Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Featherstone and Fiona Mactaggart

Thursday 19th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

I thank my hon. Friend for his support for equal marriage. When we consider proposed legislation, we will ensure that there is no risk of successful legal challenge against religious organisations that do not marry same-sex couples. It would not be religious organisations, but the United Kingdom Government in the dock in Strasbourg. We respect and understand the concerns of religious organisations, and we want to work closely with them to give them that reassurance. Just as we were able to reassure Members of this House and the House of Lords about civil partnerships being registered on religious premises to the point where they felt that they could let that pass, we will do the same in this case.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Has the Minister spoken to the Archbishop of Wales following his address, in which he said that he believes that the Church should welcome long-term, committed relationships between gay people? Can she perhaps engage people such as him in the debate to deal with some of the, I am afraid, prejudice, which some of us have faced in our inboxes?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I have not spoken to him personally, but I recognise that voices have been raised from the religious community in support of that view, and that some religious leaders express the more moderate and quite common view that same-sex marriage is to be welcomed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Featherstone and Fiona Mactaggart

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

My understanding is that there will be, but I will check that and write to the hon. Lady to confirm it.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The No. 10 memo describing why women do not like this Government suggests that targeted Home Office work on women, crime and confidence is required. At the time when the officials were drawing up that memo with a focus group that looks to me as though it was made up of secretaries and researchers in No. 10, I was listening to women in my constituency, who were worried about perverts harassing them on buses and on the street. What targeted Home Office work is being done to help such women?

[Lynne Featherstone]

We are working with all the police agencies and the Association of Chief Police Officers to focus on those issues, including stalking and harassment. Tackling stalking, for example, is a key priority for the Home Secretary. We have committed long-term funding to the national stalking helpline over the spending review period and we have set up a national stalking strategy group to ensure that actions on stalking are taken under the violence against women and girls action plan. That is an example of one area of work that is targeted.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Featherstone and Fiona Mactaggart

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

It is the parliamentary spring, and in this country it is quite difficult to tell, but it will happen in due course.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Since my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) raised the European directive on human trafficking with the Prime Minister on 15 September, the issue has been raised at least 40 times in this Chamber alone. The final text of the directive was agreed by the European Parliament more than 12 weeks ago. How often do we need to ask the Minister about this? How long does she need before she decides that Britain will sign up to the directive?

[Lynne Featherstone]

We are undertaking proper consideration and discussion with the devolved Administrations, but I can assure the hon. Lady that it will not be that much longer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Featherstone and Fiona Mactaggart

Monday 7th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

Yes, the Government acknowledge the difficult and important issue of children going missing from local authorities. At a national level, we are strengthening the arrangements in place to support vulnerable young people by placing the national strategic policing responsibility for missing children within the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. In fact, its thematic review deals explicitly with the issue of trafficked children going missing from local authorities.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

But does the Minister agree that if we were to adopt the European directive on human trafficking, which specifically provides for a guardian for trafficked children, that would be a real step in protecting the children to whom the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) referred?

[Lynne Featherstone]

At the moment, local authorities are, in particular, employing good practice around the use of interpreters and making sure that the places where children are placed are kept secret. As I may have mentioned before in this House, we are looking closely at the text of the European directive and considering its merits, and if we conclude that opting into it would benefit the UK, we will apply to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

T5. When responding to an earlier question on the trafficking strategy, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), said that it would include elements of prevention, action on the border and policing. Does she recognise that a very important element of any anti-trafficking strategy is victim care, and that victim care is usually provided by voluntary organisations? The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), the chair of the all-party group on human trafficking, spoke of a big society solution. Can we have a big society participation in the anti-trafficking strategy?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I think we would encourage the big society to get involved at all levels, but as the hon. Lady says, victim care is extremely important. We are providing accommodation and advocacy and all the things that are necessary to help the unfortunate victims of trafficking out of their terrible situation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Featherstone and Fiona Mactaggart

Thursday 27th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

As far as I am aware, the NGOs are being consulted, although there is not a public consultation.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The Minister says that her Government are making anti-trafficking a high priority. Now that the directive has been completed, is she seriously saying that she is going to wait for other states to make a decision before Britain does so? Should not we be in the lead on this issue? The directive has been supported by Members of the European Parliament of all parties represented in this House. Is it not time for her to adopt the directive? If she is not planning to do so yet, will she tell us why not?

[Lynne Featherstone]

We have to look at it and then make our decision. On 14 October, during the anti-slavery day debate, the Minister for Immigration announced a new strategy to tackle human trafficking that involved disrupting the practice in the country of origin and on the border, as well as supporting the victims. We will have to see what the EU directive adds or does not add, and we will make our decision in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Featherstone and Fiona Mactaggart

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

I thank the hon. Lady for that thoughtful contribution. I will certainly take it away and consider it.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The Minister will be aware of the Powys woman who has been imprisoned for retracting her rape complaint against her husband. This abused woman has been criminalised, imprisoned and separated from her children, while the man, who the authorities were satisfied had raped her and who they believed had perverted the course of justice, is free. That will terrify other rape complainants who have been abused by their partners. Such women already have to struggle for support to get out of their situation, but they can now see that asking for help may be more dangerous than staying to suffer. Will the hon. Lady institute an holistic inquiry into how such a debacle occurred, say whether her Government’s proposal to grant anonymity to men—and thus imply that woman who complain of rape are liars—is going ahead, and explain how they will secure no repetition of such a shameful case?

[Lynne Featherstone]

There is clearly an issue with women hesitating to come forward. This case and the publicity surrounding it might well have an effect on women. Obviously, I cannot comment on this case, but I am very aware of the need to encourage women to come forward if they have been the victims of rape. They should feel supported and listened to when they come forward. I will look into the case but I do not think it is my job to say today whether we will have an inquiry. However, I can inform the hon. Lady that the rape anonymity proposals have been dropped.

Socio-economic Equality Duty

Debate between Baroness Featherstone and Fiona Mactaggart

Thursday 18th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Minister to make a statement on the announcement yesterday outside Parliament that the Government intend to drop section 1 of the Equality Act 2010, which places duties on public bodies to act in respect of socio-economic disadvantage.

[The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)]

Equality is at the heart of what this coalition Government are all about. We have come together as a coalition to govern on the principles of freedom, fairness and responsibility.

In Britain today, those growing up in households that have fallen too far behind still have fewer opportunities available to them and they are still less able to take the opportunities that are available. We need to design intelligent policies that give those at the bottom real opportunities to make a better life for themselves. That is why we are devoting all our efforts and energies to policies that can give people real opportunities to make life better for themselves, and not just to new and unnecessary legislation.

We do not need new laws to come up with policies that open up opportunities, and we do not need new laws to come up with policies that support and protect the most vulnerable. We have already begun to implement them. That is why over the course of the spending review, we will spend over £7 billion on a new fairness premium. That will give all disadvantaged two-year-olds an entitlement to 15 hours a week of pre-school education, in addition to the free entitlement that all three and four-year-olds already receive. It also includes a £2.5 billion per year pupil premium to support disadvantaged children.

Those measures, combined with our plans for extra health visitors and a more focused Sure Start, will give children the best possible start in life. That is why we are extending the right to request flexible working to all, helping to shift behaviour away from the traditional nine-to-five model of work, which can act as a barrier to so many people and often does not make sense for many modern businesses, and why we will implement a new system of flexible parental leave, which will end the state-endorsed stereotype of women doing the caring and men earning the money when a couple start a family.

We do not need laws to make choices that protect the most vulnerable. When we have had to make difficult choices about how to deal with the record budget deficit left by Labour, we have done so in a way that protects the most vulnerable. We will increase child tax credits for the poorest families, protecting against rises in child poverty; we will increase spending on the NHS and schools in real terms every year; we will lift 880,000 of the lowest-paid workers out of income tax altogether; and we will protect the lowest-paid public sector workers from the public sector pay freeze.

All those policies were designed by the coalition to protect those most at risk and to give opportunities to those most in need. They are real action, not unnecessary empty gestures. That is why we are scrapping the socio-economic duty. I said during the passage of the Bill that this was a weak measure, that it was gesture politics, and that it would not have achieved anything concrete. The policy would only have been a bureaucratic box to tick—another form to fill in. It would have distracted hard-pressed council staff and other public sector workers away from coming up with the right policies that will make a real difference to people’s chances in life.

We cannot solve a problem as complex as inequality in one weak legal clause, and we cannot make people’s lives better by simply passing a law saying that they should be made better. We believe that real action should be taken to address the root causes of disadvantage and inequality. We do not need empty gestures, and we do not need the socio-economic duty, to do that.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

It is very disappointing that I had to ask the Minister to come here. I would have expected at least a written ministerial statement or a statement to the House on a decision of this nature.

Dropping the socio-economic duty was not in the coalition agreement. It was a major part of the Equality Act 2010, which Parliament passed only this year. While we know that the Conservatives have never wanted Government to take responsibility for building a more equal society, that is not the view that the hon. Lady herself has previously taken. In fact, despite her words just now, on Second Reading of the Equality Bill she called for more legislation:

“The Government should have made legislative proposals to tackle socio-economic inequality in a Bill of its own”.—[Official Report, 11 May 2009; Vol. 492, c. 579.]

Given the importance of narrowing the equality gap, does she still think this?

What proposals will the Minister now bring forward to assess the impact of Government policies on the most disadvantaged? Despite her fine words, is it not true that this Government simply do not care about socio-economic inequality? The Institute for Fiscal Studies has proved that the Government are hitting the poorest hardest. If there is no duty, how will people know about the impact of Government decisions on the most disadvantaged?

With this duty in place, public bodies would have had to think about what they should be doing to improve life chances. We all know about Sure Start; indeed, the Minister referred to it. We know its fantastic work, and how its impact is greatest on the most disadvantaged children. Councils would have had a duty to take that into account if they were thinking of closing children’s centres, but she is now saying that they will not. Does she think that is right?

The hon. Lady said that the duty is bureaucratic, but the truth is that the Government have the power to decide how it is implemented. Did the Government even attempt to draw up a flexible way of introducing it?

The Minister said that we cannot deliver equality by legislation, but the simple truth is that the Government do not believe that they have any responsibility to deliver a fairer society. Of course, legislation does not work like magic, but it is a key way that Government can change things. Road safety legislation does not stop all accidents, but it does make our roads safer and it does save children’s lives. This duty would have helped to make our society fairer, and it would have given poorer people a fair chance, so why is she scrapping it?

[Lynne Featherstone]

After 13 years of a Labour Government who left behind them a more unequal society with a widening gap between rich and poor, the idea that an exceptionally weak clause in an Act that has not been enacted or implemented was major legislation, when it contained only a duty to consider, is everything that is bad about politics. [Interruption.] It has not been implemented.

The public sector equality duty that will be introduced in the spring is the strongest measure possible. It will allow for transparency, and it will allow people to hold the authority to account in their locality. What the Government are doing is far more important than the duty the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) mentions. We are taking 880,000 lower-paid people out of tax, and spending £7 billion on the fairness premium and £2.5 billion on the pupil premium, which is additional money and the single most important measure for changing children’s life chances.

What is more, let me read to the hon. Lady what the last Government’s social mobility tsar Alan Milburn said:

“The challenges of the future call for a different relationship between the state and the citizen…It will mean…not just passing laws.”

But that was all the Labour party did—pass laws. What we are doing is about outcomes, not ticking boxes.

Public Expenditure Reductions (Women)

Debate between Baroness Featherstone and Fiona Mactaggart

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. No integrity was being impugned, but the Library itself notes that its research paper is not a detailed assessment based on individual tax and benefit data and, therefore, remains a rough and ready approximation.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Has the hon. Lady commissioned the kind of detailed assessment, based on tax and benefit information, that she is uniquely placed to do? If she has, will she tell the House what it concluded about the emergency Budget?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I shall certainly come to that in the course of my speech.

Any analysis of tax and welfare changes by gender must make assumptions about how resources are shared within the household, and the Library’s research makes an extreme assumption that no income is shared. It is not robust, and it is based on outdated assumptions about family structures. On the issue of cuts to welfare hitting the poorest hardest, the Government have been clear that the burden of deficit reduction will have to be shared. The reforms that the Government are undertaking do protect the most vulnerable, including children and pensioners, and I shall go into detail about that in a moment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lynne Featherstone]

No, not at the moment.

Fairness is at the heart of all our decisions, so that the most in need are protected. Lord knows, the coalition Government have made extreme efforts to address the issue of protecting the vulnerable. We have spent more than £5 billion to try to equalise. That is why we are refocusing Sure Start, which the hon. Lady mentioned. We are ring-fencing its budget for this year and introducing 4,000 health visitors dedicated to helping the most disadvantaged families. That is why, as was mentioned, we are determined to make work pay by raising the tax threshold, lifting 880,000 of the lowest paid workers out of tax. The majority of them are women, who will come out of income tax each year progressively until the threshold has risen to £10,000. That will aid the lowest paid workers.

That is why we are determined to reform welfare to get people into work, creating a new Work programme to give the unemployed tailored support. It is why, as I said, we are protecting the lowest-paid public sector workers. It is why we are increasing child tax credits for the poorest families, protecting against rises in child poverty. Child poverty rose in the past few years under the Labour Government. [Interruption.] No, the whole point of tax credits for the poorest families is to protect against rises in child poverty. It is precisely why we are getting to grips with the deficit—so that we do not have to keep spending more and more on debt interest, leaving less to deliver the crucial public services that women need and depend on.

We are absolutely committed to a fairer future for women and their families, but the Government are not just about supporting women and their families through the tough times. I forgot to mention the index linking of pensions. I remind the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington that it was the Labour Government who made the derisory 75p pension offer, and who abolished the 10p tax band. I did not hear Labour Members cause uproar about either of those measures—well, the hon. Lady may have mentioned them, but in general terms, those were Labour policies that affected the poorest and most vulnerable, and they definitely hit women hardest.

We want to give people better prospects for a brighter future. We want to create the kind of cultural change that will enable people to escape the vicious cycle of inequality and poverty, so that they can improve the quality of their life and the lives of their family. The hon. Lady should know as well as I do—our constituencies are not dissimilar—that more than 2 million children live in poor housing, in crowded rooms and in squalid conditions. One in five children lives in poverty. I see for myself in my constituency the consequences of that vicious cycle, which people could never get away from because there were no pathways out. That is totally unacceptable. She and I both know about the pressures on housing in areas such as Hackney and Haringey.

We are putting bold new measures in place that will tear down the discriminatory and cultural barriers holding people back. The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have set up a childhood and families taskforce to tackle the barriers that prevent a successful family life and happy childhood. One of the main issues that the taskforce will consider is how we can help parents to balance their work and life. The hon. Lady raised the issue of single parents; nine out of 10 single parents who are out of work do not want to live off the state. They want a paid job. They want their independence. The problem is that there are not the flexible jobs out there that could fit with family life.

Many couples and individuals find it enormously difficult to strike the right balance between work and home. Traditional arrangements, in which mothers take the lion’s share of leave, simply do not suit everyone’s needs in the modern world. I totally refute the hon. Lady’s suggestion that the coalition Government are in any way old-fashioned. Our commitment is to moving the agenda forward. That is why we have already committed to looking at a system of shared parental leave and at extending the right to request flexible working to all. The latter, in particular, will tackle the old-fashioned notion that women ought to perform the bulk of caring—

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The hon. Lady promised earlier that she would tell the House her assessment of the equality impact assessment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Featherstone and Fiona Mactaggart

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I was slightly taken aback by the hon. Lady’s “Oh, we’re going to look at the research before we do this”, given that, up until now, it seems there has been a failure to talk to those tasked with implementing the policy. Has she or any of her colleagues spoken to the Association of Chief Police Officers lead on rape about the policy, and what has his response been?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I have not spoken to the ACPO lead on the issue, but I will refer that question to the Secretary of State for Justice, who may well have done so.