Domestic Violence Refuges: Charities and Local Government
Debate between Baroness Scott of Bybrook and Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top(9 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I would be more than happy to meet the noble Baroness to learn about that, and I thank her for everything she is doing in her county. As recently as this weekend, we heard so much about violence against women. The Home Office is taking this issue extremely seriously and a large amount of money is going into extra police training, particularly on tackling domestic abuse. Some £3.3 million has been committed over the next three years to support delivery of Domestic Abuse Matters training to police officers. Let us hope that this changes things.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
My Lords, as the Minister says, there is currently no sign of domestic abuse being overcome and things changing, and recent reviews of serious cases are really quite scary. This is not just about local authorities, which are doing a good job but are cash strapped, but charities. A number of seriously good and important charities in this arena have nearly or actually gone bust. Action against Violence and Abuse, a major charity that worked with women who had experienced violence and abuse, and which supported them in a range of ways, went out of business last month for no other reason than it could not raise sufficient funds. Will the Minster discuss this issue with other Ministers? The situation is now very serious: such charities cannot be funded to continue their work, and that will have serious consequences for the women involved.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
The charitable sector is a really important partner in this. That has been noted in the amount of money given to police and crime commissioners to tackle this issue, part of which is spent with charities, other stakeholders and community groups. This Government have supported charities through this very difficult crisis, in particular with energy costs. We are totally committed to supporting the charitable sector on not only this issue but others, and we will do everything we can to do so because it is an important part of delivery.
Levelling Up: Funding Allocation
Debate between Baroness Scott of Bybrook and Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, we do not know of a better method for capital funding. There is not just the levelling-up fund but a suite of funding going out to local authorities for capital projects, including the towns funds, the community ownership funds, the freeports and the UK shared prosperity fund, which is given out in terms of percentages.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
My Lords, many people see child poverty as the measure of where levelling-up funding should be targeted. Why then in the north-east did no authority north of the Tees get anything? What do authorities such as County Durham have to do to be recognised by the Government?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, the north-east got the third-highest level of funding per head of capital across the country. It is up to local authorities to bid for their priorities; I am sorry if they did not get them, but if they did not bid for them then I hope they will do so in the third round.
Called-in Planning Decision: West Cumbria
Debate between Baroness Scott of Bybrook and Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top(2 years ago)
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Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, I knew that this would be a very passionate debate.
The first question from my noble friend was: why did the Secretary of State not turn this down? He did not turn it down because he took his time and read this very large report. Unlike the noble Baroness opposite, I am afraid that I have not had the time since lunchtime today to read it—but I have it and I will read it this weekend. So, why did the Secretary of State not turn this down? He did not turn it down because he read the evidence, he thought that it was sound and he agreed with the inspector’s report. The inspector is independent and this is about a planning application. He did his job and, as I said, the Secretary of State agreed with him.
On the rest of the world not agreeing with what we are doing, I have not seen the rest of the world having net-zero mines for coking coal. We are going to do that. We are showing the rest of the world how it should be producing this commodity, which is still going to be required to produce steel in the near future. That is extremely important.
On the other issues around where the coal will be sold to and how that will be done, this is not a Government-supported project; it is from the private sector. Private sector operators put in the planning application and it was decided on in the normal way. The Secretary of State read all the information and decided that he would support it.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
My Lords, can I question the Minister from the perspective of steel? I represented a seat that used to have the most efficient steel-making company in the country, in Consett in County Durham, but the Government were quite happy when it closed and all those very good jobs were lost.
My contacts in the steel industry tell me that some of the coal is so full of sulphur that the industry in this country will not use it. Some of it can be adapted into coking coal, which it will be able to use, but some will not. The industry is concerned that it is already trying to move to decarbonise the steel-making process and that, by the time this all comes into fruition, it is hoped that it will be further down the road and not need anything like the 15% that the Government and the application are talking about. My contacts also tell me that the European Union is much further down the road on decarbonising the steel-making process than we are. Indeed, one of the companies working on this is working with the European Union on that decarbonisation. In these circumstances, the Government are putting the reputation of the steel industry at some risk, because it believes that the major efforts it is trying to make to decarbonise will be overshadowed by this decision, and that the pressure will be on the industry to take more coking coal, which will not help it to decarbonise.
There are other aspects of this; I accept that it is extremely complex. I have not read the inspector’s report, although I too am used to Ministers having to take decisions around such things. Can the Government tell us when they expect the coking coal to be processed? When will that actually happen? How far on will the British steel industry be on decarbonisation at that point? What is going to happen if the EU is in front of us on decarbonisation and is therefore not going to accept the coking coal from this mine, which will mean that it has to be exported even further? These are serious issues which ought to be taken into account. I accept that they are complex and include judgment, but I think the Government have made the wrong judgment.
International Women’s Day
Debate between Baroness Scott of Bybrook and Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I am really sorry for you all, but I will follow on from the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins. VSO changed my life. It gave me opportunities to learn about myself and the world, and to commit myself to a lifelong interest in the developing world and how we change things, particularly for girls and women. I went on VSO when I was 21 and spent two years in Kenya. I have subsequently done other things with VSO: I also did the parliamentary scheme in Tanzania in 2008 and I served in VSO’s governance for over 10 years until a couple of years ago.
VSO is the primary development agency used by this Government for volunteering. It is the primary development agency for pushing volunteering around the world. I had the honour to be in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia for the signing of the first memorandum of understanding with the African Union two years ago. The African Union recognised the sustainable development goal on volunteering and saw, with so many young people in Africa without jobs and almost without opportunity, that volunteering was critical.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, said, despite the pandemic, VSO’s work has continued on tackling Covid and those things that women and girls have been particularly susceptible to in recent months and years. There are some remarkable examples of the work it has done. I have talked to volunteers who were back from the ICS programme but still keeping in contact with people in the developing world, and to some of the national volunteers in those countries where VSO works. Those national volunteers were working in their own communities, reaching out to women and girls about gender-based violence, and reaching out to their local communities about what Covid really meant, trying to demystify all the myths that had grown up. We know about them here too.
The reality is that young national volunteers are transformed by their experience of being trained and supported by VSO to work in their local communities. I have met groups of women, mainly from east Africa, but also from other places in Africa, who are now absolutely determined to make a difference and to be leaders in their own communities and countries. The Government are in danger of throwing this away because they do not recognise the importance of making a decision quickly. This decision has been hanging on for more than a year; VSO was expecting to get approval in January 2020. Now the money will run out at the end of this month—and nothing. There is no commitment, just, “Oh, we don’t want to close you down but we’re not ready to take a decision.”
VSO will go by default if the Government do not take a decision because it needs the money to do the work. That will have enormous consequences for people involved in the developing world who work on this, but also for Britain’s reputation because VSO is, rightly, working with Governments around the Commonwealth: in Africa and India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and elsewhere, including Nepal. It is very well respected and loved there, and the Government are not ensuring its continuation. I suspect they will say, “We are not closing you down, we’re just putting it on pause”—
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I remind the noble Baroness of the four-minute speaking time.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab) [V]
I am sorry I have gone on. It matters to me; I hope it matters to the Government because they are making a real problem for themselves but they could sort it.