Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Philip Davies

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

During the passage of the Civil Partnership Bill in 2004, my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) pointed out to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who is sitting next to the right hon. Lady, that that Bill would inevitably lead on to gay marriage. The hon. Gentleman replied:

“The hon. Gentleman is completely mistaken… I do not want same-sex relationships to ape marriage in any sense…because they are different. Although the two share similar elements, they do not have to be identical, so the legal provisions should be distinct.”—[Official Report, 12 October 2004; Vol. 425, c. 228.]

What has changed since then?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda has since celebrated his own civil partnership as a result of that Bill. I am sure that he would have happily invited the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), had he had the chance to do so.

Let me deal with how civil partnerships are different. Civil partnerships have been a hugely important step forward and Labour Members are proud that our Government introduced them some years ago, but it is right that we now take the additional step of introducing equal marriage across the country. Of course people have strong views on marriage—on their own marriage and on other people’s—and I understand that some in this House are strongly opposed to the Bill. I respect their views although I disagree with them. I hope that is the spirit in which this debate will take place today.

Policing and Crime

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Philip Davies

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. CCTV can make a difference for communities that are struggling, such as the community in Blackpool that I talked with a few weeks ago, who told me about the difference that having CCTV installed has made on their estate, where they had had persistent problems. CCTV was helping them to turn it around.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady may have heard the Justice Secretary say in the previous debate how important it was from the Government’s perspective to prevent people from having to be witnesses and give evidence in court and how distressing that was. Does she therefore agree with me, and I presume with the Justice Secretary, and recognise the role that DNA and CCTV play in preventing witnesses and victims having to go through the trauma of giving evidence?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman is right, and I know that he has spent considerable time looking at the issue of DNA. When the police analysed the offences in 2008-09—just one year’s worth of offences—they found that there were 79 matches for very serious crimes, including murder, manslaughter and rape, which they would not have got had it not been for the DNA database. The concern is about not holding DNA for people who are not charged, even though they might have been suspected of a very serious offence and where the reason for not charging may not be that they are now thought to be innocent, but simply that there are difficulties, as, perhaps in a rape case—we know it is sometimes difficult to take such a case through the criminal justice system.

The Government are out of touch with their plans to end antisocial behaviour orders. The Home Secretary has said that she wants to end ASBOs because she is worried that they are being breached, but what is her answer? Her answer is to replace them with a much weaker injunction, with greater delays, which offenders can breach as many times as they like. She is removing the criminal enforcement for serious breaches of ASBOs and removing interim ASBOs altogether, making it much harder for communities, police and local authorities to get urgent action when serious cases arise. No matter how many times an offender breaches the new crime prevention injunctions or ignores the warnings of the police, they will still not get a criminal penalty. They are not so much a badge of honour as a novelty wrist band. How does that help communities that want to see antisocial behaviour brought down?

The area that I worry about most is child protection. The Home Secretary has now been advised that there are serious loopholes in her plans—by the Children’s Commissioner, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Children’s Society, Action for Children, the Scout Association, the Football Association, the Lawn Tennis Association and countless other national sporting bodies. Her plans still mean that someone could be barred from working with children and yet still get part-time or voluntary work in a school or children’s sports club and the organisation would not even be told that they had been barred. She really must stop and think again on this or she will be putting children at risk.

Time and again the Home Secretary is undermining the powers of the police and the authorities to fight crime. Time and again she is telling them to fight with one hand behind their backs. Worrying signs are already emerging. In Yorkshire, the police are saying that their figures show that crime has gone up this year. In the west midlands it is the same. Over the 13 years of the Labour Government, crime fell by 40%. The risk of being a victim of crime is now at its lowest since the British crime survey began and there is rising confidence in the police, but people want crime to keep falling. She is putting that at risk.