June European Council

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Maria Eagle

Monday 2nd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As my right hon. Friend knows, and as I referred to in my statement, we are committed to spending 2% of GDP on defence, but we are also committed to increasing the amount we spend on defence by 0.5% above inflation every year, which I did not refer to in my statement. Then there is the £179 billion we will be spending on equipment. The whole point of the modernising defence programme is to look at the defence of the future and the threats we now face, and to make sure that we have the capabilities to meet those threats.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

On Northern Ireland, the Prime Minister said: “I want to be very clear. We have put forward proposals and will produce further proposals”. Could she be a little clearer now and tell the House what those further proposals are?

[The Prime Minister]

We will publish next week a White Paper with details about the proposals for our future relationship, and that will include matters relating to customs and Northern Ireland.

Grenfell Tower

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Maria Eagle

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister confirmed in her statement that testing arrangements have discovered combustible cladding on some tower blocks in other parts of the country. Given that people living in those tower blocks are perhaps going to fear more than others the consequences of that discovery, what steps can the Prime Minister take to ensure that the landlords and the local authorities where these tower blocks are located can deal swiftly with the consequences of this discovery?

[The Prime Minister]

That work is already being undertaken. First, local authorities and housing associations have undertaken the testing work of their blocks, and we encourage private landlords to do that, too, to ensure the fire safety. We encourage everybody to send in samples so that we can undertake this checking by lab testing. Local authorities are immediately informed if the material is combustible. They will then be looking, with their local fire services, at ensuring the safety of those buildings. That will be done in a number of ways, but of course there is a responsibility to ensure that people are housed safely, and the Government are working with local authorities to ensure that.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

I thought I had responded to a number of questions on this. The Government are working with local authorities. We will ensure that any essential works in terms of remedial action necessary for the safety of these blocks in relation to fire are undertaken. We will work with local authorities to identify how that—

[Maria Eagle]

Just say it!

[The Prime Minister]

There will be different circumstances in different local authorities. We will ensure that the work can be undertaken.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Maria Eagle

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The Government are very clear that the vote on 23 June was a vote to ensure that we had control of movement of people from the EU into the UK. Also, we want the best possible access for businesses for trading in goods and services, and for operating within the European market. That is what the Government will be aiming for, and we will be ambitious in that. Parliament will have its say. There are going to be lengthy negotiations over the course of the two years and more, and Parliament will have its say in a whole variety of ways, not least in relation to the great repeal Bill.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Q7. Some of my constituents who have had their tax credits suddenly stopped by Concentrix have been accused of being in a relationship with the previous tenants of their homes, even though they have never met them, and in some cases of being in a relationship with members of their own families and told to prove that they are not. This Kafkaesque situation is causing deep distress and hardship among working mothers in my constituency. Is this what the Prime Minister means by being on the side of working people? What is she going to do to put this right?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady raises an issue that is a matter of concern to Members across the House. I am making sure that those who are being assessed are being assessed properly and that the right decisions are being taken. The Department for Work and Pensions is looking at the whole process of what should be done and how those assessments should be undertaken. I hope that she welcomes the fact that this Government have said that those with long-term conditions that are not going to improve will not be put through the regular assessments that they had under her Labour Government.

Hillsborough

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Maria Eagle

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I think everybody will be disappointed and, indeed, concerned by some of the remarks that have been made by South Yorkshire police today. There was a very clear verdict yesterday in relation to the decisions that were taken by police officers and the action of police officers on 15 April 1989, and I urge South Yorkshire police force to recognise the verdict of the jury. Yes, it must get on with the day-to-day job of policing in its force area, but it needs to look at what happened—at what the verdicts have shown—recognise the truth and be willing to accept that.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement and, in particular, for her decision when she came into office in 2010 to allow the work of the Hillsborough Independent Panel to continue. That has been absolutely crucial to this outcome. When I was first elected in 1997, my constituents Phil Hammond, Doreen Jones and Jenni Hicks were some of the first people to come to see me. They were then part of the executive of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, and between them, they lost five family members. They came to see me about the disaster, and I have campaigned with them ever since to have the truth acknowledged and to have justice done.

We all knew the truth; it just seems to be the legal system in this country—I speak as a lawyer—that has been unable to get to the truth and accept the truth. For 27 years, it failed the victims at every turn. Almost everything that could go wrong in a legal case went wrong in those 27 years. Yesterday, the legal system finally did its job, but it has more to do to hold to account those who we now know for absolute certain are responsible. The Home Secretary has more to do to deal with the appalling culture and behaviour of South Yorkshire police, which persists to this day.

This disaster was filmed live and shown on television, and within months the interim report of the Taylor inquiry put the blame squarely where it actually lay—it did not get everything right, but it was substantially correct—yet for 27 years the families of those who died have had to defend every day the reputations of their lost loved ones and of their friends and other people living in Liverpool who have been blamed for what happened.

It was only the panel taking this out of the legal system that has led to the truth being acknowledged more widely than it was, and to its then being fed back into the legal system. There is a deep issue about our legal system, so will the Home Secretary now commit to supporting Lord Michael Wills’s Public Advocate Bill to ensure that the victims of public disasters—there will be more in future—are never again forced to spend decades of their lives fighting smears, lies, official denials, indifference and cover-ups from public authorities? We have to make sure this can never ever happen again.

[Mrs May]

The hon. Lady is right that we need to stand back and ask what it is about our system that actually enabled this to happen and enabled people to suffer in this way over those 27 years. One of the reasons why I have asked Bishop James Jones to work with the families, to hear from them their experiences, is obviously to try to learn from that and to see what steps we need to take in response.

One of the things that has come of this is that the panel model is one that can be used elsewhere. I have indeed used that model, with fewer members, in relation to the necessity of looking into the killing of Daniel Morgan, where again the legal system, through a number of cases, has failed to get to the truth. I think it is a method that we could use on other occasions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Maria Eagle

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that important issue, and we shall certainly look into it. Before the election, we had specific proposals that were geared towards helping women who were returning to work, to ensure that they were given the necessary skills to resume their place in the work force.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Mr Speaker, I am deputising for my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), who has informed you and the Secretary of State that she cannot be here today for family reasons to do with her children.

Given that 75 per cent. of the burden of the Budget will be borne by women, will the right hon. Lady tell me what is the point of her role as Minister for Women and Equalities in this very male-dominated Government if she cannot even ensure that men and women bear the burden of the Government’s deficit reduction measures equally? When she answers that question, will she clarify whether she is speaking in a personal capacity or whether she, at least, understands the constitutional concept of collective responsibility, even if the Deputy Prime Minister does not?

[Mrs May]

The figure that the hon. Lady has cited is not an official statistic; it is a figure that was derived from a piece of work that excluded analysis of significant parts of the Budget. That is why it is not a figure that I am going to recognise. Furthermore, if we had not taken those decisions in the Budget to deal with the deficit, and if we had adopted Labour’s plans to deal with it, that would have hit women even harder than our proposals. Under Labour’s proposals, expenditure on debt interest would have been higher than the expenditure on crucial public services, which are of particular importance to women.