Public Services

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

Let me continue, specifically on victims. My time as co-chair, with the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), of the all-party parliamentary group on victims of crime gave me deep respect for those who dedicate their lives to representing victims of crime and for the strength and determination of the victims themselves. I thank members of the APPG with whom I have worked, and I have also followed their work. They have supported many victims of crime, and include the hon. Members for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) and for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper). We are committed to ensuring that victims receive the help and support they need to cope and recover and, importantly, to giving them a voice and to giving a voice to those who sometimes cannot speak out for themselves.

We will now accelerate plans to enshrine in legislation the rights to which victims are entitled, as set out in the victims code. We recognise that rights are meaningless without the means to enforce them and we want to legislate to ensure that where criminal justice agencies have failed to provide victims with their entitlements they are held to account. This includes increasing the powers of the Victims’ Commissioner, already a powerful advocate for victims’ rights. We will also legislate for a new victims law, to be consulted on early in the new year. This will be testament to the bravery of all those who have spoken out and given a voice to the voiceless.

Although we will be tougher on prisoners who are unco-operative, we must also recognise that the majority of inmates simply want a second chance and an opportunity to rebuild their lives after a custodial sentence. We cannot allow our prisons to become factories for making bad people worse. We need to reduce overcrowding, strengthen security and do more to educate and rehabilitate prisoners. We must invest in turning people’s lives around through education and training and do more to integrate ex-offenders back into society so that they themselves can rebuild their lives. That is why, as well as investing up to £2.5 billion in prisons for an additional 10,000 places, we are addressing the health and wellbeing issues, raising levels of educational attainment and skills, and rebuilding and reinforcing the relationships offenders have with friends and family.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I thank the Home Secretary for attending, with me, the funeral on Monday of PC Andrew Harper, and for the support she showed the community in Abingdon where he served. It was very gratefully received. She also joined me in commending a local social enterprise called Tap Social, which makes “criminally good beer”, and takes former offenders and gives them that first chance in life to help them to take that step on that ladder.

[Priti Patel]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments, and it was a real honour to be with her at the cathedral on Monday to pay tribute to Andrew Harper. She is right; there are many good examples of social enterprises across all our constituencies that do tremendous work to give offenders a second chance. Importantly, they educate and train offenders and give them the skills to move on and rebuild their lives. As with many of the Bills I have mentioned today, we can come together to demonstrate strong cross-party support on this issue.

The Government recognise that freedom and security are not opposite but equal and that ensuring that people can live their lives free from fear is the essential foundation of a life of liberty. There is no greater service that a Government can perform for the public than keeping them safe. That is at the very heart of our agenda. Monday’s Gracious Speech contained improvements for every stage of policing in the criminal justice system, each designed to make the United Kingdom a safer and a fairer nation. We live at a time of new and acute challenges to policing and justice, whether they involve tackling the established evils of serious violence, domestic abuse, the arrest of foreign national offenders or keeping people safe from online harms. Officers need to know that the Government have their backs, so we have brought forward measures to extend the protections offered to police officers, to establish a police covenant and to give the police the necessary powers to arrest foreign national offenders. We are also clear that tough measures to bring criminals to justice must be balanced with a fair approach to those who have served their time and support for those who genuinely want to turn their lives around.

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[Angela Rayner]

Absolutely. There is a majority across the House to ensure that we push forward with this important legislation and support teachers and heads in delivering it in our schools. We have to lead the way, taking communities with us, in ensuring that our children and young people feel safe, secure and valued. Every young person deserves that in our education system.

School support staff are another section of the workforce who deserve that support, which the Education Secretary rightly acknowledged in our first exchanges. He will have been told at close quarters about the value of teaching assistants as he is married to one, so I will not question his commitment. However, as his predecessors found, commitment from the Education Secretary is not enough if they do not have it from their Prime Minister, so I hope that the Education Secretary will stand firm and make it clear that he will not countenance balancing the books on the backs of our support staff. Perhaps he could look again at the abolition of the national body for school support staff, because restoring it would be another step that he could take with the support of the House.

There is no doubt that the Education Secretary will talk about investment in schools as if they have not faced a decade of cuts. The Prime Minister promised to reverse those cuts, forgetting to mention, of course, that he sat around the Cabinet table and supported those very cuts time after time. Far worse is the gap between his words and his actions, because the Government are not even reversing their own cuts. Not only did the package ignore the cuts to capital funding, central education spending, further education and so much else, but the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that the announcement made in the spending round would not even undo the cuts to schools since 2010 in its final year—another broken promise from a Prime Minister who cannot be trusted. He promised £700 million next year, but councils are already facing such a shortfall. The Local Government Association has put next year’s deficit at £1.2 billion.

The Education Secretary has warm words about further education, but the spending round included less than £200 million for increasing the base rate—little more than a real-terms freeze. If the Secretary of State truly believes in investing in further education, why did the spending round not include a single penny for adult education? After a decade of managed decline and billions of pounds of cuts, why are the Government refusing to give that vital part of the system the investment it needs? Even in apprenticeships—apparently his passion —we are far from on course to meet the Government’s target of 1 million this year. We do not even know whether that is still the target. We have been told it is an ambition, an aim and an aspiration, so perhaps the Secretary of State will tell us which of those it is and what on earth that means?

The story of decline and neglect is the same in perhaps the most vital area: early years provision. The hourly rate for child care providers has not increased since 2017, Sure Start funding has collapsed, and the additional funding for maintained nursery schools runs out at the end of the next financial year. Will that be addressed, or have the youngest children been forgotten?

Even in schools, the extra money promised by the Government is not only years away but is being deliberately skewed to schools with the wealthiest intakes. The Education Policy Institute put it plainly, stating that

“almost all schools serving the most disadvantaged communities would miss out.”

The EPI found that the average pupil eligible for free school meals would attract less than half the funding of their more affluent peers. That comes on top of the research conducted by my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) last week, which found that over £200 million has been lost since 2015 thanks to the freeze in the pupil premium. The EPI concluded:

“If this is the Prime Minister’s idea of levelling up, then his legacy might be even more disappointing than his predecessor’s.”

Frankly, the funding that the Prime Minister has promised for future years will be rendered a fantasy if it comes after a bad deal or a no-deal Brexit.

We are yet to hear, of course, what all this means for higher education. Will the Education Secretary tell us any more about the fee status of EU students or our participation in Horizon 2020 or Erasmus? We are no wiser this week than we were before. The Queen’s Speech may have had nothing to say about education, but I can promise parents, children and educators across the country that a Labour Government will not neglect our education system, as the Conservatives have.

[Layla Moran]

The hon. Lady is giving a powerful speech that shows how this Government are giving with one hand and taking away with the other. Every Member looking at the raw numbers of how much money their schools will get should be aware that the rise in the starting salary for teachers, which we would all agree is a good thing, will be coming out of those very same budgets. Do not assume this money is going directly into the hands of teachers and children; it is not. The Government should be funding this on top of the extra money.

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady, who has a wealth of knowledge from being an educator. She has also been an advocate for ensuring that, rather than hoodwinking teachers and parents across England, we actually support them by stopping this decimation of our education system so that we do not have newly qualified teachers pitched against experienced teachers.

What we want to see in our education system is a wealth of newly qualified and experienced teachers in our classrooms, because we know that is best for our classrooms and for all children. We will radically expand high-quality early years education so that it is available for all two, three and four-year-olds alongside a renewed Sure Start Plus.

We will give our schools the investment they need, fully reversing the cuts that the Tories have imposed. We will end the managed decline of further education by investing in students and staff so that a genuinely high-quality technical education route is available to all those who wish to pursue it. And we will scrap tuition fees and bring back maintenance grants. Free education for all throughout their life—that is the prospect the Government would have us believe is so terrifying.

Finally, I pay tribute to all those amazing staff who work day in, day out to improve children’s lives. In particular, I mention my friend and constituent Lynn Stott, who was a youth worker for many years. She is gravely ill today, and I cannot be there because I am here at the Dispatch Box. I know what a difference she has made in our community, and the difference that all our educators make every day to the lives of our children.

This Queen’s Speech is the last gasp of a Government with nothing left to give. A Labour Government will do so much more.

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[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Guildford (Anne Milton), who I know shares my passion for public services.

We are doing this in the context of a potential general election, and we have to address the elephant in the room: what will happen if we go ahead with a no-deal Brexit, or indeed any Brexit at all. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that if we go off the cliff edge of no deal, we will be looking at this country’s borrowing rising to a 50-year high. The finances of this country will pale into insignificance compared with even the worst of the financial crash. There is only one way to ensure that we properly fund our public services, and that is to stop Brexit altogether, which is what the Liberal Democrats want to do. We want to do that because we care deeply about our NHS and our schools and about the day-to-day things that make a real difference to people and that save their lives. Unless we stop Brexit, we will not have the money to pay for all that, but I am sure that we all agree across the House that what we want to do is fully fund our public services.

We have a short amount of time today, and it will perhaps be unsurprising that I shall focus my remarks specifically on schools. As ever on such occasions, I have looked at the text of the Queen’s Speech. I looked and looked for a mention of schools, but I found only one “motherhood and apple pie” statement about them. Just one, at a time when our schools are going through an incredible funding crisis. I like to judge people by their words, but given that there were so few, let us instead judge this Government by their actions.

Even this year, even now, with all the funding announcements that this Government have made, schools are under enormous financial pressure. They include my own, where I am a governor, and all the others in the surrounding areas. I had an email from Liz from Botley, who is the mother of a child at a local school. She said of the headteacher:

“They have now asked parents to contribute a recommended donation of £10 per month per child. What a disgraceful state of affairs that the education of our young people is just left for parents who can afford it to pick up the bill. This is obviously totally unfair, and if allowed to continue, this will lead to a disastrous two-tier system where parents that can afford the top-up will be ‘buying’ into better-funded schools. No one cares as deeply as the parents that the education is the very best it can be, so we are unfairly pressured into filling the hole left by central government.”

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (Ind)]

Does my hon. Friend share my frustration that so many of the Government’s policy pledges on education in the past few weeks appear to be so much more about electioneering than actual meat on the bone? That is certainly the case for education, but also in many other areas.

[Layla Moran]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Yes, as a maths teacher, I have been rather frustrated by the headlines coming out of this Government, such as “£14 billion over three years,” when we will not get back to former levels until 2020. In fact, the money that schools are seeing right now is not enough. This year’s OECD teaching and learning international survey shows that the top thing that schools spend money on is more teachers. We heard that there would be a welcome rise in the amount of money available to first-year teachers, but that needs to come out of school budgets, as and when they are increased. The state gives with one hand, but it takes with the other.

Importantly, where the state has taken, it has taken from the most vulnerable and poorest areas. According to the National Education Union, the National Association of Head Teachers and the Association of School and College Leaders, 90% of secondary schools in the highest free school meals band will still face a funding shortfall in 2020-21, and funding cuts were above average in seven of the 10 poorest local authorities in England. Schools need the money now, not later. As a result of not providing that money, the Government are failing our children.

Teaching assistants are being sacked, with 50% of schools either considering it or already having done so in the past three years. Cash-strapped councils are struggling to support children with the most complex needs. Education, health and care plans increased by 16% between 2017 to 2018, yet schools need to make up the first £6,000 and so are penalised for doing the right thing. More than 200 schools in England have cut short the school week or are actively consulting on it, including schools in my area. We want and deserve world-class schools, but this Government will not be able to deliver them. They have not done that so far, and even with more money, where are the ideas to do it?

This is not just about funding. In fact, we are above average on the OECD funding table, so why are other countries leaping ahead? This Government are ideologically driven to deliver an education system that may have worked 50 years ago, but it is not based on the evidence of what works now. It is about high-stakes testing with little care for actual learning. We know about the narrowing of the curriculum, and we know that high-stakes tests cause anxiety for our children. In fact, I was written to in May by Aoife, who was in year 6 at the time, and she told me that her school prepares her for SATs with

“huge numbers of SATs practices that I have to do, sometimes up to two a day… since Christmas! I feel as though we often spend more time on practices than we do on actual lessons… Please can you do something in government to try and make the focus more on the teachers and less on us, so that we do not have to do so many practices and can do some fun learning.”

I could not agree more with Aoife. In fact, looking across the world at high-performing systems, that is exactly what they do.

The Liberal Democrats demand better. We would let our teachers get on with their jobs, rather than make them have to penny-pinch to buy the basics. We would invest in the most disadvantaged children and give councils the first £6,000 of any EHCP, so that schools are not penalised for taking the children that they want. We would spend £1 billion to save our colleges. By the way, “Love Our Colleges” badges are in all the Whips Offices, and I hope that everyone will wear them today, because colleges have been the Cinderella service of our education system. We would extend the pupil premium to age 19, because deprivation does not stop at 16. We would scrap SATs and replace Ofsted with an even more rigorous system that puts at its heart what the data is showing drives real attainment and wellbeing. We need a bolder agenda for education—not just paltry funding pledges, but real reform of the whole system, led by evidence, that will make the most of every child in our country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Layla Moran Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman might be interested to know that in a recent test—we have just published the results—out of 30,000 applicants, 70% were granted settled status; 30% were granted pre-settled status. None was refused. Almost 80% said that they found the application process very fair and easy to complete, so the process is working well, although he is right to highlight the question of what it might look like once it is fully open. We are making sure, through a huge comms campaign, that we get through to everyone who needs to know about the scheme. We are, for example, working with employers; I visited one such employer, GSK, just last week.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

5. What recent assessment he has made of the size of the (a) current and (b) future immigration detention estate; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

The Government are committed to using the detention estate sparingly, and only when necessary. We have taken a systematic approach to modernising and rationalising the detention estate, so that we ensure that we have the geographical footprint and resilience required to meet our future needs. By this summer, the detention estate will be almost 40% smaller than four years ago, and of significantly higher quality.

[Layla Moran]

I welcome very much the closure of Campsfield House; I have been campaigning for its closure for a very long time. However, it happened very quickly, so lots of workers are now worried about where they will find a job. The local community is desperate to know the plans for the site once Campsfield is totally run down.

[Caroline Nokes]

I am glad that the hon. Lady identified her involvement with the Close Campsfield campaign. I am conscious that she was at many of the protests calling for the closure of Campsfield. We are developing options for the future use of the site following the end of the contract, which was, in any case, scheduled to end in May 2019. Although the employment of Mitie staff is a question for Mitie, the company has provided assurances that it is actively engaged with its staff on redeployment options within its business. All detainees have been transferred to other centres where they will be held in decent and dignified conditions.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Layla Moran Excerpts

Friday 11th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

If the hon. Gentleman bears with me, I think he will see as I progress with my remarks what routes of entry we have for those who bring talent and skills to our country.

The Migration Advisory Committee has recommended that the salary threshold for the skilled worker route be £30,000. There has, of course, been a lively debate on that point already. We will run a 12-month process of engagement with business, employers, universities and others. Only at the conclusion of that work will we determine the level at which the threshold should be set. In any case, we will retain the shortage occupation list, which allows for a lower threshold in jobs such as nursing where there are shortages.

There will also be a new route for workers at any skill level, but it will be for only a temporary period. That will allow businesses to have the staff they need as we move to the new immigration system. It also gives them a clear incentive to invest more in training young British people now. Access to low-skilled labour from abroad should never be a substitute for investment in the skills of British people. Our new system will ensure that it is not.

Members have pointed out that agriculture has a particular reliance on migrant labour. I have listened carefully to those concerns and we will pilot a seasonal agricultural workers scheme in the spring. That announcement has already been well received.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

What evidence does the Secretary of State have that employers are not already trying to train local talent among young people through apprenticeships and other schemes? For example, people in the construction industry in Oxfordshire tell me that they are desperate to do so, but that they cannot do it with the local population alone. What evidence does he have that employers are not training young people from this country and trying to do both?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady asks about evidence. At the start of my remarks I referred to the Migration Advisory Committee, an independent body that went out and did a lot of research on the impact of European migration. That is one point of evidence. Its report was published in September, and it sounds like she has not read it. I suggest that she does so, as it contains a lot of evidence on these issues. It is also self-evident that for some employers it is all too easy to reach out and get labour from abroad when they could look at domestic labour and invest in skills. That investment is not happening at the scale we want to see, and the new immigration system will encourage it.

The White Paper sets out that the UK will continue to be open and welcoming to international students. The numbers of international students in our universities are at record levels. I reiterate that there will be no cap on the number of international students we accept. That means that more students will get the opportunity to enjoy the world-class education our universities have to offer. To help our universities compete for the best talent around the world and to help our economy, we are increasing the period for which international students in higher education can remain in the UK at the end of their studies, giving them greater opportunities to find skilled work.

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[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

It will come as no surprise to anyone, I am sure, to hear that I will not support the deal. I am determined to do everything I can to secure a people’s vote, with the option to stay in the EU and exit from Brexit. After all, that is what I was elected to do when I overturned a Tory majority of nearly 10,000 with the help of a progressive alliance of voters from across the entire political spectrum. I am still regularly stopped in the streets by constituents who just want an end to this mess. One lady said to me the other day, “I didn’t vote for this Brexit. Please make it stop!” Is not that the refrain we are hearing from everyone—“Make it stop”?

That is my issue with the deal. The Prime Minister’s deal has only 26 pages about what comes next. It will take years to get that right. Meanwhile, the fact that the air has been sucked out of this Government and the economy will continue to suffocate society. The very causes of Brexit—inequality, injustice, the incomprehension of parents that their children’s future will not be as bright as theirs—will continue to be ignored until this is over. We have to be honest with people: Brexit will not solve any of those issues.

There is only one way to make this stop, and that is a democratic exit from Brexit. Support for that, as much as many in this House are trying to ignore it, is growing. Poll after poll shows that the will of the people has changed since 2016. Add to that Russian interference, Cambridge Analytica, the leave campaign being fined for breaking electoral law and dodgy DUP donations, and is it any wonder that people are dismayed? Does that surprise us at all? In a democracy, as has been said, people should be able to change their mind. If they want to vote for this deal, let them, but if they want an exit from it and to keep the deal we already have, let them have that.

One group that Brexit affects more than anyone else is EU citizens in the UK. These people are our friends. They have built relationships and careers in this country. They deserve so much better than this shambles. Is it not shameful that they are being asked to pay £65 to continue to live in their own homes and stay in their jobs? Although I welcome the announcements of Oxford University and my local NHS trusts that they will pay the fee for their staff, it beggars belief that they even have to offer. How much public taxpayer money has been offered to overcome the charge? That suggests to me that the Government should scrap it now.

Furthermore, what of British citizens who live in the EU? We have to think of them too. Above all, this affects young people—people like my younger brother and sister, who both live in Berlin. One is a scientist and the other an artist. They grew up understanding that they would be able to seek jobs elsewhere. That is being snatched from them by leaving.

On our NHS, 21% of the nurses and health visitors in Oxfordshire are EU citizens. My constituent, Jill, emailed me to say:

“Nobody voted for Brexit to have fewer nurses on our wards, fewer doctors in our surgeries.”

We know from our trusts that that is already happening. I agree with Jill. We would be far better off staying in and welcoming those workers with open arms.

I have two universities in my constituency, at least partially: Oxford University and Oxford Brookes. Both have expressed serious concerns about the impact of Brexit. Stuart, a professor at one of those universities, emailed me to say:

“In this department, we have been advertising lecturing jobs for the first time since the Brexit referendum. We were hoping to attract a French mathematician to one of these jobs, but when we contacted her, she made it clear that it wasn’t even an option, because she didn’t want to leave the EU.”

Instead of feeling welcome in our university towns and cities, some of the most saleable people in the world are being put off. While Brexiteers may well have had enough of experts, Oxford West and Abingdon most certainly has not.

MPs across this House must now ask themselves if the deal brought forward by the Prime Minister is better than the deal we already have. If they vote for it, they have to be able to look each and every constituent in the eye and say that that is true, and if they cannot do so, they need to give them that choice. The EU has been utterly clear that this deal is the only deal on the table—let us not make that mistake—and it should be up to the people to decide whether or not they want to accept that deal.

We should recognise, however, that this is about much more than that. It is about Britain’s place in the world—our outlook and our identity as individuals and communities. I support a people’s vote because I support an open Britain that wants to engage with the world more, not one that closes itself off.

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[Layla Moran]

Does the hon. Lady think it is farcical that it was revealed that we have spent £1 million on these fridges so far?

[Dr Huq]

I absolutely do. In fact, we must think of all the money that this is racking up—never mind the £39 billion just for the split.

We have seen the no-deal notices, one of them recommending that Britons should vary their diets to avoid bananas and tomatoes in future. There are 3,500 troops on standby. Our great nation has descended into a “Dad’s Army”-style farce. “Just getting on with it” is easier said done when all the “it” that we should be getting on with is so interconnected.

Last year, in the sixth-richest country on earth, we saw 600 deaths from homelessness, including one here on our very doorstep. We know from the UN report on extreme poverty that 14 million of our fellow citizens are in extreme poverty. The NHS is haemorrhaging EU staff. Hoarding insulin is now a thing—that never used to be the case. The Home Secretary has left now, but desperate people being washed up in dinghies on our shores underlines the need for international co-operation at a time when we are turning away from our neighbours. We have heard about the coarsened climate of “them and us”, not only “them” as the EU and “us” on this side, but in this debate—the leavers and the remainers.

As the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) pointed out, Brexit has cost us dear from the public purse. We have two new Departments, Brexit planning across the entire civil service, and costly experiments creating a dress rehearsal with motorways in Kent. That is even before we get to the £39 billion that perplexes some Conservative Members. Every Government analysis shows that this will contract our economy by 9%. The best deal, obviously, is the one that we already have as existing members with a seat at the table rather than paying out to remain aligned. We know that what was promised was always improbable; now we know that those outlandish policies were undeliverable and the process was illegal.

As D-day looms, we need a plan B to break this logjam, impasse, gridlock, deadlock, cul de sac. We must have the meaningful vote that has been so hard resisted by the Government so as to reassert the sovereignty of Parliament. Thank you, Mr Speaker, for your role in changing the relations between the legislature and the Executive as you have done. We all thank you for that—although it was nothing to do with the Conservatives; they resisted every drop of it.

The last thing we need now is a blackmail Brexit with guns held to our heads. Increasingly, by the end of last year, good will, as well as time, was in decreasing supply. We have all this parliamentary game-playing when the functioning of our country, and people’s lives and livelihoods, is at stake. Given the magnitude of all this, it is time for calm action. We need a fresh assessment of the will of the people. It is 2019 now, not the middle of 2016, when circumstances were so different. Trump had not even been elected then, and it feels like he has been there for 50 years already.

We should extend article 50, given that there is only one deal on the table. As we have heard, “Nous n’allons pas renégocier le deal.” They have said it to us in every language. So that one deal has to be put to the people—to the electorate—for endorsement as to whether they think it is a good one. What are the Government scared of? We need a people’s vote with the option to remain, as we know what that looks like—to remain and reform, because we know it could be better. Now that is what I call taking back control.

Self-identification of Gender

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 21st November 2018 Westminster Hall

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered proposals to allow self-identification of gender.

I thank you in advance for your chairmanship and guidance, Mr Hosie. Following our conversation earlier this morning, I am fully aware that this is a sensitive issue. I have concerns about self-identification of gender, but they are not in any way directed at anyone who is unfortunate enough to suffer from some form of gender dysphoria. I have met many trans women who share my concerns about this and want nothing to do with the kind of activism that seems to be going on and shutting down debate. The criticisms I have are of Government, Ministers and politically motivated organisations, many of which have access to public funds.

The law at the moment is that anyone who wishes to change their legal gender has to apply to the Gender Recognition Panel. They have to show a number of things, including that they have lived as their preferred gender for two years and have been diagnosed with some form of gender dysphoria. They also have to commit to living as their new gender for the rest of their life. One thing that they do not have to do is undergo any form of medical treatment or surgery. They do not even have to be taking any hormone pills. The vast majority of people who change gender maintain the body in which they are born. As far as I can find from the statistics, only one in five people who have changed gender have had any form of surgery. This is the cause of concern for many people.

Self-definition of gender is already happening. Organisations seem to be ahead of the law, which the Government may or may not be about to change. There is a particular concern about what is going on in schools with children. Guidance is being given to schools by publicly funded organisations such as Mermaids and others encouraging children to question their gender and redefine it if they wish. They can do so without their parents even being told about it. That can quickly set off a chain of events that can begin with children as young as 12 being given puberty blockers, about which there are many medical concerns. At least one doctor in my constituency has been giving these drugs out to children as young as 12. That can then progress on to hormone blockers, which have powerful and irreversible side effects. Once people start on that road, there is a danger that they may end up having more drastic and irreversible surgery, because once one is on that pathway, it becomes difficult to get off it.

Teachers who have tried to question what is going on or who have fallen foul of the activist groups are liable to find themselves being disciplined. A teacher called Joshua Sutcliffe was disciplined by a school in Oxford for committing the offence—a new one on me—of misgendering a group of pupils. He had apparently said, “Well done, girls”, after a maths exam, although one of the girls identified as a boy. For that, the teacher was disciplined.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

That incident happened in my community. I would like to point out that how the hon. Gentleman is portraying the incident is far simpler than the bigger issues surrounding it. It was not just a single incident; there were a number of incidents with that teacher, not only in that specific case but in other parts of the school. I remind him that these things are sometimes over-simplified. Does he agree that over-simplification of such a sensitive and complex issue sometimes is not helpful?

[David T. C. Davies]

The hon. Lady is right, but if I over-simplify, it is partly so that she can have a chance to speak. We have only 90 minutes, and this is the first time we have debated the issue properly in the House of Commons. I look forward to hearing her longer explanation.

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[David T. C. Davies]

No, because as I said at the start, organisations such as prisons and schools are ahead of the law. They are already allowing self-identification of gender. There was certainly a failure of risk assessment with the case I mentioned. Shortly after it happened and the court case concluded, I asked the head of probation and prisons in Wales whether there had been any change to the guidance given to prison authorities about housing transgender prisoners, and I was told that there had not. I subsequently sought an urgent question about that, because, as I hope the hon. Lady would agree, it is appalling that vulnerable female prisoners, many of whom have been victims of male violence, are being put at risk in this fashion. It was not deemed important enough to be discussed in Parliament.

[Layla Moran]

The hon. Gentleman is gracious to give way to me for a second time. May I clarify whether his assertion is that prisons and schools are doing something illegal under the current Gender Recognition Act 2004?

[David T. C. Davies]

No, I have not asserted that at all. I have said that prisons and schools are allowing self-identification of gender at the moment. The law may well change shortly following the consultation, to give that a legal footing and to allow people to legally register their gender as being different from the one they are born with. The practicality is that that is already happening. I have made that point several times.

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I congratulate the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) on securing this debate. Although we are perhaps on opposite sides on some of the issues, I agree absolutely that not enough debate has been had in this House on this matter.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate today, especially because it is Trans Awareness Week. Yesterday was the Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day when we are meant to remember the huge inequalities and the number of transgender people who have died over the years because of the oppression that they faced. I hope the Minister will join me today in solidarity with the community that over the past few months has had inordinate amounts of abuse hurled at it from all quarters. However, today is an opportunity to shed some light rather than heat on this debate, particularly on the issues that underpin some of that heat.

I want to place on the record my thanks to my Liberal Democrat colleague and friend, Helen Belcher, whom I have worked with closely on this matter. I also want to place it on the record that I am wholeheartedly behind the Government’s proposed reforms of the Gender Recognition Act 2004. I believe that they are proportionate and well thought through. It is time that Britain caught up with many other countries around the world—a point I will come to later.

That said, I absolutely appreciate the sincerely held concerns of not just the hon. Gentleman but many other people, including constituents who have contacted me to say that they are worried about aspects of the proposals. My constituent Juliette said:

“I am frightened by the fact that women’s voices are being dismissed and silenced”.

My constituent Nicola wrote:

“It’s taken me several days to build up the courage to email you for fear of being labelled transphobic or hateful and believe me, I am not—I fully support the rights of the trans community to live their life without discrimination”.

It is a damning indictment on not just us, although we politicians need to take responsibility for shying away from what is a controversial and sensitive issue, but on the media, which I do not believe have treated the issue with fairness on either side. In today’s debate and moving forward, we need to try to bring the two sides together, because I do not think there is a conflict between being a feminist and believing in trans rights.

Since my election in 2017, I have ensured that Ministers are aware of my constituents’ views on both sides of the debate. I particularly thank the Minister’s colleague in the other place, Baroness Williams of Trafford, for taking the time to meet me to discuss the issues. I have not attended the meetings organised by the hon. Member for Monmouth simply because I have been listening to my constituents and working on the issue in other ways. I take slight offence at the insinuation that because I have not attended his meetings I do not care deeply about the issue and have not been engaging in the debate.

I appreciate that Ministers are considering responses to the public consultation, but it would be encouraging to hear from the Minister about what steps the Government are taking to reassure people who are worried about the reform, and what active myth-busting is occurring, or is planned, regarding the misconceptions. That will be the crux of my speech.

It is important to put self-identification and self-declaration in the context of the Equality Act 2010. If we understand what that legislation allows, we can then talk about how the law might be reformed or changed. The Act protects people from discrimination on the basis of sex and gender reassignment, and describes the exemptions that allow single-sex spaces. Under the Act, it is a legitimate aim to provide safe spaces for women, but it is not proportionate to exclude all trans women from those spaces simply because they are trans, which is an incredibly important point. Furthermore, the Act protects those who have undergone, are undergoing, or are proposing to undergo a process, or part of a process, of reassigning their gender.

It is probably worth mentioning the sorts of interventions and operations that some trans people choose not to have. First, that is their medical choice to make. Secondly, think for a moment of the extensive operations that would need to happen. Many trans people are put off simply because it is painful, and in some cases expensive. Sometimes they feel unable to have operations because only a certain number of licensed practitioners in the country are allowed to perform them. Some trans people prefer to go abroad to have them, but that is not recognised in this country. There are many complex reasons behind the 93% figure. The proposed reforms would go some way to removing some of those barriers.

[David T. C. Davies]

I hear what the hon. Lady is saying. May I bluntly ask her whether she would be happy sharing a changing room with somebody who was born male and had a male body?

[Layla Moran]

I believe that women are women, so if that person was a trans woman, I absolutely would. I just do not see the issue. As for whether they have a beard, which was one of the hon. Gentleman’s earlier comments, I dare say that some women have beards. There are all sorts of reasons why our bodies react differently to hormones. There are many forms of the human body. I see someone in their soul and as a person. I do not really care whether they have a male body.

In essence, the Equality Act already works on the basis of self-declaration of gender, as it does for religion and sexuality. Coming back to the point that the hon. Gentleman made earlier about society being ahead of the Act, that is actually not the case; society is implementing the Act as it stands.

The concern voiced by some people that reforming the Gender Recognition Act to allow self-declaration would allow men into women’s spaces needs more discussion. Since my election, 12 constituents have contacted me on these issues, and that concern is a feature of all their correspondence. Other things come up, but that is the top concern. For example, Elizabeth says that she fears the

“risk of males choosing to change their legal gender in order to gain access to spaces and opportunities reserved for women”.

That is her main concern.

However, the Gender Recognition Act simply allows a trans person to change their birth certificate and have it reissued. It does not change what is in the Equality Act. I appreciate that the hon. Member for Monmouth did not want to take more interventions earlier, but my question to him would be: are we saying that we want to roll back the 2010 Act in the reforms? Allowing trans women into women-only spaces is provided for under that Act. If that is what is being questioned, it is a rolling back of the Act, and not a reform.

Let us think about what would happen if a man did self-declare as a woman using any of the gender recognition reform proposals, and then tried to enter a women-only space for nefarious purposes. This chap is so intent on doing that that he gets himself a new birth certificate. By the way, it is a fallacy that people can just say, “Oh, I’m going to decide this afternoon to change my gender.” Nothing in the reforms suggests that someone can just decide to do that on a whim one afternoon, or say, “In the morning I’m going to be a woman and in the afternoon I’m going to be a man,” or anything like that.

The proposed reforms are proportionate and considered. They are not knee-jerk and they understand that such decisions are some of the most personal that a human gets to make. It is about who they are and how they fundamentally identify. It is not something that people do lightly. However, let us say that someone did want to do that.

[Lilian Greenwood]

The hon. Lady is setting out a hypothetical situation, but a number of countries already have simple self-declaration administrative processes for gender recognition: Argentina, Denmark, Ireland, Malta, Norway and Colombia. Is she aware of Government single-sex service providers or criminal justice sectors in those countries reporting negative impacts from that implementation?

[Layla Moran]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, because as far as I am aware there are none. A lot of the concern comes from hypotheticals, anecdotes, and often very simplified versions of much more complex events. As a former science teacher, I care a lot about the evidence. What is the evidence about what has happened? I will return to the hon. Lady’s point, which was very well made, in a moment.

Let us assume that someone wants to go into a women-only space for nefarious purposes. That would be quite a stupid thing to do because, apart from anything else, if an offence was committed it would show evidence of premeditation, which would increase the person’s sentence. Also, had the certificate been gained for the sole purpose of entering such a space to commit a crime, that would be a separate crime under the Fraud Act 2006. If someone was intent on harming women, that would be one of the stupider ways of doing it.

Quite apart from that, it is a hypothetical situation that is removed from what the evidence shows. There is no evidence at all to show such harms in countries such as Malta and Norway over the past few years. Importantly, because of how the Equality Act works, we do not even have to look further afield—just look at this country, where the Act already allows self-identification for those who are even considering going through the process. What evidence is there from this country of any problems with self-declaration, which has been going for eight years now? There is none.

This has the signs of a moral panic being whipped up to demonise a community. I am not saying that my constituents are doing that, but there are some people who are intent on rolling back the Equality Act, and I am deeply concerned that they are not being called out for wanting to do so.

[Danielle Rowley (Midlothian) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Lady share my concern that when the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) cited violence against women, he was conflating two issues? Violence against women is mainly carried out by men; as the hon. Lady rightly points out, it has nothing to do with men identifying as women. If the hon. Gentleman is so concerned about violence against women, that is what he should focus on.

[Layla Moran]

Hear, hear—I completely agree. It is really important to ensure that we are talking about the right thing. Violence against women is still ubiquitous. It still happens in our society and on our streets, and it should absolutely be called out, but these reforms are entirely separate. We need to come together on this. I am curious about whether the hon. Member for Monmouth has attended meetings in this House on violence against women.

A 2016 report by the Women and Equalities Committee found that the process of gender recognition was bureaucratic and costly. The Government’s LGBT survey, published in July this year, reported that trans women were being deterred from applying for gender recognition for some of the same reasons that I spoke about earlier; it noted that 93% of those who wanted gender recognition had been deterred from applying for it. The respondents to the Government consultation are not people who are thinking about changing their gender on a whim, but people who have grappled with the issue for a very long time. Their concerns are worth listening to.

[Hannah Bardell]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that trans people, who face huge barriers and a medicalised process, are being damaged psychologically by our legal framework? The core of why we are here as elected representatives is to make the lives of our constituents better and to ensure a level playing field. If we do not act and work together, more trans people will commit suicide—we already know the statistics—and young trans people will face more significant barriers. We absolutely must work together to understand and address their concerns and make sure that their voices are heard.

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran]

I absolutely agree. Our laws were groundbreaking when they were introduced in 2004, but our law on gender recognition now lags behind those of other countries. It disadvantages trans people on some very questionable grounds.

I am not sure on what basis the people who raise concerns about gender recognition feel that it is wrong. It is one of our values that there should be a level playing field in our society. Society is evolving and becoming more complex, and we are rightly recognising more intricate parts of it.

It is incumbent on us as British politicians to protect minority groups and understand the issues that they face. The reforms are a logical next step in our evolving understanding of a very small and vulnerable group of people in this country. Yes, many are children when they first start to discover the situation, but as a former teacher and as the Lib Dem education spokesperson, I believe that schools are doing their utmost to make children feel that it is okay to be different and have a space in which they can discuss the issues. To suggest that that extends to encouraging them to change their gender is a step too far for the role of schools.

I am pleased to support the reforms of the Gender Recognition Act, as well as maintaining my support for women-only services, which remain vital for many. The points made about violence against women and about the need to protect women from men who sexually abuse them are absolutely right, but being a feminist and being a supporter of trans rights are not in conflict; the two can absolutely sit together. We need to look at the evidence, not just about what the law currently says, but—

[David T. C. Davies]

The hon. Lady says that she supports women-only services. By “women-only”, does she mean anyone who defines themselves as a woman?

[Layla Moran]

The hon. Gentleman brings me on to my next sentence. I was about to say that trans women are women. Moreover, trans rights are human rights.

I am very grateful for today’s debate, because it has allowed some of us to broaden and deepen the debate and to start to set the record straight.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dawn Butler]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman’s comments will slightly reassure the transgender community. The UK’s legislation is so out of date that we are no longer considered a world leader on LGBT+ rights. We were once No. 1—right at the very top. We slipped to third, and we are fourth in this year’s rankings. The International Lesbian and Gay Association’s “Rainbow Europe index” report cites a surge in transphobic media coverage as the reason for our falling down that league table.

The Labour party has a proud record of championing equal rights, including LGBT+ rights. It was a Labour Government who brought in the Equality Act 2010 and the Gender Recognition Act 2004, and who abolished section 28 and created civil partnerships. We need to recognise that LGBT+ people still face widespread discrimination, and it is clear that we must do more to enhance their rights and protections. The Gender Recognition Act 2004 is now out of date and needs amending. The issue is about changing sex and gender on birth certificates, and we should talk about the facts. Apart from birth certificates, it is already possible to change one’s name, title and gender marker on all UK identity documents. That has been working well for more than 40 years. In fact, most trans people do not want to go through the indignity of applying for a gender recognition certificate. The Government will have the support of Opposition Members to amend the Gender Recognition Act 2004.

I will go through a few more facts. Deliberately making a false statutory declaration is a serious crime and is punishable by imprisonment. From the heartfelt contributions that we have heard, we know that changing one’s gender is not done lightly. Reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 does not affect access to single-sex services and facilities, which has been made clear.

[Layla Moran]

On the issue of prisons, can the hon. Lady confirm that very high-risk trans women are sometimes not held on the female estate because there are no facilities to house them? Depending on a risk assessment, they are sometimes even held in male prisons. That goes to show that the current system already works: if somebody is considered a high risk to the exclusively female population, the system and guidelines already provide for that.

[Dawn Butler]

That is absolutely correct. In the case that was mentioned, there was a failure of the prison authorities, not of the system. The process should have gone through certain panels before the decision was made—it had nothing to do with the principles of the Equality Act 2010. We have good information that a transgender expert who consulted on that particular case was overruled. The failure of Leeds prison authorities to act on the expert’s advice arises from the reaction to Vikki Thompson’s tragic suicide in Leeds, which is maybe why that particular case happened. It was a failure not of the system but of the prison authorities.

Labour recognises the rights of all groups to debate the implications of reforming the Gender Recognition Act 2004. All views should be listened to and supported, and we have listened to various groups that have vastly different opinions. That does not mean that we will be bullied into taking one side or the other. Decisions and law should be made on the basis of facts and take into consideration the majority, not just people who are sensationalising certain aspects of a particular case. As I have said, with 45% of trans students attempting suicide, the Government’s delay in amending the Gender Recognition Act 2004 has contributed to fraught and toxic debate, from which I hope we can move on.

I have a few questions for the Minister, which I am sure she will appreciate. Will she outline the Government’s planned timetable for reforming the Gender Recognition Act 2004, including the publication of their response to the recently closed consultation? Will she outline the Government’s plans to launch their separate calls for evidence on issues faced by non-binary and intersex people, and can she confirm that this will not delay the much-needed reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004? In line with the LGBT action plan, will she provide an update on research on the feasibility of the “Tell Us Once” service as a sustainable model for trans people to update their name and gender only once across multiple Departments? I am sure this is the case, but just for clarification, will the Minister confirm that trans people will not lose any rights under the Gender Recognition Act reforms?

I will conclude by quoting a letter from a Labour activist, Heather Peto, but before I do so I want to thank the organisations that fed the views in to us, including Unison, Stonewall, DIVA magazine, my LGBT advisory panel, LGBT Labour and our parliamentary Labour party LGBT group. When we make legislation in this place, it is important that we listen to people’s lived experiences. For too long, laws have been made for people, about people, without their having a place around the table.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

I am about to move on to something that the hon. Lady spoke about in her speech. She may not know but I have said on record that I would never dream of using the word “trend” in this context, because its use risks demeaning or minimising the journeys that people are on or have been on. To my mind, that comes back to the point about being caring and careful in the way that we discuss the issue. If I may correct her for the record: the organisations I listed have met my officials.

[Layla Moran]

I want to relay the story of a friend of mine whose spouse was asked to provide that certificate and found it deeply concerning. Their feeling was, “Who am I to stop my partner from defining who they are?” In fact, it stopped them from going through the process. Does the Minister agree that that is problematic and can she confirm that it is being looked at?

[Victoria Atkins]

We will look at the matter of spousal consent and those responses as part of the consultation.

The hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) gave a moving account of her personal experience, and other colleagues have given accounts of the experiences of people who have been on, or are on, their journeys, and the challenges, or sometimes the heartbreak, that they face. I know from conversations that I have had with trans people that there is often a great deal of sadness in the process of coming to a decision. That is not necessarily their own sadness, but can be the sadness of those around them. I am very conscious of the experiences of people who have been through that and, for me, the key words on the issue are “caring” and “careful”.

I say “careful” because of some of the concerns expressed today. I absolutely understand those who expressed them—for example, about women’s refuges. As a Home Office Minister, I will take the draft domestic abuse Bill through Parliament in the coming months. I know people are concerned that refuges will no longer be able to provide safe spaces for women. May I please make it clear that that is not the case?

Domestic abuse services, including refuges, have robust risk assessment procedures and may exclude anyone who might threaten a safe environment for victims and their children, as well as signposting sources of support for those people whose needs they might not be able to meet. I am very conscious from my conversations with refuge organisations that they take different approaches, which I welcome. We have to be in a situation in which we can offer support and refuge services to people regardless of their lifestyle, background and so on. I absolutely understand people’s concerns and I hope I have been able to offer reassurance to them.

We are committed to maintaining protections for single-sex services and will consider as part of our response to the consultation whether any further action is needed to reaffirm that approach. To be clear, the single-sex exceptions under the Equality Act 2010 allow a service provider to provide a service for women or men if an organisation needs to define it in a way that does not allow a trans person to access their services, or to provide a service to them in a different way. They are able to do that as long as they can show that it is a proportionate means of meeting a legitimate aim.

The issue of transgender offenders has understandably been raised as well. The case of Karen White in particular has been examined. I want to be clear that the case of Karen White is appalling. There was a series of terrible failings that should never have happened. In the light of that, my ministerial colleagues at the Ministry of Justice are looking again at the decision-making systems that apply to the management of transgender prisoners, as well as how they were applied in that case.

The issue of children is of concern outside the walls of this Chamber. We have no intention of lowering the age at which people may legally change their gender, namely the age of 18. We recognise the increase in referrals of children and adolescents to gender-identity services for people aged under 18, so we have committed to improve our understanding of the impacts on children and adolescents of changing their gender, and to gather evidence on the issues faced by people who were born female and who transition in adolescence. We are not the only country to witness and experience the increase, and we need to understand why it is happening.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth for securing the debate. I hope I have been able to reassure him on some of his concerns, and other hon. Members who hold different views on the concerns they expressed. The Government are absolutely committed to ensuring that everyone in our society can thrive, and to upholding the rights and protections that all our citizens enjoy. We want to support and protect women; we want to support, protect and improve the lives of transgender people; and I hope that those two ambitions have the support of the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Layla Moran Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I salute the tireless campaigning by my hon. Friend and others. Spice is a scourge of many town centres at the moment. We take independent advice on classification and we keep that independent advice under review.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

T8. Tomorrow, Martha Fernback would have turned 21, but sadly her young life was cut short when at 15 she took an overdose of ecstasy. Her mother, Anne-Marie, now campaigns tirelessly for a new, evidence-based approach to drugs policy. Will the Secretary of State consent to meeting Anne-Marie to hear why she believes a new approach is necessary?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am of course very sorry to hear that, as I am sure the entire House is. The hon. Lady will know that the Home Secretary has commissioned an independent review of drugs so that we may understand better how they are used in the 21st century, and I would of course be honoured to meet her and her constituent to discuss this.

Community Policing

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Sir Edward Davey]

I agree strongly with the hon. Gentleman. I had an example of just such a case in my constituency recently. The gentleman concerned phoned my office because he was getting no response from 999. We answered the phone, I am delighted to say, and got on to the police. The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, and those fewer police officers and PCSOs are what the debate is about.

When we look at the history of the cuts, and the reduction in police officer numbers—over a long time, as I said; this happened during the coalition—it is worth remembering that for the first four or five years of the cuts, during the coalition, crime was falling. Crime, whether measured by recorded crime or by the crime survey, went down during the first few years of the cuts, but it is not going down now; that is the point that Ministers have to grasp and act on. Crime up and police down will not keep people safe.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I have been doing the tour in my constituency of the local area commanders, as all new MPs do. They tell me that burglary is up, especially in the south-east, but that local people do not feel that the police have the resources they need. An email I recently received from a resident in Yarnton says:

“I'm afraid the only beneficiary is the criminal and their chances of arrest are slim, the insurance companies who have to increase premiums and the Government who gains additional tax on the insurance premiums.”

Is not how local people perceive the police just as important as whether they can respond, and should we not recognise the intense resource pressures that they are under?

[Sir Edward Davey]

My hon. Friend is right in so many ways. She pointed to the issue of burglary; I have knocked on doors in my constituency, and it is the rise in burglary that has most hit people. In many ways, burglary has the largest impact on ordinary people, and it can be quite dramatic, so she is right to say that. The example I gave of the police not responding was to a burglary, and the impact that has on the fear of crime is amazing. When the police do not respond, because they are so stretched, that has an impact on people’s view of the police, and their concerns that the police are not there for them when they expect them to be. She is absolutely right to say that the public want more local police to respond to their needs and to deal with the fear of crime, but we are seeing quite the reverse.

Oral Answers to Questions

Layla Moran Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

Negotiations are progressing well. We are clear that, as our offer outlines, when we leave the European Union we will ensure that European citizens in this country have the same rights as British citizens. I am just disappointed that the right hon. Lady is not as focused on the rights of British citizens, both here and abroad.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

3. Whether her Department is taking steps to broaden the criteria under which refugee family reunions are permitted.

[The Minister for Immigration (Brandon Lewis)]

The family reunion policy allows immediate family members of those granted protection in the UK to reunite with them here. In addition, the family provisions in the immigration rules also provide for relatives with protection in the UK to sponsor children when there are serious and compelling circumstances. Our policy is clear: where an application fails under the rules, we consider whether there are exceptional reasons to grant leave outside the rules.

[Layla Moran]

As the Minister will be aware, a lone child refugee is currently unable to sponsor even their parents or siblings to join them in safety here. UNICEF and the Refugee Council have both said that the rules are too restrictive, and the Home Affairs Committee has called the situation “perverse”. Will the Government therefore support the Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill, introduced in the other place by my colleague Baroness Hamwee, and allow these vulnerable children a chance to have the loving upbringing that every child surely deserves?

[Brandon Lewis]

We are working with the UNHCR and with UNICEF on this issue, and we want to ensure that the application of these rules and this policy works in practice. I ask the hon. Lady to look again at the rules that I have outlined, because we can consider whether there are exceptional reasons to grant leave outside the rules.

Drugs Policy

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

One of the joys of being called so late in the debate is being able to hear the arguments on both sides. I have found it genuinely informative, and I thank everyone for their contributions, especially those who made maiden speeches today. As a newbie myself, I can only tell them that it does get easier.

We have a very special person in the room with us today—so special, indeed, that she and her campaign have been mentioned at several points during the debate. She is a constituent of mine called Anne-Marie Cockburn, and she is the mother of a child whose name may also be familiar to Members, because she too has been mentioned today. The story is so poignant, and so relevant to everything that we are talking about, that I hope the House will indulge me and allow me to tell it more fully so that everyone can understand why so many Members included it in their speeches, albeit in passing. It is the story of Martha Fernback.

Martha died four years ago this week, on 20 July 2013, from an accidental drug overdose. She was 15. That fateful day, she was out with her friends on a Saturday morning to go to a kayaking club; she was too young for the other sort. She took—because it was so readily available—half a gram of Ecstasy powder, and almost immediately started to react. At first, her friends did not know what to do. They were worried that they would get into trouble, so they hesitated in ringing the ambulance when it was clear that Martha was struggling. But they did. Then Anne-Marie got the call that every parent dreads. An unrecognised number came up on her mobile phone screen; she was called to go to the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford. Just two hours after first taking the drug, Martha, her beautiful baby girl, died.

What is most extraordinary about this story is that the drug was 91% pure—way above the national average at the time. Martha thought that she was being safe. She tried to protect herself. After her death, Anne-Marie looked at her online history. Martha knew that she wanted to experiment and she knew that there were risks, so she did her research. She had some of the information, which said beware of impurities, but that was not the whole story, as the information was not out there about safe dosage. Besides, she had no idea what she was taking. In a sense, the drug was almost too pure. So she accidentally took too much.

Anne-Marie was a wonderful mother. Martha was her only child—her world. They were close. In fact, Martha confided to her mum that she wanted to experiment—as a teacher, I can tell Members that that is very rare—and Anne-Marie did exactly what we all tell parents to do. She told Martha to “Just say no”. With hindsight, Anne-Marie is clear, and she argues, as part of the Anyone’s Child campaign, that, had Martha taken something legally regulated, with labelled dosage and clear safety information, she could have made a fully informed choice—not a partially informed choice—and, who knows, may even have decided not to do it.

Martha wanted to get high. She did not want to die. Perhaps if she had had all the information, she could have done for herself what her mother could not, and still be with us today.

The story is heart-breaking—I am sure that is why so many Members have referred to it today—but it makes an important point. Ecstasy is already banned, yet such stories still happen. The blanket ban approach is just doing more of the same. It fixes nothing of the core issue and is the wrong approach. Rather than banning and punishing, we should be regulating and educating. Taking drugs should be a public health issue, not a criminal offence, and I am so happy to hear so many Members make that point in the House today. Stories such as Martha’s happen because we refuse to accept that teenagers will always want to take risks. We talk about sending a clear message. How do we best get a teenager to do something? It is by telling them not to do it. I am a teacher and I have educated more than a thousand teenagers. Believe me, if I could wrap every one of them in a protective blanket and shield them from the harm of this world, I would, but if they will not do as you say—and they frequently do not—at least let them be safe in what they do.

Martha’s story is terrifying. It is natural to want to clamp down and stop it happening to anyone at all ever. I have immense sympathy for those who believe that that is the right approach. To hear the Home Secretary say that she wants a drug-free world is laudable, but I am afraid that I believe it is naive and it fundamentally fails to understand how teenagers really think and behave.

One of the reasons the Liberal Democrats argue for decriminalising drugs for personal use is that we want to encourage a proper debate and to encourage users to seek help. Our priority should not be to punish people caught with drugs—perhaps Martha’s friends would have called the ambulance earlier had they not felt that that was a problem. Our priority should be to increase access to treatment for anyone who is suffering from drug dependency.

It is time for us to recognise that our old approaches have not worked and to stop repeating the same mistakes of the so-called “war on drugs” time and again. We need a more constructive and evidence-based approach: one that focuses on education and, when it is needed, on rehabilitation and treatment; and one that will finally take meaningful steps to reduce the harms that drugs have done to too many families across the country.

I urge the Government: let us be brave and open up this debate. We need to wake up and face the facts. Prohibition does not work; all it does is make a natural instinct taboo. It puts up barriers between children and their parents, and it drives the problems underground, and into the hands of drug dealers and gangs who, frankly, could not care less about children like Martha—their customers.

I urge the Government to think again. This is the wrong approach. It did not help Martha then and it will not help others like her now, or in the future.