Oral Answers to Questions

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

I believe that the hon. Gentleman’s constituency was successful in securing some support from the heritage high streets action-zone scheme, so I congratulate his constituency on that. I look forward to seeing that funding make a positive impact in his area.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

8. What assessment her Department has made of the effect of the UK leaving the EU on the UK’s creative, digital and media industries in the last three months. [R]

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

14. What recent assessment she has made of the effect of the UK leaving the EU on the UK’s creative industries.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Helen Whately)]

The UK’s creative, digital and media industries are a global success story. Our creative industries continue to outperform the wider economy: their value went up from £95 billion in 2016 to £102 billion in 2017. As Europe’s leading tech hub, we generate more billion-dollar tech businesses than any other country in Europe. Over the past three years, we have maintained a dialogue with the creative industries on EU exit. I recognise that the movement of people and goods are among their concerns, but the UK is a global leader in these sectors, and our decision to leave the EU will not change that.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Will the Minister guarantee that musicians and others in the creative industries, with their roadies and their techies, will be able to work across the EU as they do now—as they need to do to make a living—if we leave with or without an agreement, taking their instruments, their kit and their merchandise in a system that works across borders without carnets or additional costs?

[Helen Whately]

We are talking to the industry about exactly those concerns. I have already had some conversations along these lines, as has the Secretary of State, who met UK Music earlier this week. It is true that, when the UK leaves the EU on 31 October, free movement as it currently stands will end. In the event of a no-deal exit, creative professionals will need to check whether they need a visa or a work permit for the EU country that they are visiting. I am very optimistic that we will get a deal, and I would encourage the hon. Lady to vote for it when she has the opportunity to do so.

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The Attorney General was asked—

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

1. What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the implementation of the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019.

[The Attorney General (Mr Geoffrey Cox)]

I cannot, as the hon. Lady will know, comment on the content of Cabinet discussions, but she will understand that I regularly meet ministerial colleagues to discuss important issues of common interest. It would be inappropriate for me to comment on the detail of those discussions, and I am bound by the convention that neither the fact nor content of Law Officers’ advice is disclosed outside of the Government. I make it clear to the hon. Lady that the Government will obey the law, the Prime Minister is subject to the law, and this Government will comply with it.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Notwithstanding all that, I am going to ask the Attorney General a nice yes-no question. The Act requires the Prime Minister to ask for an extension unless Parliament has agreed a withdrawal agreement or agreed to leave without one, so will the Attorney General confirm that, if Parliament has not done either of those things, the Prime Minister would be acting unlawfully if he nevertheless took us out of the EU on 31 October? Yes or no?

[The Attorney General]

What I can confirm to the hon. Lady is that the Government will obey the law.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

If Parliament agrees a deal, does that satisfy what is known as the Benn amendment?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

It is an Act.

[Mr Bone]

Sorry—the Benn Act.

Oral Answers to Questions

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mims Davies]

The hon. Gentleman has made an important point about the joy that will be felt not only in the west midlands but in the whole of our country. We should bear in mind the economic impact of the games in Glasgow in 2014, which brought more than £740 million to Scotland’s economy, and the £1.3 billion boost for the Gold Coast following the games in Queensland. We expect the Birmingham games to bring jobs and opportunities such as volunteering, with up to 45,000 people involved in delivering the event. This is a catalyst for a legacy in terms of facilities and on the ground, and I am working towards that result as we head towards “three years out”.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Jeremy Wright)]

Semi-finals are dangerous places for England’s sports teams. I am sure that the whole House will wish to offer its commiserations to the Lionesses following Tuesday’s result, but also our huge congratulations on their performance throughout the World cup competition. Although it did not produce the result that we wanted, Tuesday’s match attracted the largest live television audience so far this year, and the team has sparked a significant change in the visibility of, and support for, women’s football and women’s sport generally. That in itself is a fantastic achievement. We also send our best wishes to the England men’s cricket team for their semi-final next week in a world cup that has given people around the world another good reason to visit the United Kingdom this year.

Tourism is a significant but often overlooked part of our economy, and last week we launched the tourism sector deal, the first of its kind. The coming together of industry and Government will mean more investment in accommodation, skills and apprenticeships and data to ensure that we attract even more tourists and business visitors. We also intend to ensure that everyone can visit by making the UK the most accessible tourism destination in Europe by 2025. Tourism matters greatly in many of our constituencies, and the sector deal will give it the long-overdue Government recognition that it deserves.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

May I associate myself with the remarks of the Secretary of State about the Lionesses, and also of course wish good luck to the England cricket team?

The epidemic of appalling online bullying demonstrates that the online world is effectively not abiding by the same rules as the offline world, and people are suffering right now, so now that the consultation on the White Paper on online harms has closed, will the Secretary of State urge the new Prime Minister to prioritise legislative time so that we can sort this law out and protect people who are suffering right now?

[Jeremy Wright]

Yes. I believe that this is a priority, and I believe that the next Government should see it as such, and I believe that we should see legislation coming forward in the next parliamentary Session. The hon. Lady is right; the consultation on the White Paper concluded yesterday, but as she will have heard me say before, I believe that this is a groundbreaking change that we need to get right, so the Government intend to continue to listen, notwithstanding the fair point she makes about the urgency of the situation.

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[The Solicitor General]

I am very happy to give a commitment to meet my hon. Friend. I cannot speak for others, but I am very happy to meet him and will look forward to reading a copy of the book that he mentions.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

In relation to conviction rates for sexual abuse trials, I would like to ask the Minister whether she can comment further and perhaps in more detail—perhaps in a meeting with me—on how she is pursuing prosecutions, or how she is helping the court to pursue prosecutions, for women who are trafficked here for the purposes of sexual exploitation. They are often among the most vulnerable and often the hardest to reach as witnesses, but often the ones suffering the most egregious and appalling abuse.

[The Solicitor General]

I am very happy to meet the hon. Lady. I was with the CPS in Canterbury last week, discussing some of the crimes in the Kent area. I am very happy to discuss this very important matter with her.

Royal Assent

Discrimination in Sport

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Allin-Khan]

I thank my hon. Friend for her very important intervention. I work very closely with the Premier League and the Football Association, and I know that they take racism and the treatment of fans and players extremely seriously. However, we all have a collective responsibility to ensure that this blight on our beautiful game is stamped out. My hon. Friend is right to raise that issue.

Callum Hudson-Odoi’s international debut for England should have been the proudest moment of his career to date, but he talked afterwards about hearing monkey chanting throughout the match. Raheem Sterling and Danny Rose also bravely spoke out, calling on world football’s governing bodies to do more. Montenegro was fined €20,000, which is a measly figure, given how much money we all know makes its way through the football ecosystem every single month.

I am sure that many in this House will agree that this problem is not just experienced by England when they play away from home. There is a deep problem on our own soil as well.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent case for the need to tackle discrimination in sport. As well as racism, I am sure she is aware of homophobia, so will she join me in celebrating community football teams, such as the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender-inclusive Bristol Bisons and Bristol Panthers in my constituency, as well as anti-racist community football teams, such as the Easton Cowboys?

[Dr Allin-Khan]

It gives me great pleasure to congratulate the Bristol family mentioned by my hon. Friend. I will address homophobia later in my speech. She is absolutely right that it needs to be given the same priority as racism and gender discrimination, so I thank her for her intervention.

This past season, rarely a week has gone by without an incident being reported. Numerous teams walked off pitches in lower leagues. Danny Rose admitted that he cannot wait to see the back of football because of the abuse that he has been subjected to. Wilfried Zaha highlighted just some of the truly awful tweets he receives, including one branding him a “diving monkey”. The #Enough campaign and subsequent social media boycott organised by the Professional Footballers Association saw players, pundits and organisations take a real stand against the abuse they receive. In a piece of tragic irony, however, some participating players even received racist abuse during the boycott itself. I know that the Premier League, the English Football League and the FA all feel very strongly about this issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

2. What recent discussions he has had with the Director of Public Prosecutions on ensuring more effective prosecutions of cases involving rape and other sexual offences.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

10. What recent discussions he has had with the Director of Public Prosecutions on ensuring more effective prosecutions of cases involving rape and other sexual offences.

[The Solicitor General (Robert Buckland)]

The CPS has undertaken extensive work to ensure that specialist prosecutors are fully equipped to deal with the particular complexities of such cases, and I engage with it regularly about this topic. In March the Government announced a review of how the criminal justice system responds to rape and serious sexual offences. The CPS supports the review, and is committed to working closely with the police and others to address any issues highlighted by it.

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[The Solicitor General]

The hon. Gentleman has raised an important point. A natural and anxious debate is taking place about disclosure, but I can reassure the hon. Gentleman—and, indeed, all complainants and victims of crime—that “reasonable lines of inquiry” does not mean a reckless trawl through the private lives of entirely innocent individuals. That is not a good use of resources, and it is not what we are encouraging. We need a far more targeted line of inquiry, in accordance with both the law and the code of practice.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Intimate partners and ex-partners are the largest single category of perpetrators of rape and sexual assault, which, in my experience of working with abusive men, are linked to outdated and, frankly, illegal attitudes to sex in relationships. What discussions is the Solicitor General having with his colleagues in the Department for Education about the content of the curriculum for relationships and sex education in schools?

[The Solicitor General]

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for the work that she has done on this issue in the past. She is absolutely right to talk about the input of the Department for Education. I was delighted that the House overwhelmingly passed the new regulations on personal, social, health and economic education, because they deal with relationships properly, and will help young people to understand at an early age what that means and what their responsibilities are. I will continue to have conversations with colleagues in the DFE, and also, importantly, to ensure that the myth-busting that is already being delivered by judges and prosecutors in Crown court trials continues, so that jurors—along with everyone else who is involved in the system—do not have outdated misconceptions about these appalling crimes.

Online Harms White Paper

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he says and, if I may say so, his help and his contribution during his time in the Department. I am privileged to lead in developing this piece of work; he deserves a share of the credit too, and he is right. This is not a challenge to freedom of speech. As we were discussing earlier, if we do not make the online environment safer for everyone, whoever they are, we will be damaging freedom of speech, not enhancing it. It is important that we all recognise that this is a proposal to apply the same levels of activity, control and restriction to the online world that already exist everywhere else. Our freedom of speech thrives well in this place and elsewhere within the confines of the law. The same will be true online.

In relation to my hon. Friend’s point about education and how it might be funded, it will of course be open to the regulator—we will encourage it to consider this—to spend some of its revenue on education, which we think is a key component of the White Paper.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

A vast number and variety of forms of behaviour that are quite properly illegal offline are entirely legal or unregulated online, which effectively makes parts of the internet a kind of lawless wild west, from fake cures for cancer to fake news and the bots that make it, and from harvesting of personal data to its unfettered exploitation for commercial gain. Does the Secretary of State agree that the entire online world needs a thorough review and is well overdue for regulation, so that it is put on a sure legal footing to take us into the future? Will he commit to looking at the full range of online harms?

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Lady will see that there is a fairly extensive list of online harms in the White Paper already, and we do not regard it as exhaustive. As she heard me say to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), we think it is important that the process should be able to deal with new harms as they emerge. However, she will recognise that it is important to ensure that we preserve what is good and special about the internet—the capacity for people to come up with new ideas, to have discussion and to have a free flow and exchange—while ensuring that the harms that she rightly points to are controlled. That is exactly what the White Paper seeks to do. We do not, as I have said, believe that everything in it will yet be perfect, but it is important that she and others contribute to the process over the next period of consultation and make it better.

Oral Answers to Questions

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

The Science and Technology Committee report to which my hon. Friend refers makes an important and worthwhile contribution to this debate, and I am grateful to her and her colleagues for it. Again, I hope she will forgive me if I do not set out at this Dispatch Box now precisely what the White Paper will say, but perhaps I can reassure her by saying that we are strongly considering a duty of care as part of the proposals we seek to make, and we believe it is important that responsibilities are taken seriously to protect not only young people but everyone from the harms that the internet may provide.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State mentions the duty of care applying to platforms. Is he aware that there are gaming platforms similar to social media platforms which are circulating material such as the rather horribly named “Rape Day” game, and will he extend any legislation he is planning for social media to game platforms?

[Jeremy Wright]

I believe it is not what a company calls itself that matters, but what it does. What we will seek to do in the White Paper and anything that follows it is make sure that we can tackle the harms we define as in scope of that White Paper, wherever they may lie on the internet. I understand that the game the hon. Lady mentions has now been withdrawn; quite right too—I think all of us would have been horrified had any other course been taken.

Leaving the EU: Mobile Roaming Charges

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is right. The Government have a responsibility, where we can, to continue consumer protection measures that currently reside in European law but that we think are sensible and desirable and that we will transfer into our own law in the event of our departure. Of course, as he will know, if there is a deal that includes an implementation period, the position will continue exactly as it is now during that period, which is one reason why such an implementation period and such a deal are desirable and one reason why it would be good for the Opposition to take their responsibilities seriously in this regard.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State says that the Government intend to lay the provision as a statutory instrument and that it will therefore be debated in the normal way. However, he will surely know that an enormous backlog of statutory instruments must be passed by 29 March and that appropriate levels of scrutiny will be challenged. Knowing that we lack the time to scrutinise every single statutory instrument in time for Brexit, what words of comfort can he possibly have for consumers in my constituency?

[Jeremy Wright]

I am unsure what the hon. Lady is suggesting. Is she suggesting that the Government should operate by fiat and pass the measure without consulting Parliament at all? I do not think that that would be the right way forward, even if it were feasible. This matter can be addressed by statutory instrument, and the Government intend to do so. We chose to use the affirmative procedure so that the House will have the opportunity to discuss the matter. It would seem that I am being criticised by the SNP for not allowing enough debate and by Labour for allowing too much.

Oral Answers to Questions

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor General]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend and to the family of the victim for their dignity in the face of such tragedy. Steps have indeed been taken as the result of that case and others, for example: the existence of a victims’ right to review policy on prosecution decisions; the use of local scrutiny and inclusions panels to consider violence against women and girls cases; and the new offence of coercive control, which can capture cumulative abusive behaviour by one partner against another.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Prosecuting cases of domestic violence is only possible if the police have sufficient officers and resources, so what conversations did the Solicitor General or Attorney General have with the Chancellor about police funding and were they satisfied with the result?

[The Solicitor General]

The hon. Lady knows police funding is a question for an announcement in December and the forthcoming spending review next year. I reassure her that the number of flagged referrals on domestic abuse from the police is remaining steady at about 110,000 in the past two years. As I have said, the number and rate of prosecutions continues to rise. We have seen a rise of over 50% in domestic abuse prosecutions in the past 10 years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor General]

The hon. Gentleman knows that that is and remains a key manifesto commitment for our Government. We want to introduce it via new domestic violence legislation. My colleagues in the Home Office are working on a draft Bill, and I very much hope that it will be introduced for parliamentary consideration as soon as possible this year.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Will the Solicitor General provide further clarification about the additional protections needed in the prosecutions of victims of child sexual exploitation, particularly when there sometimes appears to be a blurring of the line between victim and perpetrator?

[The Solicitor General]

It is right to identify the sometimes difficult and delicate choices that have to be made by the police and prosecutors when it comes to dealing properly with the victims of this appalling crime, who have often had no voice at all. A range of available measures need to be used, and they are now becoming the norm in our courts. I think we can go even further, such as by looking at a presumption that special measures will apply in such cases without the need for an application. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question.

Oral Answers to Questions

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend is also a great example of the future of the north of England, and I would be delighted to meet him to discuss these new technologies that are coming on stream that will help improve connectivity in Yorkshire.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

In Bristol, Bristol Plays Music and the Music Trust are developing a cultural curriculum with Bristol Old Vic and various other arts organisations. Will the Secretary of State or the Culture Minister, the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Margot James), visit Bristol when this curriculum is implemented, and will the Culture Minister support it being used in other schools across the country?

[Margot James]

I look forward to hearing more about that excellent venture. I recently met the hon. Lady at an excellent meeting with the Musicians’ Union, and I admire her passion and share it.