Speeches by Ribeiro-Addy.

“We have heard Ministers publicly express their opinions on this decision. Do you think it was appropriate for the Government to comment on operational decisions made by an independent police force? Do you think that standard safety decisions were being politicised?”

“I want to ask the same question I asked the officers. A number of Cabinet members expressed their opinions on this particular decision. Do you think it is appropriate for the Government to comment on operational decisions made by independent police forces? Did that in any way affect the standard safety decisions?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) for securing this crucial debate and for the incredible work that she has always done to shine a light on this issue. I want to be absolutely clear that we are discussing specifically m…”

“Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be better to tackle channel crossings by introducing more humanitarian visas and, once we have, not pulling the rug out from underneath people?”

“My understanding was that the Government’s immigration plans were geared towards tackling so-called illegal immigration, such as channel crossings—although I would argue that they are in fact irregular, not illegal, because it is not illegal to seek asylum. The measures we are discussing today are about retrospectively…”

“Finally, did you include consultation with the trade unions in the sectors that you were looking at?”

“I know that stage 1 was meant to be six months, as was stage 2, but I think stage 1 was actually completed in three months. Given what you have said about not necessarily including a certain sector, do you think that you could have done more stakeholder engagement, if you had been allowed to include other sectors?”

“But you do realise that it has literally changed the status of these particular jobs, which means that some of those individuals, having worked here probably through the pandemic as well, could likely be deported or asked to leave on the basis that their jobs are no longer considered skilled.”

“I wanted to ask you about a recent proposed change. You might be aware that there are a number of operational transport workers that are going to be impacted by this recent change, including a number employed by Transport for London. I suppose that it might also stretch across other industries across the city and the c…”

“Correct me if I am wrong, but presumably it would not be difficult to obtain that data. It might be difficult to analyse it, but not necessarily to obtain it.”

“Given that you are across the data, and given the data that you have—and I am not trying to get you to answer a question for which you cannot have the absolutely correct answer—is it your finding that those who are on those particular routes are more likely to claim benefits? In some of the rhetoric, that is the idea a…”

“What advice would you give if you were asked to advise on those changes? If you were asked, what role would you be expected to play?”

“I understand that you have not been asked to give advice on the changes that have been announced, or to consider the planned changes—is that right?”

“What impact do you think the changes could have on integration? How would we go about assessing that?”

“Do you want to add anything on the fiscal and economic impacts that might arise from extending the qualifying time? Will anything about those be particularly negative or positive ?”

“What are the main factors the Government should consider when developing plans to change the eligibility for indefinite leave to remain?”

“Just a question about algorithms on that point, the role that they are playing on pushing extreme content to users, and how much control the Government have over that—and AI; we might go back to the AI. If one person can answer the algorithm question and one person can answer the AI.”

“To pick up on that point about things going slightly beyond the internet. How has technology and the proliferation of extremist content online altered the radicalisation process?”

“If I have time, I will come back to that, but I have to get through some other questions before I get in trouble.”

“Thank you very much to all of you. I want to go back to something you were saying, Mr Ahmed, the way in which you described what people are doing with copyright. I have not heard it articulated like that before, so thank you very much; it was very interesting. This is not the first time you have probably said something…”