Colombia Peace Process

Debate between Chris Stephens and Patrick Grady

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone; as always, your advice is extremely diligent and welcome. I will not speak for desperately long because this is the second debate on Colombia that we have had in recent months, after the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) secured a full debate in September. I declare an interest in this subject because, at the time, he and I had just returned from a visit to Colombia hosted by ABColombia, which is a platform made up of the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, Trócaire and a couple of other organisations to provide research and advocacy of the human rights situation in that country. The hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens), whom I congratulate on securing this debate, also contributed to that debate back in September.

This debate has proven to be a welcome opportunity to reflect on how things have changed since then, particularly in the context of the President’s visit. As the hon. Member for Cardiff Central laid out in considerable detail, the situation has changed even in those few months: progress towards peace has become slower and pretty precarious, and there is a risk of the situation deteriorating. The case of Jesús Santrich is emblematic of that.

The bombings that have taken place have led to further deterioration of that peace process, particularly the bombing of the police academy in Bogotá on 17 January that claimed 20 innocent lives and is just one example of sporadic but increasing violence and tension across the country, particularly in rural areas, where poverty and the legacy of conflict are most acute. That is perhaps exemplified most significantly in the dramatic increase in the number of killings, threats, and instances of intimidation of human rights defenders.

During our visit, we had the privilege of meeting several human rights defenders in different parts of the country that we travelled to. The Minister will be aware that the hon. Member for Rhondda and I have written to him about a couple of specific cases of individuals we met who received direct threats of intimidation, violence and death. I hope he will be able to respond, if not directly in his speech then in writing, and will look up that letter in advance of his meeting with the President this evening.

The lack of security for human rights defenders, especially those working in rural areas on the implementation of the peace accord and on practical aspects of land restitution, environmental issues and crop substitution, are incredibly concerning. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) outlined in detail some statistics that should worry and alarm us all. As we all know, Colombia is the worst country in the world for the killing of human rights defenders. According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, more than 110 were murdered in 2018, and that trend has continued into this year, with an average of three defenders killed a week.

Colombia is also one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. There has been growing global attention to the hugely important role that those members of the community play in speaking up and defending the rights of others who they represent. They take huge personal risks to speak out against injustice and abuse of human rights in their countries, often by their Governments or by other non-state actors. It is hugely important that we recognise around the world the particularly acute situation in Colombia.

The Scottish Government remain committed to protecting human rights worldwide. As part of that commitment, last year they saw the launch of the Scottish human rights defender fellowship, which offers human rights defenders the chance to work with the Scottish Government, Scottish universities and civil society organisations to share expertise and work together to protect fundamental rights across the globe. I believe it may be of interest to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins), who is sitting next to me, that it is hosted at the University of Dundee. We echo Amnesty International’s support for human rights defenders across the world and support its call for a flagging system to facilitate visa applications and allow them to travel more easily to the UK for work or respite and relief.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is clear research that Colombia is the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade union activist?

[Patrick Grady]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; I was going to reflect on that towards the end of my remarks. I know that he met the general secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress last week, and had a full debrief of the Justice for Colombia peace monitoring delegation that visited the country towards the end of May, which included the STUC general secretary and the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman). The role of our civil society to hold both Governments to account is hugely important.

It is important that we take the opportunity to engage appropriately with President Duque, especially while he is here. I fully endorse everything that the hon. Member for Cardiff Central said about the special jurisdiction for peace; related to that is how to deal with land restitution, which is a key issue for sustainable peace across the country. There have been attempts to undermine the amount of land that should be up for restitution by the Government, despite the effort of many non-governmental organisations. That law needs to be fully extended, so that time is properly available to restitute the land to those who need it.

We should welcome the UK Government’s efforts, through its embassies, to support the JEP programme and to highlight its centrality as a pillar of the peace agreement. It is important that they continue to guarantee the rights of victims to truth, justice, reparations and non-repetition. The two important UN mandates that are operating must be renewed this autumn to their full strength and for as long as possible, so that their important work can continue. I finish by echoing the points about the importance of ensuring that civil society is fully engaged. I look forward to hearing from the Minister.

Autism

Debate between Chris Stephens and Patrick Grady

Thursday 29th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan). I want first to place on record the fact that many of my constituents have contacted my office and urged me to attend this debate. Many of them have sent emails expressing how much it would mean to them if their Member of Parliament were to attend the debate. I am glad to see so many other hon. Members here as well.

When I was first elected, one of the first things I introduced in my constituency was a surgery specifically for carers. That is important for carers of people with autism, because they often face issues in isolation, including education, social and social security issues. Sometimes, those issues are not faced in isolation; they can become combined. That is why I introduced a specific surgery for carers, so that we could look at all those issues in combination, rather than dealing with them separately.

I want to raise a matter that has not yet been mentioned—namely, the difficulties that those with autism and their carers have when navigating their way through the social security system, particularly the personal independence payment application process. I have a constituent, Mrs Geraldine Lynch, who attended a PIP assessment with her son Jordan, who has autism. Mrs Lynch has said that the descriptions of her son in the reports that came back from the assessment process and the mandatory reconsideration process were unrecognisable. Perhaps they were the wrong files, describing the wrong individual, or perhaps my constituent was misdiagnosed and not given a proper PIP assessment.

My real fear about the PIP process is that far too often there is a lack of specialism among the assessors and a lack of understanding of specific conditions. My experience of my constituency workload tells me that that also affects those who suffer from autism. I encourage the Government to look specifically at ensuring that assessors of PIP, employment and support allowance and other benefits include a specialist on autism and related conditions. That is very important if we are to help those people.

There have been some positive developments in my constituency. One of them relates to my constituents Debbie Elliott and Claire Ellis, who have launched a support group called the Triple A Parents and Carers Support Group in Govan, and I would like to thank the Govan Housing Association for providing free space in its hub to allow the group to organise. It runs a drop-in every Friday. The purpose of the group is to allow parents and carers facing the same issues to share their experiences and to give each other advice, information and support. It is important that carers of those with autism and other related conditions have that kind of support, and the number of support groups is growing in my constituency and elsewhere. They allow support and the sharing of information and experiences, which helps other individuals. Added to that, on the Pollok side of my constituency, Differabled Scotland is organising a parent-to-parent peer support group for parents and carers of children, young people and adults.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend has mentioned Differabled Scotland. Some of the people who run that organisation are constituents of mine, and I had a powerful meeting with them during the general election campaign last year. It is clear that the amount of support needed for people with autism is growing, and the work of Differabled Scotland is particularly valuable because it provides a peer support network of parents and carers of children of all ages. It does very valuable work.

[Chris Stephens]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I, too, met organisers from Differabled Scotland a couple of weeks ago, and it was an excellent meeting. It is quite inspiring that there is peer-to-peer support and that people are sharing their experiences. Both the organisations that have been launched in my constituency are important.

It is also important for people to have access to welfare rights officers, and those officers are in attendance when these groups meet to help people to navigate their way through the various issues that I have mentioned, particularly those relating to social security support. Those groups that are now getting up and running also need funding, and I would like to ask the Minister what kind of funding the Government are planning to put in place to help those peer support groups to grow. What kind of finance will be available to them? I pledge to help them to get the necessary finances, so that they can continue to support carers and parents and help their organisations to grow.

Telephone Calls to the DWP

Debate between Chris Stephens and Patrick Grady

Wednesday 21st June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens]

I do agree. In fact, I would say that food banks have probably been the only growth industry in the United Kingdom in the past seven years, as many Members of Parliament can see.

I believe the answer to the questions that I have just asked the Minister is no. The reason I continue to campaign on this telephone tax is that it adds insult to injury. It is just one more financial kick in the teeth when people are paying for access to information and support. When every penny counts, call charges hit hard, and the lack of clarity as to which lines are free and which ones come with a cost does not help. The Government’s own website states that some telephone calls can cost 55p a minute. Can the Minister confirm whether the gov.uk website provides accurate information on charges for calls to the DWP?

Call charges do not just eat into people’s benefits; I suggest that they actively deter people from calling because they fear incurring charges either from the lines themselves or from a mobile phone provider. As I look deeper into the issue and ask more questions, more disturbing information comes to light. There are serious flaws in the digital-by-design model. Exclusion is built into the system. A written question I tabled just before Dissolution revealed that, in the whole of the Glasgow South West constituency, there are only 16 PCs for thousands of claimants. I am sure the Minister will be happy to know that a few follow-up questions are on the way to him, but today he could answer these: what are the Government going to do to increase computer literacy and access in DWP offices; and does the Department for Work and Pensions agree that those who have received a financial penalty—a sanction—or who have been paid late should have to pay for a telephone call to the DWP to chase up their entitlement? I am calling for free phone calls to access every aspect of the Department for Work and Pensions, but especially for those who have been sanctioned or hit by late payments. Someone paid late should not have to access a chargeable phone line to chase up money they are owed by the state.

Incredibly, there are no telephone lines at all for universal credit claims or inquiries—it is a completely digital service. What about those with no digital access, or who are not computer-literate or even literate? I accept that that is a whole other issue, but we need to recognise that basic literacy skills are not universal, and nor is English everyone’s first language. Will the Government consider a special telephone line for universal credit claimants?

I have already said there are issues with mobiles and price plans. I am calling for the Government to work with mobile and landline providers to improve that. A price plan can determine what someone pays in reality, but if they go over and above those limits, they incur penalty charges and costs increase. Since April, penalty charges on non- inclusive calls have increased dramatically, meaning that someone on a lengthy call to the Department for Work and Pensions will see the cost escalate.

The Government promised a review following the 2016 Social Security Advisory Committee report, which criticised the Government and asked for free phone lines to be put in place. The Government stated that that would cost £7 million, but they also made a number of recommendations, including having a call-back system. Like many a frustrated claimant, we are still waiting. When can we expect the review to be published, and will it include working with mobile and landline providers to reduce, and as far as possible eliminate, costs for DWP claimants? Is £7 million not a small amount of the overall Government budget to ensure that the most vulnerable and those in need do not pay for telephone calls that they cannot afford?

It is bad enough that official helplines hit callers with added costs, but on top of everything else, there is a thriving business in ripping off the vulnerable—the so-called call connections websites, which advertise Government services phone numbers and claim to provide a service. In essence, they are fake premium-rate connection numbers. The Government have described them in a ministerial response to me as unethical but not illegal.

What action is the Department for Work and Pensions taking to eliminate advertised call connection numbers, which are charging premium rates to the most vulnerable in society? Is it not time that we stopped those scammers? The Fair Telecoms campaign has done good work on exposing those scams, and has called for Ofcom and the Phone-paid Services Authority to take the necessary action. However, I would suggest that the Government need to take a lead and work with the authorities to stamp out that practice. Will the Minister commit to doing that and meet the relevant parties to take action?

Failure to act on the concerns raised by me and those who campaign against the telephone tax would indicate that this is not a priority for the Government, and that fairness and social justice do not feature high on their agenda. My concern is that Brexit will skew Government time and attention away from addressing these issues, but I intend to use as much parliamentary time as is available to me to keep this front and centre. Financial penalties and hardship are being inflicted on people every day because the inquiry lines and support services are not fit for purpose.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend talks about services that are not fit for purpose and mentioned the need for people to access computers in places such as jobcentres. Does he agree that we urgently need clarity on the future of Glasgow’s jobcentres? Precisely for the reasons he outlines, they need to be saved.

[Chris Stephens]

I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent intervention. He is correct. It is unacceptable that Glasgow has been asked to close half its jobcentres. Half the jobcentres are under threat in some of the most deprived communities in our city. I hope the Government will reflect what we are told is today’s compassionate conservatism and take a step back from that proposal.

The Government’s own estimate is that there are £292 million of unclaimed pension credits and unclaimed state benefits. I pledged in my election address to work with pensioner groups to improve take-up of these entitlements, for that is exactly what they are: earned benefits, not a Government charity handout to be granted to those deemed sufficiently worthy. I also pledge, along with my SNP colleagues, to fight for justice for the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign. I strongly believe that, far from enforcing a brutal sanctions scheme, Department for Work and Pensions staff could be more usefully deployed helping people to claim what they are entitled to, instead of hounding the vulnerable. The impact that has on claimants’ mental health should not be underestimated. I am also chasing up how many staff vacancies are unfilled in the Department for Work and Pensions, whether through budget pressures or high turnover.

In conclusion, I must bring it to House’s attention that today is a highly significant day, and I do not mean because of the delivery of a threadbare Queen’s Speech, devoid of vision. Today, legislation was tabled in Scotland’s Parliament—the Social Security (Scotland) Bill—that will give Ministers the power to deliver 11 benefits, including disability living allowance, personal independence payment, carer’s allowance and winter fuel payments. Jeane Freeman, the Minister for Social Security, said today:

“Dignity and respect is at the heart of our social security policy—a marked contrast to the approach that the current UK Government is taking as their unjust welfare cuts continue to cause misery,”

and

“push more people into poverty”.

The Scottish Government will remove the private sector from disability benefit assessments—a clear demonstration of the fact that when powers are devolved, we use them to bring fairness and tackle injustice. I could wish that all powers were available to enable us to shape Scotland’s future, but where we can, we will act. Indeed, I am happy to confirm an exclusive: under the Scottish Government’s approach to telephone calls, there will be no rigid script but a more holistic approach to those seeking advice and entitlement, and, most important of all, all calls to the Scottish Government’s social security service will be free to those seeking entitlement. That shows once again what is possible if there is the political will. I look forward to the Minister’s response to my many questions.