more potential perpetrators in prison and, critically, protect the public, we need to detect more of the knives that are routinely carried on our cities’ streets. That means more stop and search and the use of knife-scanning technology of the kind I just described to identify those knives before they are used. My right hon. Friend put it very powerfully. The Opposition may also be minded to table amendments on the setting up of a statutory national inquiry into rape gangs. For some reason the Government have only set up local inquiries in five areas. Some local authorities are refusing to hold inquiries, which is scandalous. About 50 towns are affected, so inquiries into just five of them is not good enough. Moreover, those local inquiries do not have the statutory powers under the Inquiries Act 2005 to compel witnesses to give evidence. The chairs of the Manchester local inquiry resigned last year because, even then, public authorities were covering this up. We need a national statutory inquiry, and we intend to amend the Bill to achieve that if the Government will not agree to one. Local councils and councillors, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service were all involved to a greater or lesser extent in ignoring or even covering up these terrible offences. We need to get to the truth.

• 10 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I am just going to develop a point, and then I will be happy to take interventions—particularly from the Home Secretary. In 2014, it was changed from being an either-way offence to a summary-only offence. Either-way means the offence can be tried in the magistrates court or the Crown court; summary-only means magistrates court only. It was still a criminal offence, and people could still be convicted and sentenced to up to a year in prison for committing it—it certainly was not decriminalised. In fact, the Government’s own impact assessment says that about 90% of the charges for shoplifting involved goods under £200 and were tried in a magistrates court. If it was ineffective, why did 90% of charges relate to goods under £200? The Home Secretary claims that this alteration will herald some sort of extraordinary change in the way shoplifting is treated, but I would respectfully refer her to page 28 of her economic note 1007, which I am sure Members present have all read—silence. Paragraph 144 says that the central scenario in the Government’s impact assessment assumes that the number of charges, with this change, will remain constant. According to the Government’s own impact assessment, there will be no change in the number of charges as a result of this alteration. The Home Secretary points to this matter as some kind of silver bullet, but I am afraid to say that her own impact assessment says something very different indeed. The measure has potentially adverse consequences too. This is a serious point, and I genuinely ask the Home Secretary to think about it carefully. When the offence is made either-way, rather than summary only, lots of people who are charged will elect to have a Crown court jury trial instead of a magistrates court trial. A magistrates court trial, for a not guilty plea, is generally heard in six to eight weeks—it is relatively quick—but a Crown court jury trial could take a year and a half to be heard. The first adverse consequence that I would caution about is that, instead— [ Interruption. ] I am making a serious point, so it would be good for hon. Members to think about it. Instead of those cases being heard in the magistrates court in six to eight weeks, there could be a delay of one and a half years. I am sure that that is not the Government’s intention, but that is what could happen if the change is made. The second adverse consequence is that if lots of shoplifting cases that are currently heard in the magistrates court end up in the Crown court before a jury, valuable and scarce Crown court jury trial time that should be used for serious cases such as rape, murder and grievous bodily harm will be taken up with shoplifting. I understand that the Home Secretary wants to send a signal—I really do—but I ask the Government to reflect carefully on the potential unintended consequences. That is a serious point, and I ask the Government to consider it. The change may end up having the opposite effect from what they intend. The Home Secretary raised one or two other things that I would like to talk about, the first of which is knife crime. There are some measures in the Bill that are designed to address knife crime. We will support those measures; I am sure that all hon. Members want to fight the scourge of knife crime, which is responsible for about a third of all homicides. Almost all hon. Members will have encountered a constituency case; I will never forget attending the funeral of 15-year-old Elianne Andam in Croydon. She was murdered at 8.30 am on the morning of 27 September 2023 on Wellesley Road in central Croydon by a 17-year-old perpetrator with a knife. I will never forget seeing the grief that her parents and her little brother Kobi suffered. I am sure that we would all want to fight knife crime for that reason. In addition to the measures in the Bill, which we will support, I would be grateful if the Policing Minister could confirm that the patrolling of hotspots, started under the last Government, will continue in areas where knife crime is a problem, and that the funding will continue. That could make an important difference. It is also important that stop-and-search powers are used. In my view, taking knives off the street is the most important thing. In London, in the past, stop and search took about 400 knives a month off the streets—knives that could have been used to kill someone like Elianne. I am concerned that stop-and-search numbers are down due to misplaced concerns about community tension. I encourage the Government to get police forces to use stop and search more, and to amend legislation, including PACE—the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984—code A, to make the use of stop and search easier. I spoke to a police officer in Croydon last Sunday, and he said that he felt that the police were worried about misconduct proceedings if they used the power of stop and search. I would like to make it easier for police officers to use those powers to protect the public. I would like to hear the Government’s views on that, but we are minded to table amendments in this area to give the police more confidence to use stop-and-search powers to save the lives of people like Elianne. When I was Policing Minister about a year ago, I provided some funding to invest in exploring new technology to scan for knives at a distance of perhaps 10 metres—not very far. That would mean that people walking down the street in areas where knife crime is a problem could be scanned and, if they had a knife concealed on their person, it would be identified. About a year ago, that technology was emerging and I put the money behind it to develop it to the point where it could be deployed. I was told by the company doing that, and by Home Office officials, that by about spring 2025, a version of that technology would be available that could be used experimentally on the street. I would be grateful to know, perhaps in an intervention from the Policing Minister now, whether that work has been carried forward and whether that scanning technology is ready to deploy. It could, I think, help to take knives off our streets and save lives. I would be happy to take an intervention now.

• 10 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

  More

  What an appealing choice! I give way to the hon. Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra).

• 10 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I support my hon. Friend’s proposals around first cousin marriage. The health implications are deeply alarming. We could take that forward in the Bill and put it to a vote of the House. Lastly, will the Policing Minister provide an update on the use of technology to combat crime, particularly the use of retrospective and live facial recognition, which enables the police to catch criminals who would otherwise not be caught? She knows that I support that strongly, and I would gladly support her if she wants to continue that work.

• 10 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I am just going to actually make the point first, if I may. According to the crime survey for England and Wales, which the Office for National Statistics says is the only statistically meaningful measure of crime, between 2010 and 2024—just to pick a couple of arbitrary dates at random—overall crime fell from 9.5 million to 4.7 million incidents, or a reduction of 51%. So over that period, we saw a 51% reduction in overall crime, but an increase in the number of police officers to that record number. Those are the facts.

• 10 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I will not apologise for delivering record police numbers. If the hon. Gentleman’s local force is not deploying those officers in the best way, he should take that up with his local police and crime commissioner. In the light of the number of Members who want to speak, I ought to get on to the Bill. When I first picked up this Bill, I must confess to experiencing a frisson of excitement. The Home Secretary had been in opposition for 14 years—not quite long enough, but still 14 years—and I thought that, during those 14 years, she must have come up with lots of good new ideas. I picked up the Bill, excited to find out what new things it might contain. But as I turned the pages to scrutinise its contents, a strange feeling of familiarity came over me—almost a sense of déjà vu. I had seen quite a few of its measures somewhere before, mostly in the last Government’s Criminal Justice Bill. The Government’s press release, which they modestly issued on First Reading a couple of weeks ago, highlighted 35 headline measures. I checked to see how many had been copied and pasted from the previous Government, and the answer was about 23 of them. Two thirds of this Bill has apparently been copied and pasted from the previous Government. Now, I know the Home Secretary works closely with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and views her as something of a role model, but emulating her copy-and-pasting is probably not the best thing to do. These new measures—the spiking offence, the intimate image offence, the duty to report, the new criminal offence of possessing a bladed article with intent, and the new maximum penalty for selling dangerous weapons to under-18s—are all good measures introduced by the last Government. Of course, they would have been legislated for by now if not for the unfortunate early general election— [ Interruption. ] Yes, it was unfortunate. I congratulate the Home Secretary on using the ctrl-C and ctrl-V functions on her Home Office computer to emulate so many of the previous Bill’s measures.

• 10 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I have to finish now. I am glad to see so many familiar clauses in the Bill. The Opposition broadly support the intent of the Bill, but what really matters is delivery—making sure that those record police numbers mean that we catch criminals and increase the conviction rate. Those police numbers and the results that they deliver are the yardstick by which the Government will be measured. I look forward to scrutinising the Bill as it passes through the House, and to tabling constructive amendments during its various stages.

• 10 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

  More

  The Metropolitan police, as a whole, does in fact have record officer numbers, but it could have had about an extra 1,500 officers had its police and crime commissioner, Sadiq Khan, bothered to recruit them. In fact, Sadiq Khan was the only police and crime commissioner in the country to miss his recruitment target.

• 10 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

  More

  As I said, there was a record ever number of police officers, but if the hon. Gentleman wants to measure police officer numbers against demand, one of the relevant metrics to consider—

• 10 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Attrition in the police forces is something we need to take very seriously. I am trying to recall the numbers, but from memory, each year approximately 3% to 4% of police officers leave owing to retirement, and a further approximately 3% to 3.5% leave before their retirement age. A 3% non-retirement rate of leaving is of course much lower than in most professions, but I am sure we would all like it to be lower. The last Government started doing work on mental health support for police officers, which I am sure the current Government will continue. Let me say a word about the future, because having hit record ever police officer numbers, I am rather anxious to make sure—

• 10 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Gentleman is showing extreme enthusiasm, which I feel should be rewarded.