Speeches by Mahmood.

“I will take no lessons from anyone sitting on the Conservative Benches. Their Government utterly failed on both legal and illegal migration. This Government, and this Home Secretary, will clean up their mess.”

“On the subject of brass neck, I will have to buy the shadow Home Secretary a mirror, so that he can stare at one. As I said, I will not take any lessons from him or any Conservative. This Government have got removals up to 35,000, got asylum decisions moving again, and struck an historic agreement with France. We are w…”

“There is both a legal question here and a political question. On the legal question, in all cases, including the one that the hon. Lady raises, it is for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to decide independently whether the law has been broken and charges should be brought. We would never expect a Minister t…”

“The horror of a sexual assault motivated by race or ethnicity is absolutely appalling. I am sure that the whole House will join me in condemning such crimes in the strongest possible terms. On the specifics of the case, it is an ongoing criminal investigation and it is imperative that we allow the justice system to do …”

“I hope the hon. Gentleman will take a bit of time to look at the speech I made to the Council of Europe just before the summer recess, in which I made a very similar argument to the one he is making. For those of us who are supporters of the convention and who want to see it stand the test of time, we have to recognise…”

“My hon. Friend is right to point out that the fact that we are signed up to the European convention underpins other international agreements that we have with partners. It underpins the Good Friday agreement. It also underpins our treaty with the French on the France returns pilot. That is why we should be responsible …”

“I am rather surprised by that question from the hon. Gentleman, because he is normally across the detail. Let me tell him two points of detail that were missing from his question. First, he knows that the demand coming into the system is rising. We have record numbers of cases coming into the system, which is a good th…”

“The hon. and learned Member will know that for devolved matters it would of course be deeply inappropriate for me to try to influence or put pressure on the Minister of Justice in Northern Ireland. On a cross-UK basis, we regularly meet our fellow Justice Ministers in the devolved Administrations, and I will happily pi…”

“I have said many times at this Dispatch Box that that whole episode revealed a democratic deficit. I am reviewing the roles and powers and we will come forward with legislative changes in due course.”

“The hon. Member will know that, with a judicial challenge, there will be some constraints as to what I can say publicly, and indeed even privately in a meeting. I will take advice to ensure that nothing compromises the legal process.”

“The regulation of websites and content falls either within Home Office responsibilities for criminal law or with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and I will happily pick up with them the detail around the regulatory issues that are raised by that case.”

“I thank the hon. Lady for raising that important point. It is why we are reducing the threshold for the early removal scheme and looking carefully with the Home Office at the Gauke review’s recommendation of effectively sentencing to deportation, to deal with the very types of cases that she has raised.”

“Honestly, the shadow Justice Secretary really ought to pay more attention to his day job—rather than to the job he is looking for, which the Conservative party might give him. First, had he paid any attention, he would know that prosecutions do not fall to the Ministry of Justice; they are dealt with independently thro…”

“I do not have those figures directly to hand, but I am sure that if they are available, I can write to him with the details.”

“What absolute nonsense. Let me tell the House the definition of soft justice: it is what the Tory party did, building only 500 prison places in 14 years in office. That is why we are in this mess and that is the mess that I am cleaning up.”

“It is a little over a year since this Government were elected, and ever since I have been clearing up the mess created by the previous Government, who left our prisons days from collapse. I am ensuring that we can never run out of space again. We have already opened around 2,500 new prison places, with the aim of creat…”

“I had very positive discussions with partner countries across Europe when I visited Strasbourg, where I made a speech about how the European convention on human rights is a living instrument and therefore must keep up with the times. That is a positive conversation, and one that this Government will be continuing in th…”

“As I say, we have already deported more people in the first year of this Government than was the case under the previous Government, so we are going faster on foreign national offender removals from our prison estate. The legal changes we are making will bring more offenders into scope earlier in their sentence, making…”

“Removals under this Government have been higher over the past 12 months than under the Conservatives. We are going further by expanding the early removal scheme so that prisoners with no right to be in this country will be deported and banned from ever returning to the UK after serving 30% of their custodial sentence.”

“I believe the Prisons Minister may well be attending the event that the right hon. Member mentioned. I will happily pick that up in my regular conversations with trade union officials. She is right to highlight the scale of violence across our prison system. We are already taking measures, and I hope that the combinati…”