Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Claire Perry

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

1. What steps she is taking to tackle violence against women.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

A comprehensive cross-Government action plan on tackling violence against women and girls was published on 8 March this year. It includes 88 commitments from 12 Departments to improve the provision of services for victims of violence and to prevent violence from happening in the first place. We have already delivered 22 of those commitments.

[Claire Perry]

I thank the Home Secretary for that reply. Also part of this Government’s work is a pilot scheme running in Swindon and Wiltshire in which perpetrators of domestic violence are effectively banned from the family home, rather than the family and the women being forced to move out, as happened previously. My right hon. Friend will be pleased to know that, since July, under the terms of the scheme, 82 abusive perpetrators have been removed from family homes. The head of Wiltshire victim support unit said that the programme is reaching women who have never been helped before. Will my right hon. Friend please tell us when the pilot might be rolled out nationally?

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. She is absolutely right that domestic violence protection orders do what hon. Members across the House have always felt is right: ensure that when a domestic violence incident takes place it is the perpetrator who is not able to stay in the home, rather than the victim being forced out, as has happened so often in the past. We commenced a pilot in Greater Manchester, West Mercia and Wiltshire, and a second wave of pilot areas started in October in Grater Manchester and West Mercia, which we are looking to run for at least a year before we assess them properly.

Metropolitan Police Service

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Claire Perry

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The initial Guardian story that required investigation actually came in July 2009 under the last Government. That was looked at to see whether there was fresh evidence and a decision was taken that there was not. In September 2010, a question was raised about stories that had appeared in the American press. Again, that was looked at to see whether there was fresh evidence. At the time—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) asks what I did. I will tell him what I did. At that time, I came to this House and said that it was up to the police to investigate the matter and that it was not for politicians to tell police officers who or what to investigate. I said that the police should investigate any evidence, wherever it took them, and ensure that anybody who was guilty of criminal offences was properly brought to justice.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

This scandal has run over two Governments and three Prime Ministers. Does the Home Secretary agree that the focus of every Member of this House should be on trying to get to the truth and to find a solution to this problem—we are on the front foot finally—rather than on playing the clapped-out political blame game so beloved by the Labour party?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. She reminds the House that our prime duty and responsibility is to restore confidence in the police so that people feel that the police are doing their job appropriately and properly. There are thousands of honourable policemen and women who are continuing to do their job and we should support and encourage them. We need to get to the bottom of these allegations so that the public truly can have full confidence in what the police are doing.

Women (Government Policies)

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Claire Perry

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

It is not the case that there is a simple link between the acceleration of women’s pension age and the expenditure on the triple lock. What is happening with pensions is more complex. Two things are happening in relation to the state pension age. The first is the overall acceleration for men and women, raising the age of state pension entitlement. That will bring in significant sums of money and is a reflection not only of Government finance issues but of increased longevity. When the state pension was first introduced, people lived for a very short period, comparatively speaking—a matter of two to five years—beyond their retirement. Today, people live for a significant length of time beyond their retirement. The Government therefore need to raise the state pension age, as has been recognised by previous Governments—the initial decisions to accelerate the rise and raise the state pension age were taken by previous Governments. We have had to take these difficult decisions. As I said, however, although women will experience the rise more quickly than previously planned, they will still draw the pension for an average of 23 years.

[Claire Perry]

I am sure that my right hon. Friend is aware of this point, but in the proposals for 2016 and thereafter will we not be addressing the long-standing problem of women who have taken career breaks being ineligible for a state pension, which is a travesty that we should have sorted out before? Under the proposals we will bring forward, there will be much more parity in that area.

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes an important point that I was about to deal with. In the longer term, we want to take reforms even further. The state pension Green Paper proposed a single-tier state pension combining the state pension and the state second pension to provide an estimated £140 per week, which would be of particular benefit to women who have had to take time out of the labour market because of their caring responsibilities. The coalition Government are not just talking about this—we have actually made proposals to help women in this regard.

On health, we are pursuing policies that give real help to women. We have stuck to our promise to increase health spending in real terms; we are sticking to our coalition agreement commitment to increase the number of health visitors by 4,200 by 2015; and we are making available £400 million over the next four years to support breaks for all those hard-working carers, many of whom are women.

I have made it absolutely clear, as has my hon. Friend the Minister for Equalities, that tackling violence against women and girls is one of my top priorities, which is why in March we published an action plan to tackle the problem; it is why we have provided more than £28 million of stable Home Office funding until 2015 for local specialist services; it is why we have provided £900,000 until 2015 to support national helplines; and it is why for the first time we have put funding for rape crisis centres on a stable footing. We will provide more than £10 million over three years to support their work, and we will open new centres where there are gaps in provision. This should not be a party political issue. It is about helping the 1 million women who suffer domestic abuse each year; the 300,000 women who are sexually assaulted; and the 60,000 women who are raped. As the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford said, one in four women will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime, and that will often be accompanied by years of psychological abuse. That is why the Government take violence against women and girls so seriously.

We will only change damaging behaviour, however, after we have changed the underlying attitudes that cause that behaviour. Those attitudes are fundamentally affected by the culture and society in which children grow up. We share the concern of many parents that children are now being exposed to sexualised images and an increasingly sexualised culture from an early age, which is why we commissioned Reg Bailey, the chief executive of the Mothers’ Union, to lead an independent review of the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood. He has listened to parents’ concerns about explicit music videos, outdoor adverts and the increasing amount of sexual content in family programming on television.

Reg Bailey’s recommendations call on businesses and broadcasters to play their part, and they include putting age restrictions on music videos, covering up explicit images on the front pages of magazines and newspapers and restricting outdoor adverts near schools, nurseries and playgrounds. He also recommends that retailers sign up to a code of practice that checks and challenges the design, display and marketing of clothes, products and services for children. There has been a great deal of goodwill from the broadcast, retail and advertising industries throughout this review. They know that family-friendly practices make good business sense, and the Government will now look to work with business to implement the review’s proposals.

As well as helping women in this country, we are doing more than ever before to help women overseas. We are putting women at the heart of our international development policies, because in development there are few better options than investing in women. In Ivory Coast, for example, an increase of just $10 in women’s income achieves the same nutritional and health outcomes for children as an increase of $110 in men’s income. On international women’s day, the Department for International Development published its new strategic vision for girls and women. It sets out that, by 2015, our international development work will have saved the lives of at least 50,000 women in pregnancy and childbirth and 250,000 newborn babies; will have allowed at least 10 million women to access modern methods of family planning; will have supported more than 9 million children in primary education, of whom at least half will be girls, and 700,000 girls in secondary education; and will have helped 2.3 million women to access jobs and 18 million women to access financial services.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Claire Perry

Monday 9th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

T6. May I press the Home Secretary a little further on the 7/7 inquest? Like so many MPs in our constituencies on Friday, I was listening to the wall-to-wall coverage of the inquest and was struck by the harrowing stories of the survivors and the surviving family members. It has been nearly six years since the event. Can my right hon. Friend tell us, while we wait for the end of the formal response period, what lessons the security services have learned since the event?

[Mrs May]

As I said in response to the shadow Home Secretary, the Security Service has indeed made some changes since those events on 7 July 2005, has looked again at what is coming out of the inquest and will look with great care at the two specific proposals that are aimed at the Security Service in relation to the potential for further lessons to be learned. I draw the attention of my hon. Friend and the House, however, to Lady Justice Hallett’s words when she said that there was no evidence at all that the Security Service knew of and therefore failed to prevent the bombings on 7/7.

Government Reductions in Policing

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Claire Perry

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend has made an extremely important and valid point and an excellent contribution to the debate. It is exactly that point that was stopping the police doing the job they wanted to do.

[Claire Perry]

Does my right hon. Friend share my incredulity on listening to those on the Opposition Benches? One would think that there had been nothing left to do in terms of improving efficiency, but is the Home Secretary aware that each of the 43 police forces buys its own uniform and its own cars separately?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend also makes an important and valid point. I will come on to such issues in a few minutes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Claire Perry

Monday 7th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

The Government are committed to reducing bureaucracy. We are scrapping the stop-and- account form, and reducing the amount of information to be recorded on the stop-and-search form. Doing those two things saves up to 800,000 man-hours a year. We are returning certain charging decisions to the police. That will save up to a further 50,000 man-hours per year. We are working with the police to sweep away a further range of the red tape that prevents officers doing what they and the public want them to do—getting out on the streets and cutting crime.

[Claire Perry]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that in the past 14 months the Wiltshire police force has undergone four separate inspections by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary lasting three working weeks and costing the force £60,000, and no meaningful recommendations have been made as a result? Does she intend to reform this box-ticking regime to cut the burdens of police bureaucracy and paperwork still further?

[Mrs May]

I was not aware of the specific figures for Wiltshire. I realise that this is an issue. That is why the Policing Minister has been working with HMIC on reducing the bureaucratic burdens of the inspection regime by ensuring that we maintain an effective inspection regime, and he will inform the House on this matter in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Claire Perry

Monday 6th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I think that I answered that when I responded to the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson). As I said, the Government are absolutely clear that there is a need to rebalance national security and civil liberties. We can enjoy our civil liberties only if we have our national security, and we are absolutely clear about the Government’s responsibility for ensuring our national security.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

3. How much she plans to allocate to development of the e-borders system in the next three years.

European Investigation Order

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Claire Perry

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Having had my statement welcomed both by the shadow Home Secretary and by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), and now being described as “brave” by the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie), I am not sure about this.

I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman with some examples of the existing arrangements working, as well as examples of the problems caused for prosecutors and police by the lack of a timetable such as the one that will be introduced by the EIO.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

The Home Secretary’s statement eloquently set out the reasons to welcome this process. However, the words “opt in” and “European directive” send shivers down many backbones in my constituency. Only today I heard from a constituent about the 256 European arrest warrants referred for mediation last year, presumably at a cost of untold millions to European taxpayers. Can the Home Secretary assure us that she and her team will scrutinise the detail of this directive to ensure that it is operationally more effective than the European arrest warrant system?

[Mrs May]

I can indeed assure my hon. Friend that we will look closely at the detail of this. The intention is to make it easier for prosecutors and police—and the defence—to obtain the evidence necessary for trials. She mentions the European arrest warrant, but as I said earlier, the EIO is entirely separate.