Oral Answers to Questions
Kate Green Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
Some women asylum seekers end up on the detained fast-track procedure because they have been reluctant to disclose sexual violence and abuse. How can Ministers ensure that the system will be sensitive to such women’s experiences?
Mr Harper
One of the things that the UK Border Agency is attempting to do is make sure that the system is more sensitive to those who have suffered sexual violence and have been trafficked. It has recently published some information about how it goes about doing that through training its front-line officers and its caseworkers. I take that matter very seriously, and will ensure that the UK Border Agency pays great attention to it. If the hon. Lady has any particular concerns about specific cases, I am of course happy to discuss them with her at any time.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kate Green Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Browne
As I said earlier, the Home Office has compiled statistics on recorded hate crimes in England and Wales for the first time. Only 4% of hate crimes were based on religion—the vast majority were race-based—but we take all hate crimes very seriously, and where we can further improve not only the compilation of data but the practical consequences and the way in which that information is used to tackle such crimes, we shall do so. I shall give serious consideration to the hon. Gentleman’s comments.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
The Minister will be aware that later this week the Government will propose an amendment to the Equality Act 2010 which would remove the good-relations duty from the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Does the Minister share my fear that that will weaken attempts to attack hate crime and to promote harmony between different sections of the community?
Mr Browne
No, I would not draw that conclusion, but I assure the hon. Lady and every other Member that we are very serious about tackling hate crime. It takes many different forms, and we want to ensure that robust procedures are in place to ensure that the police take effective action.
Domestic Violence
Kate Green Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
Thank you for allowing me to open the debate, Mr Williams, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I am grateful for the opportunity to debate an important topic that, sadly, I have become all too familiar with since entering Parliament. I, and all MPs no doubt, often meet the victims of domestic abuse, in constituency surgeries or other settings, and also regularly meet those who work with the victims. The topic is one of immense sensitivity, which throws up a range of different and difficult issues that make tackling domestic abuse extremely challenging, in specific cases and overall.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) and especially my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee), who had hoped to lead this debate and must take credit for securing it. Both of them will be following it with interest, and I pay tribute to their work on this important issue. I also pay tribute to the huge number of people, especially volunteers, from around the country who devote time and much more to be there for the victims of domestic violence. Their work is commendable beyond words, and I want to put on the record how highly we appreciate their work and that we recognise it in Parliament.
I hope that the debate will provide an opportunity for hon. Members to express their concerns about areas where not all is being done to protect the victims of domestic abuse. The Government are concerned about such violence and are already offering a huge amount of support. I look forward to the Minister’s response to the debate.
Domestic violence is close to my heart, because I have seen at first hand how it tears families, communities and people apart. Those who have followed my short career in Parliament will know about the Justice for Jane campaign, which has been successful in changing the law better to protect women and men who may be the victims of domestic abuse.
On 28 June 2011, I introduced a Bill to change bail laws, following the murder of Jane Clough, a nurse who lived in Barrowford in my constituency. She was murdered by her abusive partner, Jonathan Vass, for having the courage to speak to the police about the repeated rape and other abuse to which he subjected her. He had been released on bail by a judge, against the advice of the Crown Prosecution Service and the police, when he tracked Jane down and killed her, stabbing her 71 times and then slitting her throat as she lay bleeding on the ground.
My Bail (Amendment) Bill would have conferred on the prosecution a right of appeal against controversial judicial decisions to grant bail—a right that did not exist at the time. In October 2011, almost a year ago and following a hard-fought campaign, the Government agreed to support the Bill, and this year they introduced amendments to achieve its aim to protect the victims of domestic violence in future.
The provisions of my private Member’s Bill are, thankfully, now law. That was a huge achievement for Jane’s parents, John and Penny Clough, and all those involved in the Justice for Jane campaign. The courage shown by John and Penny in the face of such a terrible loss has been incredible. I raise the case to demonstrate one of the barriers, thankfully now removed, that existed for victims of domestic violence when they tried to protect themselves. I hope that this debate will shine a light on other barriers faced by victims and how the Government and we in Parliament can help them to overcome them.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman is opening such an important debate this morning, and I echo his recognition and acknowledgement of Jane Clough’s family’s fight to improve the law. Does he agree that it is shocking that as many as 20-plus incidents of domestic violence may occur before a victim has the courage and confidence to report it? Does he also agree that there is real urgency for action to address that?
Andrew Stephenson
I agree totally with the hon. Lady. Lancashire probation service told me only yesterday that it estimates that an average of 35 incidents of domestic violence occur before a victim contacts anyone—the police or another agency—for help.
East Lancashire has considerable support for victims of domestic violence, and I have had the benefit of visiting some of the centres that offer advice and support to victims. Pendle women’s refuge has been open for 25 years. It is run by Pendle borough council, and extended its facilities six years ago. Sixty families have been accommodated at the refuge in the past year, but there were 178 applications in the same period, with many cases involving problems such as substance misuse and severe mental health issues. Despite the problem of resources, refuge staff try to accommodate as many families as possible.
Andrew Stephenson
I thank the hon. Lady for that incredibly important point. The Government are doing an awful lot of work to ensure that the abuser is now made homeless, rather than the victim, because for so many years in domestic violence cases, reporting the abuse led directly to homelessness for the victim. That was the immediate consequence, and it was a huge issue associated with domestic violence that needed to be addressed.
Another concern is the uneven service around the country. As I have explained, in my area, voluntary agencies and Government agencies are working together to provide a very good service. In the north-west as a whole, we are very well supported. As a parliamentary answer in July informed the House, the north-west will have 12 Government-funded independent sexual violence advisers—ISVAs—from next year. However, London will have only eight and the north-east only six. That seems like an imbalance.
Back in January 2009, a report from the campaign group End Violence Against Women found that one in four local authorities in Britain had no specialised support services for women who had suffered violence. I hope that the Minister can provide us with an update on improved access throughout the country. Perhaps the new police and crime commissioners will want to deal with those regional imbalances when they get into office.
There is also a concern that the services available can focus solely on the woman as the direct victim of domestic abuse and often fail to take into consideration the impact on other members of the family, especially children. Research by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children estimates that 14% of children under the age of 18 will have been exposed to domestic violence in the UK and cites research studies that estimate that, in 30% to 60% of domestic violence cases, the abusive partner also abuses children in the family. Where domestic violence is present, rates of child abuse and neglect are up to 15 times higher than the national average.
Kate Green
The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the fact that members of the wider family are affected. Does he share my concern that one consequence of local authority funding cuts is that work with the perpetrators of domestic violence is increasingly coming under pressure and programmes are being closed? Does he agree that, as much as we work with the victim and the victim’s immediate family, we need to focus attention on preventing such violence from happening in the first place?
Andrew Stephenson
We definitely do. That is a valid point. One reason why I am talking in particular about the effect on children is that many of the children who see domestic violence at home and for whom that becomes almost a normal daily routine will go on to abuse their children or become violent themselves. We therefore need to consider the wider societal impacts of domestic violence in the home.
A report published in July by the Centre for Social Justice if anything paints an even worse picture than the NSPCC. The CSJ claims that 25% of children in the UK witness domestic violence. It emphasises the psychological damage caused to children and the cycle of abuse, as generations repeat that parental behaviour. It points out that almost two thirds of child witnesses of domestic abuse show more emotional or behavioural problems than the average child. The damage can extend to post-traumatic stress disorder and, less predictably, can even affect IQ levels. The CSJ claims that, on average, children with experience of domestic abuse are 7.25 points lower than others. One of the report’s authors, Dr Samantha Callan, summed it up by saying:
“The impact on children of being a witness of domestic abuse is underplayed even though they are more likely to fail at school, develop anti-social behaviour and go on to harm their own children.”
The report made several recommendations to improve children’s outcomes in domestic abuse cases, including therapeutic provision for children in schools, proactive help for children who have witnessed abuse—instead of the reactive approach of waiting for signs of mental health problems—and better training for social workers.
We have not mentioned the violence that happens within teenage relationships. Again, according to a recent NSPCC report, 25% of girls and 18% of boys report experiencing some form of physical violence from a partner, 11% of girls and 4% of boys report severe physical violence and 72% of girls and 51% of boys report some form of emotional violence from their partner.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
I am pleased to speak in the debate. As we have already heard, domestic violence is unlike any other crime. Home is where we are supposed to be safe. If we are mugged in the street, are in a car crash or are robbed at work, we go home, but for victims of domestic violence, home is where they are most unsafe. A common theme for perpetrators of violence is that it is the victim’s fault—“If only you were a better wife, mother, lover, cook, cleaner, this would not happen to you.” Women end up harmed not only physically, but psychologically, with their confidence at rock bottom and trust gone.
As has been said, it often takes many attempts for a woman finally to leave her partner. They may leave and go back, and leave and go back, which can be extremely frustrating for those trying to support people going through that process. We must recognise the difficulty; they are leaving someone who has been a fundamental part of their life, whom they loved—or still love—and who may be the father or mother of their children. When they finally take that step, the most important aspect is to ensure that they stay safe and build a new life. Many women have to move many miles away from their home and from all their networks of friends and family.
Bolton is lucky to have two fantastic domestic violence projects. One is the Fortalice refuge, which not only provides a roof, but counselling, support, education projects and play and youth work for the children. Children are of course themselves traumatised. They have had to leave their home, friends, family and possibly pets, and will also have been witnesses to domestic violence. Whether or not they have actually seen the mum or dad being hit, if they are in the house, they will know very well that something is going on—they hear the screams and see the bruises the next morning. Such children need support. Fortalice can provide play and youth workers who support the children and do therapeutic work to help them through their trauma.
The completeness of the project, with counselling, education and support for children, is at risk from funding cuts. It is also at risk due to the possibility of the services being retendered, with cheaper providers having to be used, and due to the universal credit and housing benefit changes, which will mean that the refuges are less viable.
Kate Green
My hon. Friend mentioned retendering services. Does she agree that a concern of the specialist providers is that generic providers, which can perhaps provide the services more cheaply, are increasingly coming into the market, but they do not have the same experience and sensitivity that is so important for protecting victims of domestic abuse?
Julie Hilling
I absolutely agree. It is important that experts work with people who are experiencing domestic violence, whether they be men or women. I agree with the hon. Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) that there is not enough support or refuges for male victims of domestic violence. We need experts who are extremely aware of what happens to victims of domestic violence and who have the skills to work with such people to build their confidence and help them through the traumas they have experienced. Just another housing provider coming in will mean that such holistic services will not be the same, and we risk that happening.
Bolton does not have any spaces for male victims of domestic violence. We have only hostels for them to go to, where they will often be with people who are drug or alcohol users. It is not an environment where they can feel safe, build confidence and access support. We clearly need to do more work that area.
Another project in Bolton is Paws for Kids—a misnomer in many ways, because everybody thinks that it is an animal charity, and part of it is. It started as a rescue service for the pets of women experiencing domestic violence. Many women will not leave their homes because they are frightened for the animals that they would leave behind. Pets cannot be taken into refuges. Paws for Kids started by providing a pet fostering service, and it has developed. It now has independent domestic violence advisers and a safe haven project. A woman goes into a refuge, gets support and is then re-housed, but, as I said earlier, she will often be re-housed in an area where she has no contacts whatsoever—no friends and no family. It is one of the riskiest times for a woman to return to a violent partner, and the Paws for Kids safe haven project provides support, friendship and activities for women to settle back into the community.
Paws for Kids is at risk. It gets funding from various streams, but its main funding is disappearing. In the past it had money from the Department of Health, the Home Office and the local authority, but it is at risk of losing its IDVAs next April. One of its IDVAs works particularly with ethnic minority women in Bolton. That post currently has no funding whatsoever. We know that women have been hard hit by the Government’s actions, and no more so than in the field of domestic violence. We need to ensure that funding is coming through to support such projects.
I spoke to representatives from Paws for Kids this morning. They said. “If you’re going to say anything, please talk to MPs about the need for a joined-up approach and support across the piece.” Paws for Kids is working with vets to get them to pass on information to women or report problems. Often, a dog that is a repeat returner to the vet is being abused. Perpetrators of domestic violence use pets as weapons—in fact, they use all sorts of things as weapons. We need the joined-up approach. It is not enough to have just a refuge, a safe haven or a pet fostering service; it is about how we join up services to ensure that women and men are supported through their whole journey.
I will be interested to hear what the Minister says about how he will ensure that there is funding going forward for all such services, so that victims of domestic violence are not doubly disadvantaged, not only by being victims, but by being unable to get the support they badly need.
Paul Maynard
I might just about accept what the hon. Lady says, but I regret the overtone of class rhetoric that she allowed to creep into her comment. Blackpool North and Cleveleys is an area with a high degree of social deprivation, and the vast bulk of the issues that I encounter on the doorstep are a function of poverty. I accept that domestic violence happens across the classes, and across all divides; but where, in my constituency, it is really a problem that holds back children’s achievement in school, it is a function of poverty. That is why the Prime Minister’s attempts to deal with the troubled families issue should be welcomed and not dismissed as an exercise in class politics.
Perhaps I may explain a little more clearly why the issue is of interest. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston made the point about refuges having to retender; however, I suggest that local authorities should take a broader view and consider the outputs of refuge centres and, as 4Children suggests adopt a payment-by-results approach to reducing family violence. That is in its policy document.
Kate Green
One of the problems for refuges, in achieving that, is that often they work with women for very short periods. Women may spend only days in the refuge. It is important that we should not rush down the route of a payment-by-results model, which might put the emergence of provision under even further financial pressure.
Women (Global Economy)
Kate Green Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Turner, for calling me to speak. It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) in this debate. She has to go off to a Public Bill Committee. I hope that you, Mr Turner, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who is the shadow Minister for Equalities, the Minister for Equalities and my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) will all forgive me as I have to go off to a Select Committee soon, so I will be unable to stay for the wind-up speeches. I apologise in advance for that.
In all honesty, I was not intending to speak in this debate. When I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West speak, I was even less keen, given how much research she has done on this subject. She made a fantastic speech and clearly knows her stuff. I have not done any research at all, Mr Turner, so I would not want you to compare my speech with that of my hon. Friend, because it certainly will not compare. However, the things that she said have prompted me to make a few points.
I commend my hon. Friend because, as I said in one of my interventions, her work with “If Chloe Can” is truly inspirational to lots of girls. She attended a theatre production, when “If Chloe Can” made its debut in the west end, and saw a thousand schoolgirls from many deprived parts of London hugely excited, not only by the production by the National Youth Theatre—which I also compliment—but by seeing some fantastic women from all walks of life whom she had persuaded to attend. Those women talked about their life stories and encouraged those girls to think they could achieve something with their lives and achieve their ambitions if they set out to do so, irrespective of their backgrounds. All that is inspirational.
The work that my hon. Friend has done in pursuing that aim is truly amazing. Lots of people in politics talk a good game, but I must say that there are not that many who go through the motions of doing something. She does not just talk about things; she goes out and does the things I have described, quietly getting on with it. She should be commended greatly for the work that she does. I say that even though she only half-agreed with my opening intervention, but I will overlook that fact for now.
I will talk about a couple of things. My hon. Friend talked about the pay gap between men and women in their late 30s and 40s, which contrasts with the situation when they are in their 20s. It struck me that there was something rather inevitable about that particular problem, and I am not entirely sure that anything can be done—or indeed, should be done—to address it.
If a man carries on working through his 20s and 30s, one hopes that he will progress in his job, whereas a woman may have made her own choice to leave work to have a child before coming back to work later. It would be bizarre if the woman came back on the same pay or higher pay than the man who had been slaving away for an extra 10 or 15 years in that particular company. It seems to me that some of these things, whether they are right or wrong, are simply inevitable and are not a matter for the Government to start interfering with. They simply reflect the inevitability of life.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I am always interested in hearing what the hon. Gentleman has to say on this subject. Although I understand the argument he is making about the impact of taking time out of the workplace, does he accept that one potential solution to the problem he describes is to share the time out of the workplace more equitably between fathers and mothers, and to take measures to promote that sharing of time away from work?
Philip Davies
The hon. Lady makes a fair point. The bit that I am not particularly convinced about is that even if we equalise the opportunities for men and women to take time off work to look after children, my guess—I am not an expert in these matters, but this is my guess—is that through nature women will be more likely to want to take that time off work than men. I could be completely wrong, but that is my guess. We can equalise the opportunity as much as possible, but I suspect that even if we did so, women would be much more likely to take maternity leave than men would be to take paternity leave.
Philip Davies
The hon. Lady may disagree and if the Government implement such a scheme, we will see what happens. I hope that, if the Government do so and what I say proves to be true, she will come back and acknowledge that that was the case, rather than sticking to her sort of feminist dogma, which is not really wedded to the real world.
However, I agree with some of the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe made about child care and its regulation. We seem to have an obsession in this country with making every job in the world a job that someone needs a degree to do. One of the latest examples of that is childminding. When parents look for a childminder, the most important factor—it would certainly be the most important factor for me regarding my children—is that their children are happy and safe, and that they are in a happy and safe environment. Whether or not the childminder has a degree is of no consequence to me whatever.
The Government have to start trusting parents a lot more. Parents are perfectly capable of deciding who is a good childminder and who is not without the Government imposing unnecessary regulations on the child care sector and making people have increasingly large amounts of qualifications that are totally unnecessary. The Government should just let parents get on with choosing the right childminder for their children, which may end up being cheaper, thereby allowing women to return to work.
However, there is scope for helping children with child care. My starting point is that so many people in this country seem to have decided that they do not want to work that when people clearly want to work, the Government should be out there, giving them as much support as possible so that they can. If there are lots of women who would prefer to go out to work and who want to achieve something in life, there is a role for the Government in trying to make that process as easy as possible.
I should say in passing that I do not think that it is useful to frown on those women who want not to go out to work but to stay at home and bring up their children. They should be encouraged to do so and they should not be looked down on by others for making that choice. The issue is that we should help people to fulfil their ambitions and to make the choices that they want to make.
I also want to touch on maternity leave and the kinds of regulations that apply. I do not think that anybody objects to the principle of maternity leave, but we should be rather careful because lots of things that can be well meaning and that seem, on the face of it, to be a good thing for women can end up, in practical terms, being a barrier for women.
Whether people like it or not, and whether other hon. Members in this room want to acknowledge it or not, I suspect that there are still many people in businesses out there who look at a woman of a certain age, see how old they are—perhaps somebody in their late 20s, who has recently married—and think to themselves, “Hold on a minute. If I take this person on, the chances are that they will be leaving to have a child and I will be having a huge disruption to my business, and possibly a huge cost as well. I will find it very difficult to replace this person, particularly for a fixed period of time.”
As a result, that businessperson may not give that woman that particular opportunity, although otherwise they would have done. We have to guard against these well-meaning schemes that are not actually providing opportunities for women, but providing barriers to women getting a job in the workplace. Before anyone runs away with the idea that it is just male employers who will think like that, I should say that I suspect that female employers are just as prone to make that kind of decision as male employers are.
We have got to look at certain companies. For my sins, before I entered Parliament I used to work for Asda. For a company such as Asda, regulations and obligations are meat and drink. Asda employs 140,000 people, so having people take time off for maternity leave is absolutely no problem at all. In fact, many companies of that size will make a point of offering enhanced employment terms as a way of attracting the best people to work for them, because they can afford to allow people to take time off.
I ask you, Mr Turner, to bear in mind those companies that employ one or two people. If a small businessman employs two people and one person takes off an ever-increasing amount of time, that causes huge disruption to their business—there may not even be a successful business for that woman to go back to, given the disruption and cost incurred. Nobody objects to the Government’s wanting to introduce measures that genuinely help people, including women, in the workplace, but we should be very careful about going over the top in imposing too many onerous conditions on businesses that will end up having exactly the opposite outcome to the one intended.
If the Government want to help women in the global economy and help them to fulfil their potential, the way to do that is exactly the way that my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West has been going about doing it, which is to provide people with role models and to show them how they can achieve their goals, irrespective of their background. It is to show them that even people who leave school with very few qualifications can achieve their goals if they have the right characteristics and the right determination to go about their lives. I urge the Government to do those encouraging things and not to go down a politically correct route with quotas and other such things.
All we want—all I want, certainly—is for people to be given jobs and opportunities on merit and merit alone. If we believe in true equality, surely we should be gender-blind; it should be irrelevant whether someone is male or female. I could not care less whether the board of a company has 95% men or 95% women. All we should care about is that they are the best people for the job and for the company. It will not advance women if the Government go down the route of having quotas for this and quotas for that and politically correct decision making; that will make people feel that women have got to where they are only through some situation that has been concocted to achieve a particular outcome. That does not do women any good; it does no one any favours. Everyone has to feel that everyone has got there on the same basis, and that basis should always be merit.
I commend what my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West has done in pursuing the agenda of merit and in allowing women to fulfil their ambitions and dreams, and I hope that the Government follow that model rather than trying to have some “get equal quick” scheme, which would not advance women at all but advance political correctness and build up huge resentment among the public. I will now allow the Front-Bench spokespeople to have their say. I apologise again for having to leave for my Select Committee.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to participate in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Turner.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) on securing what has been an engrossing debate. She is absolutely right to set as her territory the celebration of the socio-economic achievements of women in this country and across the world. As I listened to her speech, I was struck by how much our shared experience as women unites us right across the world, in both developed and developing economies.
In the workplace, in business and in the family, in our role as caregivers and managers of the household and its finances, and in our role in our communities, women’s experience is the same right across the world. It is important to recognise that the structural barriers to women’s advancement in this country are different not in kind but in degree from those experienced by women in other economies, and that measures taken to dismantle them will have global applicability. It is absolutely right that we should seek to dismantle the barriers, for exactly the reasons that the hon. Member for Wirral West highlighted in quoting Plato, that proto-feminist—the personal fulfilment of women and men, and the benefits for our world and for society as a whole.
I want to highlight some structural issues, a number of which have not been mentioned in the debate but are important. The hon. Members for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) and for Shipley (Philip Davies), who unfortunately have had to leave the debate, raised some of these issues and contributed interestingly to the discussion.
Despite progress in women’s socio-economic position, which the hon. Member for Wirral West rightly highlighted, there is still a clear difference between the income made and assets held by women and men, although to some degree that is mitigated by cash transfer programmes, which are effective in supporting women’s financial positions and those of their children—if women have money, they spend it on their families. In many developing economies, there are still limitations on women’s property rights. It is important that we have strategies to address those economic, income and wealth inequalities, and that we keep up a clear line of sight on progress.
Several hon. Members rightly highlighted the importance of access to education as a route to well paid jobs. Across the world, women are typically in less secure, more vulnerable and less well-paid employment, often because they work in sectors of the economy in which pay and conditions are poorer. Education is clearly an important answer to that segregation and employment disadvantage, and it is key, therefore, that we look at whether our education system addresses that inherent segregation.
The hon. Member for Wirral West pointed to the progress in the participation of women in chemistry studies but, regrettably, we do not see the same picture across all the STEM subjects. In engineering, maths and IT, women are under-represented after the age of 16, and in computer science the position is worse than it was 20 years ago. The same picture is also seen in the much-fêted Nordic countries. We need strategies in our schools to address the education choices made by young women as they approach further and higher education, and schools themselves must think more creatively and imaginatively about career routes for women, and encourage girls to progress down them.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Shipley has had to leave the debate, although I understand why, because I want to pick up on a couple of his points. On women as mothers, and on how that inhibits their labour market participation, he suggested that part of the problem was some of the maternity rights that have been secured—after considerable fighting, to which the Minister has, in the recent past, contributed.
What determines women’s unpopularity with the kind of employers that the hon. Gentleman characterised is not the right to maternity leave but the fact that they can become mothers at all. Removing the right to maternity leave would not increase the propensity of such employers to take on women; they would simply not employ them in the first place. It is right that we should establish an institutional requirement that women who have contributed to an employer’s business, have skilled up to be able to make that contribution and have a continuing contribution to offer should have their ability to return to their employment assured. As we know, retention of staff is a cost-effective way for employers to operate their businesses, so there is an employer advantage as well.
It is also important that we design shared parenting arrangements in a way that genuinely facilitates equal parenting by women and men. We await the Government’s response to their modern workplaces consultation, and I am concerned that any plans for redesigning parental leave should take account of what we know is effective in ensuring that both women and men are likely to take up leave entitlement. Much depends on whether the leave is paid, and women, but particularly men, find it extremely difficult to take parental or paternity leave if there is no income replacement. It is also important to recognise that it is absolutely right to protect a certain period of maternity leave only for mothers, because of pregnant women and new mothers’ health and well-being needs.
I was interested in the statistics on women in senior positions that the hon. Member for Wirral West highlighted. She cited a number of disappointing statistics from the public sector, but in many ways the position is even worse in the private sector; only 15% of FTSE 100 companies have a woman on their board. I congratulate the Government on their work over the past year or so to influence a change in behaviour at board level in our leading companies, and it is good to see some of that bearing fruit.
I hope that the next thing that the other political parties would like to learn from—I am thinking about what genuinely advances women into positions of influence—is the Labour party’s success in significantly increasing female parliamentary representation through the use of all-women shortlists. I would say to the hon. Member for Shipley that of course we want people to advance on merit, but we must first ensure that they are advancing from a level playing field; too often, as I am sure the Minister would agree, women are not.
I was interested in the points made by the hon. Member for Wirral West about encouraging more women to become entrepreneurs and start new businesses. We absolutely want to encourage that, both in this country and around the world. Much of the difficulty that women experience in starting a new business relates to factors such as lenders’ perceptions. Interesting experiments have been done in the developing world with microfinance and access to credit, and they could be translated into this country. I hope that the Government will consider why only 25% of their enterprise allowance is taken up by women and whether more can be done to encourage women entrepreneurs to take advantage of it.
This debate has rightly discussed women’s role as care givers. Lack of access to child care is inhibiting girls’ and women’s participation and economic success. We still hear, for example, of girls being forced out of education when they become pregnant or are unable to access child care. The hon. Members for Broxtowe and for Shipley both suggested that the answer to the lack of affordable child care was to diminish regulation. I warn the Minister and her colleagues in the Government to be cautious about that.
I am proud of the progress made under Labour to increase the supply of child care. Between 1997 and 2009, we went from one place for every nine children under the age of eight to one place for every three. We massively increased child-care supply. I am pleased that the coalition Government are continuing down the track of creating more places for two-year-olds, but I urge Ministers strongly not to weaken quality through deregulation.
A strong body of evidence suggests that good-quality child care and early-years interventions are the most important factor in improving long-term outcomes, especially for the poorest children highlighted by the hon. Member for Broxtowe. In the Netherlands, where steps were taken to deregulate the provision of child- minding services, the adverse impact on children’s outcomes has led the Dutch Government to reverse their decision. I hope that Ministers learn from that.
Finally, I will mention a couple of issues that did not come up in this morning’s debate but are important to women’s participation as global economic actors. Violence against women continues to be a major issue. Of course, if a woman is suffering violence and abuse, that is likely to affect her economic and educational performance as well as being a fundamental attack on her human rights. All Governments have rightly given the issue considerable attention. It is not confined to our country; we must fight and address it around the world, as well as addressing women’s voices and autonomy to control and determine choices relating to their own lives.
I could highlight many such choices. We have discussed educational choices, but we have not talked much about health and reproductive choices, or women’s opportunity to shape their own communities and whether or not they can secure political participation. It is important that the right institutional structures are in place to ensure that women’s voices can be heard and are given a legitimate place in the public political process. The Beijing platform for action for the advancement of women is a useful framework in which to do so. If the Minister has time, I would be interested to hear, now that we no longer have the Women’s National Commission, how she thinks the institutional machinery will work to preserve women’s institutional political influence in the UK.
It has been a pleasure to participate in this debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wirral West and all speakers on their consideration of an interesting and worthwhile set of issues. It is important that we continue to celebrate women as decision makers and women’s participation in the economy, family life and their communities, and continue to strive for their continuing advancement—not just for women’s sake, but for the good of our society as a whole.
Family Migration
Kate Green Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
What discussions has the Home Secretary had with her colleague the children’s Minister, the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather), about the implications of the announcement on the best interests of children? Will the Home Secretary assure me that when she publishes the draft regulations and the Government’s impact assessment there will be a full analysis of the implications for compliance with the UN convention on the rights of the child?
Protection of Freedoms Bill
Kate Green Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Hanson
Yes; my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) has dealt with this matter in Committee and throughout the Bill’s passage, and that is the position of the official Opposition.
We note the amendments proposed in the other place by the Government, and there has been some recognition that the original clauses as drafted were far too onerous, as they needed both parents to give written consent for biometric data to be taken from the child. The amendments also correct an omission, by recognising that not all children have parents, and that those with caring responsibilities needed to be included in this provision for it to be able to work effectively. However, we also note that one parent can still overrule the consent of the other in agreeing for the child to give biometric data, which, again, can cause confusion for schools. We think that, overall, this policy is still unwieldy and unmanageable for most schools.
Furthermore, we do not believe that allowing a child to override their parents’ wish to allow biometric data to be taken is sensible or correct. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that that would be the case under the proposals as they currently stand. There does not appear to be any other circumstance in which a child of, for example, five years of age can overrule parental consent. Also, we note that if the parents have refused to give consent, the child is not in a position to override the parents’ wishes if the child chooses to give consent. We think that amendment (a) to Lords amendment 9 would be a further sensible step, by allowing schools to operate this policy in a more manageable way by presuming an acceptance of biometric data being taken if no contact is made by the parents or carers once they have been notified.
I welcome Lords amendment 27. It gives a more prominent role to Parliament. As I have argued previously, it would be appropriate for the Government to lay an order before the House in order to ensure that these matters are dealt with during recesses or general election campaigns. It is important that the Government lay an order before the House, but it is also important that the Government make a statement as to the purposes of the order. I seek assurances from the Minister that he will not lay any order before the House without making a statement to the House explaining the reasons for seeking an order in those exceptional circumstances.
I have concerns about Lords amendment 28. It will allow the Government to withdraw temporary extensions to anti-terror measures without any parliamentary procedure at all. The effect will be to demand that the Government must seek parliamentary approval when strengthening anti-terror measures, but that they can weaken anti-terror measures without consulting Parliament. I heard the Minister’s explanation of that. Temporary extension will be brought in only during times of exceptional risk and the individuals held under these measures will be considered a serious threat to national security. Therefore, if Parliament has had to decide that these measures are necessary in the first instance, Parliament should also get to decide that these powers are no longer necessary. There is no more important issue than protecting the public, but we must have an explanation and an order placed before the House when these powers are revoked.
I accept that our amendment is flawed and does not achieve the objective I would wish, but there are major issues in respect of the retention of DNA which the Minister should, even at this late stage, reconsider and re-examine in detail. I hope he will also answer the questions I asked about counter-terrorism and biometrics in school.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I wish to raise one specific issue in relation to Lords amendment 3, and I put on the record my interest as a life member of the Magistrates Association. Ministers propose that the possible holding of DNA on the database beyond the period covered by the legislation could be agreed on application to a district judge. My understanding is that they have drawn on the experience in Scotland, where agreement from the sheriff and the sheriff courts is required. Has consideration been given to extending that provision to cover justices of the peace who are members of the lay magistracy? Unlike in Scotland, the magistrates court works as a single bench; there is no hierarchical difference or difference in terms of courts between district judges and lay magistrates.
James Brokenshire
We have carefully considered the issue of the balance between the lay magistracy and the more professional judiciary. On the specific issues in question, we judge that because of the likely number of cases and the role required, the current measures are the right ones. However, we will continue to keep this under review as the legislation comes into effect and is applied.
Kate Green
I thank the Minister for that assurance, and I certainly hope the situation will be kept under review. District judges are paid members of the magistracy, and I am sure the Minister is not suggesting that there is less professionalism in the quality of judgments of the lay magistracy.
Keith Vaz
First, may I apologise for missing the opening speeches in this debate? I imagine, however, that they followed the usual form, with the Minister saying there are real problems with the retention of names on the database and the Opposition saying they ought to be retained because of the possibility that someone whose DNA is retained may well commit an offence in future, so it is better to hang on to it than to get rid of it.
My attention was drawn to this matter when a constituent of mine who had no previous convictions was at a pub and intervened to prevent a fight between two individuals. As a result of his intervention, his DNA was retained, and remains on the database. To be fair, the shadow Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), said it was important that Parliament as a whole should debate this issue. My position is that if someone has not committed an offence, their DNA should not be retained on the database. There is absolutely no reason to do so. We can either have a position, as set out by the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards)—as I doubted whether I could pronounce his constituency, I almost called him the hon. Member for the whole of Wales—under which everyone is on the DNA database, so that is fair to everybody, or we can have a position whereby only the DNA of those who have committed an offence are on the database.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kate Green Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Damian Green
I regret to say that my hon. Friend is correct. At a time when the reporting of other kinds of hate crime has declined, the latest figures, which are for 2010, show that the number of hate crimes against disabled people went up from 1,294 to 1,569. He is therefore addressing the right problem. It is the “report it” part of the action plan that I would point to, because more disabled people are reporting hate crimes to the police. We know that under-reporting is a huge problem, and one of the key themes of the action plan is to encourage more victims to come forward. We are doing that by allowing new ways of reporting such crimes, such as online and through third parties.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Minister for that answer and to the Government for their attention to hate crime. He will be aware that learning-disabled people are often particularly reluctant to report such crimes because they feel that they will not be believed. What steps are the Government taking to encourage all professionals to take all accusations of hate crime from such victims seriously?
Damian Green
The hon. Lady makes a very good point. That is why, as part of the action plan that the Minister for Equalities announced recently, the Home Office is funding organisations that support the victims of disability hate crime to find a way to make it easier for those who are particularly reluctant to report it to come forward.
International Women’s Day
Kate Green Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I start by echoing the remark made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) that it is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair for this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) and other hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), on their efforts to secure the debate. I also want to thank the Backbench Business Committee for making time for it to take place on international women’s day. It is absolutely right that we should allocate time in the parliamentary calendar to mark this special day each year.
Hon. Members have rightly drawn our attention this afternoon to a whole range of national and global issues that affect women. It has been clear that common themes and experiences unite all women, here and around the world. They include women’s democratic representation, their economic independence, their access to health and maternity care, their choice of when and whether to form a family, and their right to freedom from fear and violence. Those concerns unite women right across the world, yet still, here at home, there are shortcomings that the Government have an obligation to address.
Ministers have taken the opportunity today to publish an update to the violence against women action plan, and I welcome the attention and priority that the Government continue to give to this issue. I hope that Ministers will also take the opportunity to read the Labour women’s safety commission report entitled “Everywoman Safe Everywhere”, which has also been published to mark international women’s day. The report was published following the establishment of a commission by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) last November, after we had identified concerns that the criminal law was not strong enough to protect women and punish perpetrators, and in response to reports that vital services on which women rely were being closed.
We were shocked at what we discovered. We identified significant cuts to provisions that keep women safe, and chaos in commissioning resulting in the loss of specialist services and expertise. We found that preventive work in schools, and with perpetrators, was under threat. It is also ironic that, on international women’s day, there should be an announcement of further cuts in the number of railway station staff, which will make women feel more vulnerable when they are out and about. Furthermore, 500,000 street lights are being turned off at night to reduce costs. In identifying those concerns, our commission has been able only to scratch surface. We are therefore calling on the Minister to carry out an audit across the country to assess exactly what is happening in every local community so that she can fulfil her responsibility as a Minister to keep every woman safe.
I welcome the Government’s announcement today of their intention to sign the European convention. I am concerned, however, that 10 months down the line, they are still only working towards signing it, but it is none the less good to hear that intention confirmed today. In the past, they have tried to water down the convention—for example, by limiting its provisions so that they would apply only in peacetime. There is also a lack of clarity on the Government’s stance on forced marriage. The hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) highlighted some of these issues in her speech. It would be useful if the Minister could clarify the Government’s intentions in relation to signing the convention. When can we expect that to happen and, importantly, when do Ministers intend to give effect to its provisions?
Ministers have also today announced new provisions on stalking, but campaigners might feel disappointed because it is not clear that the new measures will be any stronger in practice than the terms of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Will the new offence, which is to carry a six-month sentence, be heard only in magistrates courts, or will it be triable either way? Will she explain how the new offence relating to “fear of violence” is different from that covered in section 4 of the existing Act, which the police have confirmed they have had difficulty using to prove the existence of fear of violence? Will the Minister tell us how many convictions occurred last year under that Act and how much more effective she expects the new legislation to be?
There is still much that we need to do to protect, improve and promote the interests and well-being of women in this country and around the world.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Does the hon. Lady realise that the issue of women in prison has not been raised in the debate? It is an area on which the Corston report was making good progress—and I hope that this Government will make good progress on it, too.
Kate Green
As I am sure all hon. Members do, I greatly admire the work of the noble Baroness Corston on women in prison. One suggestion she made, which would have drawn this whole agenda together, was the appointment of a champion for women within the penal system. It would be very encouraging—I hope the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) would agree—if Ministers adopted that suggestion, ensuring that an individual was charged with giving priority attention to women in custody and within the penal system.
Although I welcome today’s debate and the many powerful contributions from hon. Members, I say that women should not have to wait—not even until the 102nd international women’s day—for measures to secure their safety, economic position and well-being. When we come to celebrate next year’s international women’s day, I hope we will celebrate far greater progress for women’s equality—both here at home and right across the world.
Parliamentary Representation
Kate Green Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to respond to a debate which, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) said, has been characterised by so much harmony. Across the board, beginning with the welcome opening speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), we have seen a recognition that a Parliament that is unrepresentative of the make-up of the country is, by definition, a failure of democracy. Although we can all be proud of the progress that has been made, no one can doubt that we still have a great deal to do.
Important points have been raised by hon. Members across the House about party processes and procedures for encouraging, preparing and selecting parliamentary candidates. Important points have also been made about the experiences of Members and their staff in carrying out their parliamentary duties and about the barriers that might need to be dismantled. I hope to touch on a number of the comments on those areas, which were addressed in the recommendations of the Speaker’s Conference. The recommendations covered party practices and processes to promote diversity among candidates, issues to do with meeting the costs of candidacy, on which a number of hon. Members have rightly commented, and ways of working in Parliament.
Let me start by picking up on comments about the processes to encourage more women to apply to become parliamentary candidates on the all-women shortlists. I am proud that Labour introduced all-women shortlists and I am proud of the significant improvement in female representation that we achieved as a result. I am also pleased that we took the opportunity in the Equality Act 2010, at the end of the previous Labour Government, to extend to 2030 the possibility of parties’ using all-women shortlists. However, I remind hon. Members that that is a choice for political parties and there is no sense of imposing on any party the use of all-women shortlists within the political process. None the less, it is undoubtedly a tactic that has produced a significantly improved outcome not just for my party but in setting the tone that other parties have been able to pick up and follow in seeking to meet the success we have had.
I am proud to have been selected on an all-women shortlist for my constituency. I have never felt that I needed to apologise for that or that it suggests I am in some way less capable of doing the job than any other parliamentary colleague. Indeed, I strongly suspect that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) said, few Members would be able to identify which women had been selected through an all-women shortlist once they were in this place.
There has been progress in other areas, as well as on improving the diversity of the membership of this House, and I pay tribute to the House administration for the improvement we have seen there. I particularly welcome the establishment of the workplace equality networks, which are proving effective and successful for parliamentary staff and visitors to Parliament. Other hon. Members have commented on the work of the Select Committee on Procedure in consulting on parliamentary hours and the parliamentary calendar, and I was very pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) pointed out that even the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has done its best to be more supportive. I pay tribute to a number of hon. Members in that regard, including the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie), who has done a great deal to encourage IPSA to take a wide-ranging and imaginative view of the family responsibilities that hon. Members face.
There has been progress, but there is much that we need to do to offer to MPs and their staff a working environment that bears greater resemblance to the normal working world outside Parliament. I am often told, and by no means just by those who have spent many years in the House, that that is not an apt comparison, but I strongly beg to differ. An unhealthy, dysfunctional and non-family-friendly working environment is not good for hon. Members or for our effectiveness and it is simply off-putting to many people outside Parliament who might otherwise aspire to join us. It provides a poor exemplar of good, modern behaviours and practices in employment more generally and I am very pleased that the Speaker’s Conference took notice of that specific issue.
I want to spend a couple of minutes discussing the recommendations of the Speaker’s Conference that deal with stimulating and supporting individuals from a diversity of backgrounds to come forward and be successful in seeking selection—a subject that a number of hon. Members have touched on this afternoon. The motion is right to highlight concerns about the impact of the Government’s planned changes to parliamentary constituency boundaries. I hope that all political parties and Parliament itself will take the opportunity to conduct an audit of the impact of that change so that we can be informed collectively about the steps that might need to be taken in light of those changes to secure and promote the greater diversity that might be at risk as a result.
Even if that is not a worry, the continuing under-representation in Parliament of minority and protected groups must concern us. As many parliamentary colleagues have said this afternoon, the legitimacy and effectiveness of Parliament depend on its diversity and representativeness. Political parties, parliamentarians and Parliament itself must therefore pay attention to how we attract future parliamentary candidates. As others have said, for many people in our country, the idea that they could ever enter Parliament is simply unimaginable. The consequence is that we have a Parliament that still looks too much like a place for a narrowly drawn and privileged elite.
That is the case for all political parties. It is not to say that we lack empathy or that we are not doing a good job, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South said in her opening remarks, we all bring our life experiences to Parliament. Perhaps the most eloquent contribution we heard this afternoon, which highlighted why that is important in the way we act as legislators, was the speech of the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard). He showed us powerfully how important it is that a diverse range of life experiences is reflected in the House. If those life experiences are not adequately reflected, if they are too limited, we shall inevitably have less insight. We risk making poor and poorly informed decisions, and we shall lack credibility as legislators. I hope that careful note will be taken of the recommendations of the Speaker’s Conference which will help to make entry to Parliament a real option for people from a much greater diversity of background.
In that context, I endorse the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough about education and citizenship. There is an opportunity to do more in schools and, as the Speaker’s Conference recognised, with social and community groups. Like others, I suggest that it is important that we get in early and work more proactively with young people. In that regard, I am pleased that we continue to welcome the Youth Parliament to the Chamber—I do not think that has been mentioned this afternoon. It is a great opportunity to open up to more young people the concept of representative democracy and the possibility of being part of this Parliament. I hope we continue to do that in the years to come.
I endorse the points alluded to by both the hon. Members for Blackpool North and Cleveleys and for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) about what is going on in other legislatures and Chambers. What we do in Westminster should serve as a model for local government, the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament, for the election of police and crime commissioners, for our MEPs and, for that matter, for the Youth Parliament. Indeed, as the hon. Lady pointed out, in some cases they are already outstripping us, which is not something we should be proud of.
I want finally to say a couple of things about money. Hon. and right hon. Members are right to refer to the substantial barrier it presents to people coming into this place from not just low but typical incomes. Like other Members, I very much welcome the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles in establishing the parliamentary placements initiative; it is a great opportunity for us to bring more people from low-income backgrounds into Parliament at an early age.
There are many other financial obstacles to be faced by those seeking selection, so I hope that in her response the Minister may be able to update us on the Government’s intentions in relation to the recommendation that a consultation should take place during this Parliament on the proposal for the introduction of a scheme enabling local parties to apply for funding linked to their receipts from membership subscriptions. As others have said, I also hope she will tell us what progress is being made on looking at the possibility of a public fund to support disabled Members.
This has been an important debate. We all bear responsibility for making progress on the issue. Others have commented on the old saying that what gets measured gets done, which is why the publication of diversity data, as highlighted in the motion, is important. Perhaps we could add that what gets debated gets done, so I am very pleased that we have been able to hold this debate and I pay tribute to every hon. Member who has taken part.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kate Green Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
I will certainly look into the matter that my hon. Friend raises and I am happy to discuss it further with him. Police co-operation in all matters is, of course, desirable.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
T6. Tomorrow, the Howard League for Penal Reform will publish a report showing that about 50,000 children, including about 10,000 girls, spent the night in police custody in both 2009 and 2010. Will the Home Secretary look urgently at the inappropriate and overuse of the detention of children overnight? What can she do to improve processes between local authorities and the police?
Nick Herbert
I note the hon. Lady’s point and we will study the report when it is produced by the Howard League tomorrow.