King’s Speech

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, there is very little time to say all the things that I want to say today. Nevertheless, here I am, casting my own small pearls of wisdom before your Lordships. I still hope that they will somehow make a contribution to the workings of this House.

I repeat my welcome to the Minister. Just for a moment, I shall continue on the theme of prisoners. I belong to a small, doughty cross-party group determined to rectify the most terrible of injustices still being perpetrated on the suffering, lonely rump of 3,700 indeterminate-sentence prisoners. Can the Minister at least give some hope that he has not totally ruled out a resentencing exercise? It could be combined with some of the innovative alternatives mentioned by many noble Lords, including the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven.

The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, spoke about small local remand centres. Not a lot of people know this, but it was at one of those centres—which then rejoiced in the name of Pucklechurch remand centre—that I began my training as an assistant governor in the Prison Service. However, there is no time to go into that fascinating aspect of my career here.

I will leave the subject of prisons and turn to the area that I mainly speak on: equalities. There is much to welcome on equalities in the King’s Speech. I look forward to working constructively with the Government to make the lives of women, ethnic minorities, disabled people and members of the LGBT+ community more just and more free. During the last Government, I and the then Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle brought forward Private Members’ Bills to ban conversion practices, and I am absolutely delighted to see that return as a government Bill.

The employment rights Bill also includes many things that I strongly back, including greater entitlement to flexible-hours working, employee protections from day one and banning zero-hour contracts and the egregious practice of fire and rehire. We look forward to working with the Government on all these issues.

The draft equality race and disability requirement for pay-gap reporting for disabled and ethnic minority workers for larger businesses is most welcome. We have fought for that for a long time and we wish it every speed on its way.

I believe that the most challenging problem in the field of equalities facing the Government is the scourge of violence against women and girls. Only yesterday, as a noble Lord said, we saw in the news a sharp increase in the reporting of violence and a sharp decrease in prosecutions. The Government have committed to halving violence against women and girls. The Minister has given us a flavour of the coming measures and we all look forward to learning more.

There are many things that I would love to have seen in this King’s Speech—for example, equal marriage for humanists and the equal and inclusive treatment of children from religious and non-religious families in schools: I am hoping for a favourable wind for the return of my inclusive assemblies Private Member’s Bill.

Many challenges face this Government. My party will work constructively with them to make the new equality laws the most effective that they can possibly be.

Jewish Community in London: Safety

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I think I answered that in my initial remarks, in which I mentioned the funding that has been increased for the Community Security Trust to administer in the JCPS. Just to go back to the Community Security Trust—I declare an interest as I was at the dinner where the Prime Minister announced the additional funding and I donated some money to it—the fact is that it has an enormous network, which I know is incredibly sophisticated, having seen it in operation, the police work incredibly closely with it, and it does a fantastic job. I very much praise it for all the work that it does.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, from a slightly different angle, the additional funding from the Government mentioned by the Minister is extremely welcome, but it is not assuaging the additional insecurity felt by the Jewish community after 7 October. A recent survey found that 50% of British Jews are currently considering leaving the United Kingdom. This would spell disaster for Britain, which desperately needs their talent and creativity and the diversity that they bring to British life. We as politicians have an important role to play here, and we must be extremely careful about what we say and do, which could inflame tensions and increase divisions that are growing and are already way too wide.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness’s statement.

Windrush

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Thursday 29th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

I congratulate my noble friend Lady Benjamin on securing this debate, for the eloquent and passionate speech she made today, and for the brilliant monument installed at Waterloo station last year, to which her tireless campaigning led.

Although many people will have heard about the Windrush scandal, they—like me—may not know how it arose. The tale is worth retelling, because it sets the context of how the Windrush scandal was allowed to arise, and how it went from bad to worse. Under the Immigration Act 1971, foreign nationals ordinarily resident in the UK were deemed to have settled status and given indefinite leave to remain. However, many people were not issued with any documentation confirming their status, and the Home Office did not keep a full register confirming who was entitled to this status. So the fault for what subsequently happened lies, at least in part, at the door of the Home Office.

Then we had the “hostile environment”, initiated by Theresa May in 2012 with the intention of deterring illegal immigrants—but the Home Office started checking more widely. By late 2017, media coverage started to pay attention to individual cases of long-term residents facing hardship due to their difficulties in proving their lawful immigration status. Jobs, homes, healthcare and welfare benefits were lost, as we have all heard. People were detained, removed from the UK and denied re-entry to their homes following trips abroad.

I can only imagine what it must have felt like to be faced with billboards saying, “Go Home or Face Arrest” and the psychological distress felt by people whose residence was suddenly called into question after so many years. Research by the University of London found that psychological distress suffered by the Windrush population rose markedly after the Immigration Act 2014 and the subsequent Windrush scandal came to light. This had a worse psychological effect than the coronavirus on the general population.

Some interim measures to redress the damage were introduced and Theresa May apologised in words to the effect of, “But I didn’t mean you”. But it was too late—the hostile environment had spread and infected large parts of the white British psyche.

We have heard that, in 2018, Wendy Williams began her review of “lessons learned” and made 30 recommendations, which were accepted in full by the then Home Secretary Priti Patel. The compensation scheme was introduced in 2019, administered by the Home Office. It is shameful to note that by 2023, fewer than 2,000 claims had been settled—only 13% of the outstanding claims.

UNISON has commented that the Home Office administrators of the compensation scheme have

“placed victims under scrutiny … treated their claims with skepticism and placed their … lives in limbo. For too many of those affected, the compensation scheme feels like more of the same rather than … justice”.

The Home Office, aided and abetted by the “hostile environment”, was clearly the source of the problem. I cannot see it being capable of delivering the solution any time soon, given its record so far. It seems clear to me that administration of the compensation scheme, as has been called for by so many others, should be placed in independent hands. Age UK and many others, including the Lib Dem group here, are calling for this.

Even when compensation has been offered, some offers were insultingly low and arguably the most important element of all—loss of private pension—was not considered, consigned to the “too difficult” box. Many of these individuals are now pensioners, with no opportunity to make up the lost pensions they would have received.

After Priti Patel accepted the Wendy Williams recommendations in full, the next Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, reneged on three—to have a migrant commissioner to engage with migrants directly, to have a review of the remit and role of the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, and to have reconciliation events with Windrush families. Wendy Williams said that the Home Office must

“open itself up to greater external scrutiny”

and advised it that it was

“vital to improve the accountability, effectiveness and legitimacy of the system”.

UNISON is currently working with other parties to provide a legal challenge to this decision and has been given permission to go to the High Court this spring. In September 2021, Wendy Williams reviewed progress and said that the Home Office was

“potentially poised to make the … changes it needs to”.

Given that in 2023 it was only 13% through the case load, I wonder whether she is anywhere close to being satisfied.

I will ask four questions of the Minister. First, will the Government ask Ms Williams to include a further independent review of progress as part of her current wider remit to look at the Home Office’s functioning more generally?

Secondly, a Home Office source said that they were worried that reneging on three of the recommendations previously committed to signalled that it was

“rolling back from the commitments that we publicly made about not repeating those mistakes”.

What evidence does the Minister have that this is not the case, and that the hostile environment is a thing of the past?

Thirdly, will the Government hand the management of the compensation scheme to an independent body? It would help to restore trust and confidence. If the Minister was considering responding by saying that this would prolong completing the job even further, perhaps he could consider that it could hardly be slower.

Fourthly, on pensions, will the Government consider creating a team of actuaries to work solely on pensions claims? That way, it would not hold everything else up.

Before I sit down, I will refer to another, bigger picture that we might want to consider here. I wonder how many, if any, illegal immigrants actually gave up and went home, or were deterred from coming to the UK at all by the “hostile environment”. It certainly has not stopped people risking their lives in small boats in the channel—as we saw only yesterday from the tragedy in the news.

We can conclude that the Government’s immigration strategy is a failure, except in one sense. It has succeeded in helping to stir up racism and racial intolerance in this country and has fostered hatred against all immigrants and even people of second, third and further generations back. After all, the Home Office only responds to the tone set by the Government of the day; unfortunately, the Government of the day have been the Conservative Party, which has been setting the hostile environment tone for far too long.

Violence Against Women and Girls

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, this is an entirely separate subject, as noble Lords know. I accept the premise of the question, but I am going to come back to the noble Lord. There is another Question on this tomorrow where we can go into much more detail.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

I want to say how powerful I thought the Minister’s reply a couple of questions ago was and commend the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, on pointing out the role that men can play in raising the issue of domestic violence against women and girls by calling it out. We know that the root cause of violence against women and girls all over the world is inequality, which is getting worse, with previous strides forward being reversed while our budget—particularly for overseas aid—is diminished. What thinking outside the box have the Government done to reduce inequalities and do more with less?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, it is about how you do things. I have already referred to a few of the things the Government have done, and a significant amount of money is being invested into this area to improve outcomes for victims. Since 2010, we have criminalised forced marriage; criminalised revenge porn; criminalised failing to protect a girl from FGM; introduced Clare’s law, which is a domestic violence disclosure scheme; introduced two new stalking offences; introduced the offence of controlling or coercive behaviour; introduced legislation that recognises as victims children who see, hear or experience the effects of domestic abuse and are related to the perpetrator or victim; and criminalised virginity testing and hymenoplasty. There is so much more that the Government have done; it is not all about money.

Abortion Clinics: Safe Access Zones

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

First, I associate myself with the noble Lord’s remarks about the victims; I completely agree with everything that he said on that subject. I have tried to explain why the consultation will take the time that it will. I would like it to be concluded as speedily as possible, and I promise to come back to the House and update on that timeline.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, anti-abortion protesters and groups were spreading their misinformation and distressing images when I was at university, which is more years ago than I care to admit. Their horrific images stay with me to this day. They are still trying to intimidate women outside abortion clinics all these years later—so what is there to consult on? Does the Minister agree that the Government should stop the intimidation and the additional suffering that those women are going through once and for all?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I agree, but I also say that the protesters should stop their intimidation now and leave those women well alone, as the noble Baroness suggests. I have tried to explain the context of the consultation and the reasons for it. There is nothing more to say on that at the moment.

UK: Violence Against Women and Girls

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I wonder whether we are not looking at this subject from the wrong end of telescope, because by the time the violence has occurred, in a sense, it is already too late: the damage has been done. So I want to share my theory of how this abuse starts.

Sometimes, it begins at school. I was shocked to read Ofsted’s review of sexual abuse in schools and colleges. Did noble Lords know that 88% of girls have been sent pictures or videos they did not want to see, and 80% have been pressured to provide sexual images of themselves? The first I knew about this practice was some years ago. As a local MP, I met the worried parents of a girl who had been bullied into posting a photo of her own genitals online. She was so traumatised and humiliated that she refused to return to school.

That leads me to why I am so passionate about Amendment 170 to the Online Safety Bill, on cyberflashing. I was really delighted at the amendments the Government recently made, broadening the scope of the current offences of revenge porn and the sharing deepfake pornographic images. However, we still do not have a consent-based cyberflashing offence, although we do have alterations extending the scope of Amendment 170 to include content that has been altered and appears to be a photograph or a film. A group of us will be trying to convince the Government that they need to go that bit further, because the constraints put on the Bill will not prevent much of the damage that unsolicited cyberflashing will do to the mental health and well-being of women and, importantly, girls.

Thinking further about schoolgirls and boys, images being frequently sent without permission will increase the sexualising of children, and images sent “for a laugh” may pressure girls to laugh off these images on the outside when they are cringing with humiliation inside. They are not mature enough to cope. This is the first stage in being groomed into a culture which is a million miles away from how they have been brought up. This is where it often starts, with boys socialised into believing that porn is realistic behaviour as to what girls think and want.

In a sense, these are first-world problems. At the other end of the spectrum are abused migrant women who are nevertheless too fearful to report abuse because they fear that doing so might get them deported. Fear of having information shared between police and immigration authorities is enabling perpetrators to use immigration status to retain, control and inflict further abuse. This is known as immigration abuse, and the ambiguity of where people stand, even between the services themselves, leaves perpetrators with the freedom to act with impunity, evade justice and potentially target others, undermining public safety.

The answer would be a proper firewall—a blanket ban on services such as police sharing data with the Home Office. We tried to introduce such a ban during consideration of the Domestic Abuse Bill, but more needs to be done. I have no time to go into it now, but I would like to put the Government on notice that, a bit like Arnold Schwarzenegger, “I’ll be back”, raising the issue of the firewall in amendments to the Victims and Prisoners Bill.

Hate Crime

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Again, the noble Lord raises an interesting point. He will be aware that age is not one of the five protected characteristics—as I get older, I am beginning to think that that is a mistake. I cannot answer his question in greater detail than that at the moment but I will certainly take it back to the department.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, we await the Second Reading of the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Bill, a Private Member’s Bill that, if it passes, will create an offence of causing intentional alarm and distress to a person in public because of their sex or presumed sex. Can the Minister tell the House when this Bill will be introduced and whether such an offence will be recorded as a hate crime?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am afraid I am not sure when the Bill will be introduced. I am aware that the Government support that Bill, which was introduced by Greg Clark. I do not have the answer as to how the crimes will be recorded, but I will find out.

Shamima Begum

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

The reform of the Prevent strategy is clearly an important priority, as discussed on a previous occasion. I do not believe that this particular case has any direct impact on the reformulation of the policy. If the litigation continues, I will come back and address the House further on that.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I wonder if noble Lords remember the expression “compassionate conservatism”. Those halcyon days seem long gone, sadly. Shamima Begum has been variously described as a vulnerable, trafficked 15 year-old from Bethnal Green and an ex-IS recruiter. Is the point not, however, that she is our vulnerable, trafficked girl or our ex-IS recruiter? Should she not be brought home to face the music in a British court of law?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Again, I am afraid I cannot comment on the specific facts of Ms Begum’s case. However, I remind the House that the purpose of deprivation proceedings under Section 40(2) of the 1981 Act is to protect the country in relation to issues of national security.

Prostitution

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, after the committee’s report, we commissioned some research by the University of Bristol in association with the police and crime commissioner for south Wales. I am afraid that report did not deliver any unequivocal evidence, as I have just said. The evidence from other jurisdictions where a different approach is tried is also not unequivocal so, for the moment, things are going to stay the way they are.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I am looking forward to the day when sex workers pay their fair share of tax—unlike some I might mention. Those tax revenues would be more secure if they could work safely with simple, practical measures like two sex workers working together without risk of prosecution for pimping each other out. Successive Governments have turned deaf ears to the plight of sex workers, while the men who exploit and abuse them get away scot free. Is there any chance this Government will behave any differently?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the National Police Chiefs’ Council updated its guidance in 2019. It is important to note that that guidance prioritises safety over enforcement action in terms of the criminalisation of these practices. It is incredibly important that this guidance is followed because it advises forces to focus on how to make those involved in sex work safe and to conduct risk assessments before enforcing brothel-keeping legislation. As to tax, I am not going to comment.

Rape: Operation Soteria

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord and thank him for the clarification—the professor predated me, obviously. Operation Soteria is bringing together all aspects of policing and CPS work with regards to rape cases. It is elevating the status of the victims above those of the suspects, which I would argue is long overdue. As part of that, and in order to validate the work of the operation, it is clear that data collection has to be uniform across the country. It will be available to be rolled out in June, as I say, across all police forces, but it is showing signs of improvement.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, Operation Soteria is described as having exposed the underbelly of policing, which, as we know from the David Carrick statement only last week, is not a pretty sight. I welcome the Minister’s comments about the national rollout. I also endorse what the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said about proper policing and vetting. In addition to that, would the Government please consider discipline reviews, taking the legal process out of it and restoring discipline back to police chiefs themselves?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

As the noble Baroness will be aware, that is part of the terms of reference of the review into dismissals that was announced last week, as I talked about at the Dispatch Box. It will deliver its results in four months. I have to tell the noble Baroness to wait until then.