Armed Forces (Recruitment Age)

Debate between Alex Cunningham and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Westminster Hall

[Alex Cunningham]

I respect the hon. Gentleman and his work in the military. Perhaps he has more knowledge of the matter than I do, but my understanding is that it is less likely for a person who enlists as an adult to be in front-line conflict. I will check my facts and ensure that, if I address the situation again, I am correct.

The time has come to heed the advice of Child Soldiers International, the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, UNICEF, the United Nations, the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Select Committee on Defence and raise the lowest age of recruitment from 16 to 18.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I spoke to the hon. Gentleman before this debate. Through my role in the armed forces parliamentary scheme and my contact as a cadet force representative in Parliament for those in Northern Ireland, over the past 20 years I have met some of the most excellent young men and women. They have tremendous qualities and, having been introduced to the Army at 16, are leaders of men today. With great respect, I cannot understand how the hon. Gentleman can advance this point of view when we all have experience of young people who excel at what they do having being inducted at 16.

[Alex Cunningham]

I have no doubt that there are young people recruited at a very early age who go on to excel, but there are some people who might have chosen a different path had they been given the opportunity. I will address some of that later in my speech.

There is no similar under-age recruitment in other dangerous public service vocations, such as the fire or police services. Young people under 18 are legally restricted from watching violent war films and playing violent video games, yet they can be trained to go to war.

Not many people realise that having 16 as a minimum recruitment age is hardly typical among developed and democratic countries. In fact, the UK is the only member of the European Union and the only permanent member of the Security Council that still recruits at 16. We are one of only 20 countries that continue to recruit at 16, while 37 countries recruit from the age of 17. We receive the same criticism as several countries that I am sure no one here would want to see us lumped in with.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has asked the Government to

“reconsider its active policy of recruitment of children into the armed forces and ensure that it does not occur in a manner which specifically targets ethnic minorities and children of low-income families”.

I am saddened that such language could be used about our country.

Jerusalem (Humanitarian Issues)

Debate between Alex Cunningham and Jim Shannon

Monday 26th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham]

I do not really think it matters whether it is a wall that is 20 feet thick or a fence—it is a barrier to the Palestinian people going about their normal business and I do not think it should be there.

One of the most sinister ways of removing Palestinians from living in Jerusalem is the rule that Palestinians’ “centre of their life” must lie within the Israeli-defined municipal boundary of Jerusalem. This prevents many who study or work for extended periods of time from returning and enriching their city’s experience. The “centre of life” requirement is of course particularly Kafkaesque when Israelis are making it more and more difficult for Palestinians to live and work in Jerusalem because of the wall and checkpoints.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

All of Jerusalem has been ravaged by war and terrorism. I am aware that all sections of those living in Jerusalem—Jews, Muslims and Christians—have the right to live and the right to guidance and support. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that applies to all groups of Jews and Christians as well?

[Alex Cunningham]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that everyone should be living together in peace and harmony with the right to the same human rights within the city of Jerusalem, and I hope that one day we will get there. To finish my point, the authorities make it impossible for the centre of Palestinians’ life to be Jerusalem, and then expels them because it is not.

Furthermore, planning rules have been made to ensure that as little land as possible is available for Palestinians to build on. Fewer than 200 building permits are granted each year, even though the EU heads of mission in East Jerusalem assessed that 1,500 housing units are necessary to meet Palestinian housing need. A building permit is rare, mostly because the Israeli municipality has zoned most Palestinian areas to prevent building—according to the UN, that restriction applies in all but 13% of East Jerusalem—but even those who live in areas where building is permitted suffer years of delay and mounting costs in seeking permission to build.

Palestinians face an impossible dilemma as their family grows: do they live in squalid overcrowded conditions, move out of the city, or risk building illegally? Many take the chance of building without a permit, resulting in about 85,000 Palestinians being at risk of losing their homes. In addition, Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem are being demolished by the Israeli authorities: they demolished 670 homes between 2000 and 2008, and recently rubber-stamped the decision to demolish homes in Silwan to make way for a tourist park, which alone will make another 1,000 Palestinians homeless.

That comes at the same time as the building of illegal Jewish settlements continues unabated, forming an inner and outer ring around Jerusalem. The inner ring, home to around 200,000 settlers, combined with the wall cuts off Jerusalem from the west bank. The outer ring, home to another 100,000 settlers, further isolates the west bank from the Palestinian cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem. Moreover, settlements continue to be built on land confiscated from Palestinians. On the fringes, homes are being seized by Israeli settler groups on the pretext that the land on which they are built was once in Jewish ownership, but to which those groups have no legal entitlement.

Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between Alex Cunningham and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

With about 186,000 people and two MPs, the Stockton borough is one of the smallest unitary authorities in the country. It is also one of the best—it was recently council of the year, and for several years in a row, it has been in the top six authorities for its management of resources.

For all its small size and success in managing resources, some 500 council jobs have gone since the coalition Government came to power. Still more will doubtless go as the attack on local government and the services it provides continues with this Bill. The lost jobs are adding hugely to increasing unemployment in an area where the jobless rate is already much higher than at any time under the Thatcher and Major Governments when areas such as Teesside and the wider north-east England economy were left on their knees.

Now we have a grand statement from the Government: “Transparency, economic growth, flexibility, making communities masters of their own economic destinies”—all this is promised by the Local Government Finance Bill. These are fancy words that we know, and the Government must know, are an attempt simply to be upbeat in the face of a dire and failing economic policy that is in danger of driving our country back into recession. The jobs lost in my borough are reflected many times over across the country, and the charging white horse of the reform of business rates will not matter a jot—well, not for the worst hit areas in the economy. The reverse will be the case.

What Government Members fail to acknowledge is that local authorities cannot all be equally alluring to business—however hard they try. Business taxation revenue varies hugely from place to place. In 2010-11, Westminster collected 33 times more than my neighbouring borough of Middlesbrough. The changes will widen the gap between authorities capable of promoting growth—mainly in the south—and those where growth is slow or non-existent.

Far from there being, to quote the exact words of the Secretary of State,

“no motivation for councils to support local firms or create new jobs”,

local authorities have embarked on economic development in their area for countless years on the basis that this will attract jobs and so benefit their area. It is the right thing for local authorities to do.

I have been disgusted this evening by the denigration of local authorities, their members and their officers. That the Secretary of State could make such an insulting statement shows how little he understands, despite his long service in local government, the way in which it works. The idea that there could be some overnight entrepreneurial revolution is sheer fantasy.

I am particularly shocked that Ministers should believe that the 10% cut in council tax benefit will somehow magically reduce the number of people who need it. In fact, it will be squeezed at precisely the point at which there is the most need for help among low-income households. Pensioners and vulnerable households may be protected from the cuts, but that means that the whole of the 10% saving that local authorities must make will fall on the unprotected group that consists mainly of the working poor.

[Jim Shannon]

Will not the 10% reduction also mean more poverty and homelessness? How will that affect the hon. Gentleman’s community?

[Alex Cunningham]

I have no doubt that communities such as mine, and perhaps the hon. Gentleman’s, will be affected. I believe that we will see more poverty as people try to cope with much lower incomes.

In many instances, the gains that the Government suggest will be made by the working poor as a result of the £1,000 increase in the personal allowance for income tax will be wiped out by the reduction in council tax benefit. The theoretical 10% reduction will equate to a loss of £1.7 million for the Stockton authority area, £1.2 million of it in my constituency. Given the exclusion of pensioners from the change, those affected are likely to be hit by a 20% reduction, which will contribute to a further increase in poverty. The Government’s proposals merely transfer one of the national costs of rising unemployment to councils and local taxpayers, creating a serious risk that every resident will face further cuts in services that are already under threat.

I do not often find myself sharing many opinions with Government Members, but I simply could not disagree with the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), when he said:

“Those in greatest need ultimately bear the burden of paying off the debt”.—[Official Report, 10 June 2010; Vol. 511, c. 450.]

As it is, the Bill tees up the poorest to bear the greatest burden. It neuters local authorities other than those in the most affluent areas, preventing their development, and it will lead to further job losses throughout the country, with no consolation for the nation as a whole. I will oppose the Bill tonight.

Unemployment

Debate between Alex Cunningham and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham]

I agree. My hon. Friend provided an illustration of that earlier when he mentioned the job losses that have been announced in a company in his constituency. For some time the Tories said that we did not have a plan for jobs. They may have systematically dismantled our investment programmes for job creation, but it is not too late for them to adopt our five-point plan for jobs and growth.

Like others who have spoken, I shall concentrate on the subject of young people. The acceleration in the number of young unemployed people will help this Tory-led Government to go down in history as the Government who could not care less about our country’s most important asset.

[Jim Shannon]

It has been suggested that businesses should be given an incentive to employ people aged between 16 and 24, in the form of a £1,500 tax relief which would cover national insurance contributions for a year. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that such initiatives are capable of providing employment for unemployed people?