Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight that the excellent police and crime commissioner—I have met her several times now—for Cornwall is over in Portcullis House, demonstrating what a great job the police do in that part of the world. As I am sure my hon. Friend is aware, there has already been an initial allocation of police officers to his county force and there will be more news to come. We are in conversation with the policing community more widely about the allocation of police officers for years 2 and 3 of the uplift programme. Once that is concluded, I will let him know.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)]

At my weekend surgery, a constituent who had phoned the police time after time about neighbours from hell living above him said that he realised, at one moment of desperation, that he had a hammer in his hand. Had he used that hammer against those neighbours from hell, the police would have turned up—no doubt very quickly—and he would have been the object of their attention, not the neighbours from hell. When I meet the Minister tomorrow to discuss extra police for Birkenhead, will he give a commitment not only in terms of numbers but that the police should stand on the side of decent citizens, not on the side of neighbours from hell?

[Kit Malthouse]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the police standing on the side of decent citizens. When I hear distress calls from across the country about people who are not getting the response that they require from the police, I refer everybody to the police and crime commissioner for that area, who is responsible for performance and priority in the police force in question. Happily, the right hon. Gentleman will know that 200 police officers have been allocated from the uplift to Merseyside police, as a target for it to recruit over the next 12 months or so, and there will be more to come when we settle years 2 and 3. Like him, I want to see more police officers patrolling in Birkenhead, particularly in Hamilton Square, which holds fond memories for me as a child.

Major Incident in Essex

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)]

The Home Secretary will know that the Government asked her right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), Lady Butler-Sloss and me to review the Modern Slavery Act 2015. During our inquiry we met Border Force staff from a large, not a small, port, and they told us that, unlike for airports where there are passenger lists, they know nothing—absolutely nothing—about the people who are coming through the ports. We asked to meet the Home Secretary urgently to talk about this. Might she speed up our meeting with her, please?

[Priti Patel]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising his concerns. The answer is yes, of course I would be delighted to meet him. On top of that, he is right to recognise, through his review, the difference between air and sea in terms of the data that are collected. It is clear that when it comes to goods, there are customs checks, declarations and manifests, but when it comes to people we will obviously need to continue our discussions to see what more we can do in that area.

Immigration Detention: Victims of Modern Slavery

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

As my hon. Friend will know, it is through the national referral mechanism that potential victims of modern slavery will be referred, and then support will be available to them. She is absolutely right to point out that many victims of modern slavery are young and many are women. I am sure that she will be pleased with our introduction of the pilot scheme currently operating in Newcastle; we have released women, who would otherwise be detained at Yarl’s Wood, to be supported in the community. I am very much looking forward to the possibility of introducing further pilots later this year. They will include not just women but men.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)]

Is there not something shocking about the Minister’s reply today? You may remember, Mr Speaker, that you allowed me a point of order on the factual inaccuracies that the Minister gave in a parliamentary answer when she said that she had no idea of the number of people who had escaped slavery and were now in detention centres. If it were not for After Exploitation, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) said, we would have no idea what those numbers were. Since those parliamentary interventions, it is quite clear that the Minister has now been briefed on what is happening. Given that, in her answer to my right hon. Friend, she said that large numbers of people were now not in detention centres, may I ask her where they are, because when these people, largely women, are released like this, without any help, they are often scooped up by the slave owners.

[Caroline Nokes]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that, at any one time, 95% of those liable to detention are actually in the community and not in immigration removal centres at all. It is important to emphasise that a freedom of information request will elicit different data to that which is available in parliamentary questions. I reiterate the point that no central record is held and that the information from the FOI has been collated from a variety of sources and may well give an inaccurate picture. If there is one thing that one learns as a Home Office Minister it is to be very wary of numbers at all times and not to seek to give numbers that may be inaccurate.

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[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Further to the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), is it not the case that keeping numbers centrally might be a good idea? I understand that the Minister said that that number is not kept centrally, but part of my right hon. Friend’s point was that, perhaps, it should be.

[Frank Field]

indicated assent.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

May I ask the Minister if she will reconsider the possibility of keeping such numbers centrally, including breaking them down, for instance, by how many victims of torture are kept in detention. I know that she will say that the number is low, but the rule on adults at risk surely suggests that that number should be kept as low as possible, and we cannot know if it is unless we know what those numbers are.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend, who has done much work in this field. We have only to look at the terrible case that was finalised last week to see the breadth and range of ways in which people who indulge in modern slavery torture and enslave their captives; some of the details of that case were truly shocking. It absolutely underlines the fact that every single business that meets the criteria in the Act is obliged by law to report and ensure that its supply chains are free from slavery. That has a trickle-down effect for smaller businesses that are contracted to those larger businesses, because they have to make sure that they are doing the right thing too.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)]

Will that requirement be carried out in the public sector? Given the size of the procurement budget, will the Minister tell the House what plans the Government have to ensure that Government spending is within the scope of the Act?

[Victoria Atkins]

May I thank the right hon. Gentleman, as I said, for the work that he and his colleagues did on the review? It was an extraordinary piece of work and very thorough, and I know that he was pleased that we were able to accept the majority of its recommendations. We absolutely accept the point about the public sector, and he will know that the Prime Minister recently made an important announcement to confirm that Departments will make modern slavery statements to ensure that their supply chains are free from slavery. As for the further details, I will write to the right hon. Gentleman in due course.

Modern Slavery Act: Independent Review

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the independent review of the Modern Slavery Act.

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I thank the secretariat of our inquiry, who were superb. I want to make a brief comment about the importance of this topic to me—it is terrific that so many Members want to intervene or make a speech, because that shows a growing interest in the issue in the House of Commons, which is good.

Two things over my parliamentary lifetime have knocked me sideways: one has been the extent of hunger and destitution in my constituency; the other was the beginning of the work on modern slavery. I find it impossible to describe the horrors that people try to convey to us about the experience of being enslaved in this country, in this year and at this time. That is partly because one does not want to break down speaking in this debate. I know everyone will bear in mind the background of those individuals.

My Pauline conversion came when I was sent off and told to do a press conference for the Centre for Social Justice report on modern slavery, “It Happens Here”. I was horrified and amazed by the information—the data and case studies—that the CSJ brought together. There was a huge gathering of organisations for the launch of the report. We agreed at that meeting that we should lobby hard for a modern slavery Act. It was after a summer’s work of lobbying that the then Home Secretary, now Prime Minister, decided we would have a Bill. She thought we should have a scoping exercise about what that Bill should contain. She then used her influence to allow us to have a Joint Committee of both Houses to consider the draft Bill. We then had a Bill.

For all that we now want to move on from the legislation, that initiative was a real success for the Prime Minister. This was the first modern slavery Act in the world. It included supply chains, although the measures to act on them were pretty feeble. However, once something is in legislation, the requirements can always be pushed up. There was also some help for victims, and I am sure many Members will talk about the adequacies.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Does he welcome the work of Northern College in Barnsley, which has set up the “Free Thinking” programme, the first of its kind to provide education opportunities specifically for survivors of modern slavery? Does he agree that the Government should look at ways in which we can roll that out across the country?

[Frank Field]

I do indeed. I had the real pleasure of meeting, with my hon. Friend, a delegation that came down from the college, and I saw the work it is doing. Clearly, if we are to get a breakthrough on the lack of knowledge about what is happening in this country, courses like that will and should play a crucial part. The Modern Slavery Act 2015 signified a breakthrough.

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[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. I know this is a hugely interesting debate in which lots of people will want to take part, but I ask for interventions to be brief, because Mr Field has a lot of colleagues to bring in.

[Frank Field]

I do agree with my hon. Friend. The scope and work of the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority are clearly important, as he said, in countering modern slavery.

The 2015 Act was a breakthrough, and there have been successes from it. The number of police investigations moved from 188 in 2016 to 1,370 in April 2019. There has been a doubling in the number of people thought to be victims—up to now, it is 7,000. The composition of that total has also changed; the proportion of children and UK nationals has increased.

We can talk, quite properly, about those things being successes, but, despite that, the Prime Minister was not satisfied we had got the 2015 Act right. She therefore asked the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), Lady Elizabeth Butler-Sloss and me to undertake a review. As always, when the Government act, they want a review by Christmas, although we were not much in session before the summer break. We picked up four themes that we would look at: the anti-slavery commissioner; giving greater importance to supply chains; the role of advocates for children involved in trafficking; and the legal working of the Act.

We made an innovation in how we would undertake our work. It would have been impossible to do a detailed inquiry without the work of the separate commissions that we established, which reported to the right hon. Lady, Elizabeth Butler-Sloss and me. I put on record our thanks to them. My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) co-ordinated the parliamentary front and looked at what Parliament thought about the Act. Bishop Redfern looked at what the faith groups saw their role as. Baroness Young and John Studzinski looked at business. Anthony Steen led the discussions on civil society with the very large number of voluntary organisations that are concerned with slavery. Christian Guy looked at the Commonwealth and the international scene. Professor Ravi Kohli looked at child trafficking. Peter Carter QC and Caroline Haughey QC looked at the criminal justice system. They all went away and did that work, and then came back to the three of us who were in charge of the inquiry. Without their work, we could not have achieved what we did in submitting the report to the Home Secretary on time.

There were 80 recommendations, and the Chamber will understand that I will not dwell on those, although I want to emphasise a couple. One is on the lack of data. It is appalling that we collect no data whatever on what happens to those who enter the national referral mechanism for safety—they are mainly women, but some are men—once that period of safety ends. Most of our forebears would have been scandalised if they had allowed an Act to continue with that lack of data collection.

We had views about the independent slavery commissioner, which the Government, for their own reasons, disregarded. However, we thought it was important to realise that, all the time, there is this great conflict in the Department between its wish to bear down as effectively as possible on those merchants of evil—the slave owners—and its responsibility for immigration. We therefore thought that the Home Office’s modern slavery unit—happily, a unit was established—should actually go to the Cabinet Office. We also have views about the supply chains, and we are anxious that some of the money that we should get off these undesirable individuals under the proposals in the Act actually goes to the victims. That is therefore part of the agenda for today’s debate.

We have parliamentary groups, and the right hon. Member for Basingstoke will talk about other ways in which our report will be followed up. I hope that the Home Office, Parliament, the slave owners and those we wish to rescue from slavery will be convinced that today is another example of our wish to be more effective in countering this wickedness that we see in this country and abroad.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

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[Frank Field]

Thank you, Mrs Main, for chairing the debate; you got us through on time and enabled us all to make our contributions. I thank my colleagues who made the review possible. We had serious intent, but with the kind of fellowship across party lines that Members of Parliament can have, to make a contribution. We have given notice that there will be an implementation group so that we do not just do a report and forget it, and we will also look at the areas we were forbidden from looking at by our terms of reference. With the help of the House—we saw the extraordinary strength of support in this debate—this will be just the beginning of another stage of our campaign.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the independent review of the Modern Slavery Act.

Merseyside Police Funding

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Twigg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am sure her constituents say to her as mine do to me that there is that sense of having to make an increased contribution, yet not seeing an improvement in service.

With the increase in precept this year, there will be some new officers, which is very welcome, but it comes after almost a decade of considerable cutbacks. During the consultation on this year’s council tax increase, about three quarters of respondents indicated that they were willing to pay the additional money to protect police officer numbers and to put some extra officers on the beat, so our commissioner took the reluctant—I think—decision to propose an increase in the precept to generate an additional £10 million.

That increase, for most households—most Merseyside households are in band A for council tax—is £16 a year; for a band D property, it is £24 a year. Families across Merseyside, in our constituencies, face tight finances, so that kind of decision taken by local politicians is not one that is taken lightly. In an environment of increasing crime, however, with increasing calls for help from the public, politicians were left with no alternative. We simply cannot afford to lose any more officers, police community support officers or police staff in Merseyside.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. On the Wirral side, we have begun to have shootings. I hope that it is only a temporary blip; it is very important that it does not become a way of settling disputes. We will therefore need extra resources. I will see the chief constable on Thursday afternoon, and I will take the results of this debate with me and make the very point that my hon. Friend is making.

[Stephen Twigg]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that important intervention. We have seen an increase in shootings on the Liverpool side as well, and he is right to emphasise the real risk to our communities. I represent Croxteth and Norris Green which, a decade or so ago, suffered very serious issues to do with so-called gang violence, including the use of firearms. The strong sense in those communities is that they do not want to go back to those days. One of the ways to ensure that they do not is to resource our police service properly.

Modern-day Slavery

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Snell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The people who perpetrate these crimes do not do so in a cack-handed way. They are organised individuals who exploit the most vulnerable people in our society purely out of greed. The more we do to prosecute and make examples of them, the more we will do to demonstrate that we take the issue seriously and to put people off.

Another recent case is that of Josephine Iyamu, who sex-trafficked workers from Nigeria to Germany. Because she was a UK national, we prosecuted her in this country under the Modern Slavery Act. Again, as internationalists—as a country that looks out to the world—our responsibilities do not rest at our doorstep. We have a responsibility for people around the world. In Leeds, the Cisar family were caught trafficking people for work and exploitation. Thirty-seven people were found in an enslaved situation, working on building sites for £5 a day. Some of the families had to spend their evenings begging for food because they simply were not able to provide food for their children. One of those 37 people was a one-year-old. If we are serious about tackling this issue, we should start with situations like that.

Another problem, which I am sure the Minister will be able to help us with, is what happens once someone has been identified as a victim of modern slavery. The national referral mechanism is non-statutory. Someone who gets a positive conclusive grounds decision has no legal status. They are simply someone we have almost taken pity on—we support them out of benevolence, not because there is a requirement in law for us to do so.

The Government promised last October to increase the duration of support for people who receive a positive conclusive grounds decision from 14 days to 45 days. I understand that that is still in the process of being worked up—it is not actually being implemented. Again, if the Government wished to demonstrate that they take that promise seriously, they could easily announce that they will bring it forward as soon as possible.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)]

As I have told my hon. Friend, I will have to leave the debate to talk about sanctions in a moment. When we—Members of Parliament and Members of the House of Lords—scoped the original Modern Slavery Bill, the most stunning and terrible evidence we took was from people who had been enslaved. The idea that people get over such bondage easily was knocked sideways by all that. We were in tears listening to the evidence of people who had been broken by modern slavery, but the Government have only just begun to think about that issue.

[Gareth Snell]

We can see from that thoughtful intervention why my right hon. Friend is absolutely the right person to co-chair the review of the Modern Slavery Act. As I said, every statistic is a person whose life has been turned upside down. At the moment, an individual who is found to have been through modern slavery gets 14 days’ support. I do not know about anyone else in the Chamber, but that does not seem sufficient to me. In fact, 45 days really is not enough. The Government made that commitment last October and they should implement it now, but I ask that they do so as an interim step. As my right hon. Friend the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee says, that would be a step forward, but it would not be enough to establish a pathway for recovery.

There is something the Government could do today to give some semblance of an impression that they want to do something about this issue. They could announce that they will support Lord McColl’s Modern Slavery (Victim Support) Bill, which has been through the House of Lords and has its support. If they guaranteed Government support for that Bill so that it could proceed in Government time sooner rather than later, I am sure that it would get cross-party support and be one of the fastest pieces of legislation to pass the House of Commons.

That Bill would extend support to 12 months—it would give people who have been through horrendous situations a year’s support. Someone who comes out of modern slavery and needs help should receive it because the state and the people want to give it to them, not because of benevolence and charity. Charity is a cold thing—it is self-selecting. The state should be there to provide help and support. I am sure the Minister will be able to indicate one way or the other whether the Government have any interest in supporting Lord McColl’s Bill. I am sure Opposition Members would be happy to vote with the Government if they did support it.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) pointed out, there are organisations doing work in this area. I am going to talk again about the Co-op Group’s Bright Future partnership. That organisation has brought together charities, providers and first responders to give people who have been through modern slavery a way into paid employment—a route back to dignity without waiting for charity. By 2020, more than 300 victims of modern slavery will have been given their lives back through that project. We should commend the Co-op Group for leading the way with that work. I know many other companies are looking at the Co-op Group’s work. All I can say to them is, “Go and ask, and help. They will help you become part of this life-changing partnership.”

We need to prevent people from falling back into slavery. The 45-day period does not give those who are entitled to be in the UK enough time to apply for the required benefits, and it does not give those who are not entitled to be in the UK time to apply for leave to remain. It simply sets them up to fail on day 46. As a society, we simply must not allow that.

I am conscious of the time, so I will wrap up with some very quick points. I am aware that the Minister has a file of information to inform her reply, but I ask her to focus on six very simple areas.

Medicinal Cannabis

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I do not think that the wheels of Government moved slowly this week at all—far from it. In response to an emergency request, we issued an emergency and limited licence very quickly, in recognition of the very difficult situation that we were in. I assure my hon. Friend that we will always seek to treat cases as consistently as possible, and that goes for Alfie Dingley and Sophia Gibson and the others. It is important that we are consistent, but in this case we were dealing with an emergency request for an emergency licence.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Alfie met the Prime Minister eight weeks ago and she instructed the Home Office to act; on Saturday, he had 30 seizures. Will the Home Office give the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning)—who is seeking to catch your eye, Mr Speaker—Lady Meacher and me the authority to go through border control with the drugs that Alfie needs? If the Minister will not act, may we?

[Mr Hurd]

I do not think that that will be necessary. With respect to the right hon. Gentleman, he is a lawmaker and should not be a lawbreaker. On the Alfie Dingley case, we have made it quite clear that we will do everything that we can, within the existing law, to find a solution. We have had a bit of a stop-start process because this is new ground and it is very complicated. It has to be clinically led. The right hon. Gentleman possibly does not know the underlying details, but I assure him that I am assured that the process is now firmly on track. I hope that we will be in a position to make a positive decision as soon as possible.

Vote 100 and International Women’s Day

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

It is a real honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), who has a fantastic record in this place of standing up for women. I particularly thank her for her comments on Mary Wollstonecraft. I understand that as a result of her campaigning and that of other Members on both sides of the House, there is now a plan to have a statue of Mary Wollstonecraft. Well done to my hon. Friend for putting on record the proud history of that woman in our tradition of freedom and equality.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. May I draw the attention of the House to another great hero? Eleanor Rathbone was probably the most important Back-Bench Member of this House since William Wilberforce. She was a towering figure on all fronts, and an early-day motion has been tabled proposing that we should name a Committee Room of the House after her. That motion also bears the name of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman). In the light of the speech that we have just heard, naming a Committee Room is perhaps a small thing, but this is about keeping alive the memory of people who, in their own lifetime, made a real mega-difference.

[Catherine West]

I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), whose name appears on that EDM, has done such amazing work in this place, and I read her fantastic book when it was hot off the press. I also enjoyed the book of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), who somehow found time to write a book while being an MP. Both of those stories, histories or records remind us about the struggles. So much in politics just appears to happen, but we understand just how hard the struggles are.

As I mentioned my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley, I want to thank her for mentioning Iuliana Tudos, who tragically lost her life in Finsbury Park, which is on the borders of Hackney, Haringey and Islington. She was my constituent and lost her life in a terrible way, and we think of her family, because things must be terrible for her parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and so on. Not only do they live abroad, but they know that that young woman lost her life in a violent way.

The seat of Hornsey and Wood Green has been held by women since 1992. Many Members here will remember Lynne Featherstone, who is now in the other House and continues her campaigning for women. Barbara Roche, who I am sure Mr Deputy Speaker remembers, represented my constituency from 1992 until 2005. She won the seat from a Tory Member, Hugh Rossi, and is therefore very famous in Hornsey and Wood Green. She is a barrister and a great advocate for newly arrived communities. When chair of Metropolitan, the housing association, she was a great advocate of affordable housing, and that goes to the heart of the housing crisis, which has worsened since her time as a Member.

It is of course fantastic to be giving this speech with the lovely plaque that the House put up for Jo Cox MP just behind me, and we must not forget our dear friend on a day like today. She would have been hopping up and making an important speech, and we would all have been listening because she was extremely eloquent.

Not wanting to make this a counsel of despair—I have certainly talked about many sad things in the past couple of minutes—I want to note that it has been 100 years since the vote was given to certain women, and suffrage for women was so beautifully depicted in the film directed by Sarah Gavron, whose family is famous in Hornsey and Wood Green. Nicky Gavron is a former deputy Mayor of London and is still on the London Assembly, and she and her daughter are both great feminists.

I want to refer to the recent work in the creative arts sector following the terrible Weinstein scandal and the lurid tales that have emerged since the extent of the sexual abuse within that industry was uncovered. I am wearing a badge that was given to me by my great-aunt, who ran the Italia Conti Academy in London for many years and passed away at the age 101 two years ago. She knew some suffragettes in her time, and the badge has “AFL” on it, which stands for the Actresses’ Franchise League. At drama schools in those days, many talented youngsters—this is not just about women, but young people as well—were put on the stage, but their welfare was not particularly considered and they were not particularly well looked after. Young children who loved dancing, acting and so on would often end up on stage in the west end, and my great-aunt noted that they needed much better welfare and protection. Italia Conti and others introduced several positive schemes for the welfare of children in the arts, and I wonder whether we should have stuck a little closer to some of the schemes that forward-thinking women introduced around 1900 to 1930, and even on into the ’60s and ’70s. The creative industries seem to have lost their way slightly, and that needs to be looked at again in the light of the Weinstein tragedies.

The wonderful thing about speaking at the end of the debate is that one can enjoy listening to others. I was so pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) talk about her experience, and how Bangladesh was born out of conflict. She managed to get across the feelings of all of us in the House about the terrible sexual violence in the Rohingya community, and the importance of highlighting subjects that it is difficult to discuss in this House.

Similarly, my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) talked about the women in Yarl’s Wood. I am very aware of the issue, having spoken with Baroness Corston in the other House about the experience of women who are not subject to immigration detention, but are detained in our prisons, which are often not up to scratch; they face very difficult conditions. On International Women’s Day, it is fitting that we remember those women and what they go through.

Before I came to the House this morning, I was at Woodside High School, which has given me badges to pass on to the Speaker’s Office. The school is run by two fantastic women, who job-share the post of headteacher. It is a miracle school; it was, once upon a time, famous for not being so great, and now it is one of those fantastic schools. I will give the badges to you shortly, Mr Deputy Speaker. My favourite one says: “I run like a girl—try to keep up”. I thought you might like that one. It was fantastic to see so many young women asking about politics, being interested and wanting to get involved.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) talked about the trade union culture. When I was a council leader, it was always easier to protect the rights of the bin men than to promote the rights of our dinner ladies and others who worked in traditionally female roles. I could not get away with not mentioning Mary Turner, whose memorial service was held in no less a place than St Paul’s cathedral. She broke every single glass ceiling, and she was a huge inspiration to many of us here. Her first battle in the workplace was to get Marigold gloves, so that women did not have to do the washing up without them. She said that that was one of the hardest battles; after that, she became quite battle-hardened. She went on to be president of a union and to play an extremely important role in promoting equality in the trade union movement, and of course in Parliament; that is one of the fantastic ways in which people come into Parliament.

Hillsborough

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am very happy to join the hon. Gentleman in doing just that. He is absolutely right to draw our attention to the fact that many of the supporters came from all parts of the country. As he said, they are now part of the Merseyside family.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Does the Home Secretary accept that, although she gave us a long, miserable litany of organisations that failed—organisations whose very essence is supposed to be about securing our safety—one institution shines through gloriously? That is the family, and particularly the families of those who were killed at Hillsborough. Does she accept that whatever we try to say in this House, we say it inadequately, but that we share in the sympathy and admiration of the whole country for those families who had to fight throughout this case? I would like to thank her, the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and the then Bishop of Liverpool, James Jones, for making the triumph of these families possible.

Concluding her statement, the Home Secretary read out the list of possible charges that might now follow. Although this will be a chilling task in itself, it will be an even greater chill for us if—as I hope, please God—we see through the necessary reform programme for great institutions that we thought were unquestionably on our side, but which were on somebody else’s side on that fateful day.

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman raises a number of points. He is absolutely right that it will be necessary for us to stand back and look at how this happened and why 27 years have been allowed to pass before we have come to this point. This might mean taking a very difficult look, as he said, at some of the institutions that people expect to protect them but simply did the opposite on this occasion.