argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): That is what the public cannot understand. People are laughing at our system, and we are asking the Government to take action. Rod Liddle also mentioned the case of J1—we are not told his real name, because that would apparently breach his privacy: "J1 is a known friend and colleague of one Mohammed Emwazi, usually referred to by his stage name of Jihadi John"— that is the Islamic State’s late madman whom we know all about "J1 is known to be a senior organiser for Somalia’s exciting Islamic terror franchise, al-Shabab, and has links to the Muslim extremists who tried to blow up London on 21 July 2005. For five years we tried to kick him out, but we have now given up and he is not even under surveillance any more" Or how about CS? Again, we do not know CS’s real name because of her right to privacy: "But at least we know that CS is a Moroccan woman and the daughter-in-law of…Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Masri, now serving a life sentence in the USA for terrorism-related offences. It’s the European Courts of Justice blocking her deportation, because she is the sole carer of her son in this country…She was found smuggling a sim card into Hamza’s Belmarsh cell." We cannot kick her out of this country, and we clearly need a Bill such as the one we are discussing. When the Minister replies, she needs to tell the British people why we cannot deal with such people Let us leave jihadists for a moment. The article continues: "There’s always the child rapists. Shabir Ahmed, aged 63, is serving a 22-year sentence for having been the ringleader of a gang of Pakistani paedophiles in Rochdale. Ahmed is petitioning the European Court of Human Rights to prevent his deportation. He claims that his trial was ‘institutionally racist’" The Home Office may fight, but I suspect that this man will be staying in a prison in this country.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert Alexander Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): I would go further than the Bill and say that when a foreign national commits a crime, we should have some sort of arrangement by which we send them back to their own country as soon as their sentence begins. If necessary, we will pay the costs of that, but let us get them out of our country as soon as possible.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): That is what we are talking about—10%—so this is a matter of enormous importance As I have said, it is vital to avoid lengthy delays in custody, which is what the Bill would do, as I understand it. Deportation proceedings should commence on the very first day of the sentence. That is the key point.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael James Tomlinson-Mynors (Conservative, Centre-right): I mentioned lawyers a few moments ago. I declare an interest as a lawyer. Lawyers can find arguments, but the law needs to be clear. The clearer the law is, the less room there is for argument in courts by lawyers and the less reason for judges to make mistakes.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): Like my hon. Friend, I, too, am a lawyer. We are only doing our jobs. Give us unclear law and a client to represent, and we will put forward our best case. It is up to the Government to give us clear law. Judges have been known to reconsider deportation on appeal if they feel that it is a punishment disproportionate to the crime committed. That even happened in the case of a crime that resulted in death, in Gurung v. the Secretary of State for the Home Department. If the law is unclear, we open up all sorts of possibilities for lawyers to drive a coach and horses through what we are trying to achieve.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher Robert Chope (Conservative, Centre-right): Is it not depressing that the Government are not even prepared to name and shame the member states of the EU that are not taking back foreign prisoners? Their excuse is that publishing such data could undermine diplomatic relationships with those countries.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with my hon. Friend. In my view, it is the failure of those countries to take back foreign offenders that is undermining diplomatic relationships, rather than the release or otherwise of the information The Bill clearly aims to do something that I think most people would consider to be common sense: to deport criminals who are not citizens of this country if they commit an offence that is serious enough to warrant a prison sentence. I think that it is important to establish whether someone qualifies for deportation, but I shall come to that when I go into the details of the Bill Governments have not resisted the principle of deporting foreign criminals. In fact, it was the last Labour Government who introduced measures for their automatic deportation in certain circumstances, in the form of the UK Borders Act 2007. I do not propose to bore everyone rigid by quoting from its provisions here and now, but suffice it to say that it made a clear attempt to define foreign criminals and to ensure that, in certain circumstances, they were removed from prison. The key part of that Act, the first condition, was that a person is sentenced to a period of imprisonment of "at least 12 months"—along the same lines as what my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) mentioned in his speech. The Labour Government introduced that provision back in 2007 There were some exemptions within the Act. I shall not bore everybody rigid by going through every single one, but there were quite a few, if anyone would like to look through the legislation. The exceptions included where deportation would breach a person’s convention rights under the ECHR; where people were covered by the refugee convention; where the offender was under 18 years old at the time of offending; where the deportation breaches the offender’s rights under Community treaties; and where the foreign criminal is subject to the Extradition Act 2003 or to the Mental Health Act 1983 Herein lies the problem, because the exemptions make it virtually impossible to deport anybody. That is the key issue. It is all very well saying, "We’re going to have an Act of Parliament with this particular provision in it", but if people cannot be removed because of a potential breach of the Human Rights Act or rights under the Community treaties, which provide for the free movement of people, we are in big difficulties. Given the high proportion of EU citizens who count as foreign offenders, the legislation is barely worth the paper it is written on.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is quite right to cite these statistics on the number of foreign national offenders in our jails, which has been over 10,000 for about 10 years. The obvious and simple point to make is that these are not the same 10,000, because each year there is a rotation of foreign national offenders through our prisons. People who commit offences in our country are then released back into our country, so the scale of the problem of foreign national offenders in Britain committing crimes amounts to more than 10,000.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael James Tomlinson-Mynors (Conservative, Centre-right): The 10,000 figure relates to prisoner numbers, but according to clause 1(4), far more than that would be caught by these provisions. It is not those who are sentenced that counts on the face of it, but those for whom a term of imprisonment for an offence "may be imposed" by a court, which means far more than 10,000.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, indeed—and that is good news, as far as I am concerned. I am not sure that my hon. Friend would agree, but it is good news for me. I shall come back to the detail of that provision later because it raises an important point Interestingly, when it comes to this Bill, my hon. Friends have removed the provisions that make it applicable to someone sentenced only for 12 months or more, which was the intention of the 2007 Act. There had to be that trigger point, and the issue was raised in interventions earlier. I believe it important that the Bill removes the 12-month criterion. There are many reasons, but basically, I do not think we want any foreign criminals in the UK—whatever the length of prison sentence, which should be irrelevant This issue has led in some cases to what I would call dishonest sentencing. Sentences have been deliberately manipulated in order to avoid the deportation trigger. In the case of the Crown v. Hakimzadeh in 2009, the Court of Appeal approved an adjustment in the structure of the sentence in order to avoid the automatic deportation criterion, imposing instead two consecutive sentences of nine months and three months. This not only promotes dishonesty in sentencing, but undermines the basic principle of abiding by the law. In another case, a drug dealer was sentenced in the Inner London Crown Court in 2011. In sentencing him, the judge said: "The sentence I have had in mind was 12 months, but it seems to me that it isn’t necessary for me to pass a sentence of 12 months, because a sentence of 11 months will have the same effect, and it would take away the automatic triggering of deportation. I have taken into account that if you were to be deported it is bound to have a devastating effect on your three children, who I’m told are lawfully here in the UK." So we have judges who are not giving the sentences they think should be given, on their admission, in order to avoid the 12-month trigger. That cannot be right.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael James Tomlinson-Mynors (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend has highlighted two important and interesting cases where judges have explicitly stated their reasoning for giving a sentence lower than they might otherwise have done. Again, however, we are in danger of criticising lawyers and judges—a very popular thing to do—when it is in fact the law that must be clear. If this Bill is to pass, it must be absolutely clear, and it should be this place that determines the policy, not our judges.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I have some sympathy with what my hon. Friend says, but he is being kind to judges, which is typical of the legal profession. On the same principle, MPs are always kind to the Speaker because they feel that something bad will happen to them if they start criticising. It seems to me that the law is clear. If someone is sentenced to prison for 12 months, they get deported. There is no problem with the clarity of the law. The problem is the judges manipulating the sentence to show a wilful disregard for the law.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right; it is a scandal, whichever way we look at it. The person was given 11 months rather than 12 months, despite the fact that he had arrived in Britain in Christmas 2000— 11 years previously—when he was given permission to stay for only four days! He was convicted 11 years later.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Government Operations
David Nuttall (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend agree that the deliberate frustration of the will of elected parliamentarians in this place on behalf of the people is what brings politics into disrepute, when people subsequently blame us rather than the judges? They say, "It must be the politicians’ fault because our MPs did not put in place sufficiently strong pieces of legislation to stop this from happening."
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is incumbent on us to point out when such things happen so that people can draw their own conclusions as to what the problem is. It seems that the law, which is clear and was created with all the right intentions—I do not criticise the previous Labour Government for that—has been thwarted by judges who have clearly decided that they do not agree with it. I have no problem with a judge who does not agree with a particular law, but if that is their position and if they want to affect the law, they should quit being a judge and try to get themselves elected to Parliament. They should not use their position to thwart the will of Parliament. That is not what they are for, but that is clearly what they are doing The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) about the qualifying offence is an issue that has arisen in previous debates in the House on these matters. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight) raised the issue the last time that such a Bill was debated and also thought that the qualifying offence was perhaps a little too wide, which is something that we should consider today. The Bill states that the qualifying offence "shall mean any offence for which a term of imprisonment may be imposed by a court of law." As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole quite rightly said and as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire said in a previous debate, that does not necessarily mean that the offender has to have been sent to prison, just that they have to have committed an offence that may be punishable with imprisonment The problem is that I am not entirely sure what that means. Other people may also not know what it means. Most importantly of all, judges may not know what it means. It could mean that if somebody is convicted of an offence that could lead to a prison sentence, they are automatically deported. That may well be the Bill’s intention; I get the impression from my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering that that is the intention, and I have no quibble with that. In fact, to be perfectly honest, I would prefer it to go a bit further and say that the imprisonment does not matter and that if anybody commits a criminal offence—full stop—they should be deported from the country. I would make it very simple so that there is no argument at all.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Henry Edward Millar Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): That is precisely the point that I wanted to make when I intervened on my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) to refer to the case in Crawley over the new year, in which an Afghan national, a Dutch resident, committed a violent offence against check-in staff at Gatwick airport and yet was released on to the streets of my constituency. Such measures would have prevented that from happening.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with my hon. Friend. The problem is that we see all the time how difficult it is to be sent to prison in the UK. Someone either has to commit serious offences or be a persistent offender. Even if someone is a persistent offender, the chances are that they may not get sent to prison In fact, a while back, I asked a parliamentary question about the proportion who are sent to prison of people who come before the courts with 100 previous convictions. Would you believe it, Madam Deputy Speaker: if someone goes to court with more than 100 previous convictions, they are statistically more likely not to be sent to prison? If the Bill referred only to people on whom a term of imprisonment is imposed, that would be hopeless, because people will be getting away with crime after crime, being given community sentence after community sentence, and still causing havoc in the community
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): As I have already suggested, an awful lot of things on the statute book are not being implemented by judges. Some offences do not carry a prison sentence, so that would not apply no matter how many strikes someone has. We now have a mandatory prison sentence for a second offence of possession of a knife, but we saw just this week that only half of the people to whom that should apply have been sent to prison. The House’s intention is clearly not being followed by the courts, which is why we have to make the law as clear cut as possible to avoid such problems in future.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Pauline Elizabeth Latham (Conservative, Centre-right): Rather than bring in yet more legislation, should we not put pressure on judges to follow the current legislation? They are clearly failing in their duty to send to prison the people who should be sent to prison. It is also clear that we are regularly not deporting the people who should be deported.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiments, but, given where we are, we are going have to do something to give judges as little discretion as possible, because the more discretion we give them, the more they defy the will of Parliament.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): I apologise to my hon. Friend if during my remarks I stressed my personal point of view, which is that if someone is sentenced to more than 12 months, they should be deported. I am not agonising too much about that. The problem is that so many of the people who are sentenced to more than 12 months are not being deported. Does my hon. Friend see that point? We should just concentrate on doing away with article 8 and getting our own Bill of Rights so that we can actually deport these serious criminals.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I could not agree more with my hon. Friend For completeness, I should say that the Court of Appeal stated in R v. Mintchev: "As a matter of principle it would not be right to reduce an otherwise appropriate sentence so as to avoid the" automatic deportation provisions. A further clarification stated that "automatic deportation provisions are not a penalty included in the sentence. They are instead a consequence of the sentence." My public service broadcasting message from today to judges is that they should look at the Court of Appeals judgment in that case, so that we do not end up with any other problems like that. There are many crimes for which sentences cannot be appealed, so it is important that judges deal with things the first time. We cannot always rely on the Court of Appeal.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sure that most judges in this country have my hon. Friend on their Twitter feed and will be updated instantly with his pronouncements in the House. Might it do a service to the country for the Ministry of Justice to recirculate to judges the findings in that case so that they are reminded of what the Court of Appeal has said?
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): This is the most interesting aspect of the whole subject that my hon. Friend is developing. He said that 190 foreign national offenders absconded from open prisons, but does he have the figures—perhaps the Minister could provide us with them later—for the number of foreign national offenders in open prisons subject to deportation orders at any one time?
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I have that information somewhere, but it would try the patience of the House if I were to stand here rifling through my papers in order to find it. However, I can tell my hon. Friend that the information is in the public domain. The Ministry of Justice holds that information and publishes it, so I hope that he will find it for himself. If I come across it, I will tell him, but that might be hard.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): Perhaps the Minister can update the House when she responds, but what I am trying to get at is whether the figure of 190 is a large or small percentage of the number of foreign offenders in open prisons subject to deportation orders. What is my hon. Friend’s feel for the scale of that part of this problem?
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): It is not for me to answer for the Ministry of Justice, but it seems that the policy it adopts is that foreign national offenders are treated just like any other prisoner and, even if they are subject to a deportation order, will be sent to an open prison if they meet the criteria. One can understand that logic, but clearly there is a flaw in the procedure when somebody has an easy way of avoiding deportation.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael James Tomlinson-Mynors (Conservative, Centre-right): Before my hon. Friend moves on to the issue of cost, I want return to his point about lawyers. I am not trying to be kind or nice to lawyers or judges, but simply make the point that the cases he cites emphasise the need for us in this place to pass laws that are as clear and simple as possible so that the will of Parliament can be effected.
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the UK) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): Will not cost be the answer to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley be cost? The fact is that the Ministry of Justice, with our prisons full and with 10,500 foreign national offenders mainly in two prisons, will be looking to save costs wherever it can, and if it can get away with putting some foreign national offenders in open prisons it will do so.