Former Independent Labour MP for Birmingham, Ladywood
To repeat the suggestion made by the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), will the Minister please consider allowing pre-March 2007 applicants to take their new application to their regional or local office, where they have to go anyway every so often to sign on? That would overcome lots of the difficulties that I have just outlined.
I have secured this Adjournment debate in order to plead with the Government to reconsider the disgraceful arrangements that have been in place since 14 October this year for processing new claims from asylum seekers who are already in the UK. I have discussed this with the Minister, and it is my view that the whole international asylum system needs reorganising, and that the existing...
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and I really cannot believe that the Minister intended this to be as bad as it has proved to be. I am hopeful that he will agree to review and change the situation. In order to receive hard case financial support-which is also known as section 4 support, and is the only support of any kind that is available to asylum seekers who have been refused...
Just to make this clear, I have not said that there were no plans. Detailed plans were made with the State Department, the UN and other international agencies. The hon. Gentleman is from the military. DFID and the humanitarian agencies cannot bring peace in an occupied territory—that is a military job. I do not honour the attempt to pass over to the humanitarian agencies the responsibility...
In the short time that is available—let me put on record that I still resent the guillotining of everything, and believe that it is one of the reasons for the diminution of the authority of the House of Commons—I want to focus on why we need an inquiry. I shall argue that the reasons are so profound that the inquiry must take place in public, the inquiry team must be strengthened—as has...
I cannot confirm that date, but I can confirm that when I heard the rumour—but did not see the legal document—that the Attorney-General doubted the legality of the war, I warned my staff of the consequences of that, which I think was entirely proper. That is part of the shame of it all, but I shall come on to the preparations. There were preparations that were then all junked, because of...
All the Cabinet meetings were little chats: they were never a proper consideration of all the options. That is terrifying, but true, and it means that our political institutions are unreliable and incapable of making proper, considered decisions. When the Attorney-General came to Cabinet—I remember him coming only once, right at the end—I was stunned by the opinion that he brought to the...
The answer is that because this was being driven—I am running out of time—by the Prime Minister on the phone to the White House, British systems were breaking down. One part of the Government was giving that advice, and another was not. My final point is that because of the deceit, proper consideration was not given to all the policy options. There were other ways of bringing down Saddam...
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to reply to the letters from the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood dated 9 November and 15 December 2009 regarding Melicia Ann Brown (Home Office reference: B1080260).
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many children (a) entered and (b) left immigration detention between April and December 2009; and how many of those who left detention in that period were (i) deported and (ii) released.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the refusal rate was for visitor applications from Islamabad in (a) the latest period for which figures are available and (b) each of the last two years.
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if he will apply the rules of the extractive industries transparency initiative in relation to any oil that may be discovered in the Falkland Islands.
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if he will propose a joint commitment by the UK and South Africa to implement the extractive industries transparency initiative.
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when a reply will be sent to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood's letter of 29 October 2009 to the Financial Secretary on Asghar Khan, Treasury PO Ref: 3/11525/2009.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many charter flights removing persons with no right to stay in the UK there have been in 2009; what the destination was of each such flight; how many individuals were removed on such flights; and what the cost to the public purse of such flights was.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will reply to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood's letter of 28 July 2009 on the case of Rochelle Riley, reference B27707/9.
