NHS Winter Update

Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Victoria Atkins

Monday 8th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend puts it eloquently; there is a real human cost to these strike actions. It is why I did everything I could when we were in negotiations to try to find fair and reasonable settlements for junior doctors. I was very disappointed when they walked out, but we have to find solutions for the sake of our patients and of all 1.3 million people working in our NHS across England. There have been some brilliant examples of local trusts, local clinicians and other members of staff working really hard and pulling together to cover these damaging strikes, but all we ask of junior doctors is to come back to work, do their jobs and look after our patients.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

NHS waiting lists have trebled since the Conservatives came to power almost 14 years ago. The Prime Minister’s pledge to cut waiting lists has effectively been abandoned, with the Government choosing to blame NHS staff instead of fixing the problems. Is it not the case that the longer we give the Conservative Government in power, the longer patients in Slough and across our country will, sadly, have to wait?

[Victoria Atkins]

Waiting lists are coming down, but they are still too high. Towards the end of last year, we had a period without any strikes in the NHS. We saw the waiting lists fall by tens of thousands—indeed, by 65,000—over the period of October, which shows the impact of the industrial action. Sadly, we know that more than 1.1 million appointments have been rescheduled in the last 12 months. It is having an impact on waiting lists and, for the sake of patients, we ask the junior doctors to come back to work.

Strategy for Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls

Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Victoria Atkins

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I have already met my hon. Friend to discuss this area of potential policy development and I am very interested in it. As he rightly says, as we review the modern slavery strategy we will be able to build on the significant success we have had since the introduction of the previous strategy and, indeed, the passing of the Act. My hon. Friend knows that I am looking carefully at his suggestion.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her work and for this long-awaited strategy for tackling violence against women and girls, but as she will be aware, the Labour party put forward a detailed proposal to criminalise street harassment in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. We need much more than a communications campaign and the online tool, as described in the statement, so will the Government adopt that detailed proposal?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. I hope he has heard, as I have said before, the assurances I have given at the Dispatch Box that while we are working on launching the public communications campaign and the other measures, we continue to explore whether a bespoke street-harassment offence is necessary. As I say, some offences already exist that may address some of the concerns, but we are keen to understand what is needed in addition to legislation, which is why we have responded carefully with the communications campaign, which I hope will see real dividends over time.

Domestic Abuse and Hidden Harms during Lockdown

Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Victoria Atkins

Thursday 14th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

We are keen not just to help victims to flee home when that is necessary for their own safety but, importantly, to keep them in their own homes where it is safe to do so, and to ask, or demand, that the perpetrator leaves. There is a whole host of work going on on this. Perhaps I can take the opportunity to discuss it with my hon. Friend in slower time outside of this statement, but I thank her for raising it.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab) [V]]

Many of us have been extremely concerned about the increased incidence of domestic abuse and other hidden harms during lockdown. However, many domestic abuse charities and anti-modern slavery and vulnerable children’s organisations have been struggling financially and have spoken about the insufficient support from Government. Can the Minister confirm what discussions she has had with the Treasury and the sector on multi-year funding?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Victoria Atkins

Monday 9th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

What steps she is taking to tackle county lines drug trafficking and safeguard vulnerable children from exploitation.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

County lines trafficking is a heinous crime, and tackling it is an absolute priority for this Government. This is why we are delivering £25 million over two years to surge activity against these ruthless criminal gangs. This includes investment in national and local law enforcement activity to roll up county lines, and funding for dedicated one-to-one specialist support for county lines victims and their families.

[Mr Dhesi]

To effectively tackle county lines drug trafficking and safeguard vulnerable children from exploitation—both issues of great concern to my Slough constituents—sufficient, desperately needed resources must be given to our police force. Having first cut more than 21,000 police officers, the Government thankfully did a U-turn and have pledged to deliver 20,000 extra officers, but the recruitment funds have since been repurposed for the covid response. Can the Minister categorically confirm that the recruitment funds will be made available to the police?

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Gentleman surely welcomes the 260 new officers that have been appointed to his local area as of 30 September. We are absolutely clear—this is a manifesto commitment, and one which I know the public took very seriously—that we will recruit an additional 20,000 officers. In addition to those 20,000 officers, we are specifically targeting the heinous crime he has set out—namely, county lines. In Thames Valley alone, we are developing a multi-agency violence reduction unit to the tune of £2.32 million, combining the expertise of the police, local government, health and education professionals, community leaders and others to identify the causes of serious violent crimes, including county lines, and deliver a multi-agency response to it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Victoria Atkins

Monday 13th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

What steps her Department is taking to tackle online harms on social media platforms.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

We are firmly committed to making the UK the safest place in the world to be online. We will be publishing a full Government response to the online harms White Paper consultation in the autumn and our ambition is to bring forward legislation in this Session. In the meantime, the Home Office continues to engage with social media platforms on the safety of their users. We are clear that these companies need to take action now to tackle illegal harms.

[Mr Dhesi]

It has been more than a year since the Government published their online harms White Paper and yet there is still no proper protection in place. Instead, all we have had are delays, ministerial briefings about potentially watering down the sanctions within the White Paper, and continued intensive lobbying by tech giants, which are still failing to remove harmful content and disinformation. That really is poor, so can the Minister update the House about what conversations she has had with social media companies about taking down harmful content and when exactly will the online harms Bill finally be published?

[Victoria Atkins]

The online harms White Paper was world leading in its ambitions to sort out the online world. We are very clear that what is illegal offline is also illegal online and that has been the driving force behind our work on this White Paper and on the consultation. As I have said, we will be responding to the consultation in the autumn. We are very much working at pace on this, but we should not shirk the fact that we are leading the world potentially with this work, including our work on tackling online child sexual exploitation, and we all want this abuse to stop.