Oral Answers to Questions
Alex Norris Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Victoria Atkins
The hon. Lady may recall that we said we would keep that under review, because we felt that the measures put forward last year were of a nature that did not target areas that have a particular problem with knife crime. We will keep it under review, but I make the point again that it is the responsibility of shop owners to make sure that if they are selling items such as that, they display them appropriately and, if necessary, keep them under lock and key.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Good youth services are the frontline against youth violence, but this week we see yet another local government settlement that means there is a decade’s worth of erosion of funding for youth services. What will the Home Office do differently to encourage the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to properly fund youth services or to put its own money into a good universal offer across all our communities?
Victoria Atkins
The hon. Gentleman will know of the most recent local authority grants, which the House will debate later this week. He will also know that the Chancellor restated a commitment to young people, confirming £500 million of investment through the new youth investment fund over five years, in addition to the £220 million that will be spent over the next 10 years on early intervention projects that can, and I hope will, make a great difference to our young people’s lives.
Domestic Abuse Bill (First sitting)
Alex Norris ExcerptsTuesday 29th October 2019
(5 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Notices of Amendments as at 7 October 2019 - (8 Oct 2019)
Gillian Keegan
Q
Nicole Jacobs: That is why I feel strongly about the broadening of the statutory duty. One of the things that I want to point out is that when you hear about refuges or community-based services, all those people are serving the needs of children. They are the people who are finding the school places and thinking about advocating to CAMHS—child and adolescent mental health services—for example, about waiting lists and all sorts of things.
That aside, there is still a distinct lack of services that address the child directly. There are the needs of the child and then what services a child in their own right should have, such as counselling support to understand and make sense of the trauma they have suffered. Those services are seriously lacking because in the local authority, at the local level, it is the crisis-related services that are prioritised for funding.
Believe anyone who gives you evidence on the lack of services for children, because it is true to say that it is very unusual to find an area with genuine nice provision and breadth of services for children in that respect. Again, that is why we need to be clearer about where that is happening, so that we can learn from it—how do they fund it, or which partners come together at the local authority level to fund it? Even better, that should be included in the breadth of a duty that we would expect everyone to have. That would make things significantly better.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Q
Nicole Jacobs: My colleagues at Women’s Aid, whom I trust, would say that we are turning away one in three people who seek a refuge. I know what it is like to try to find a place in a refuge—I have many years’ experience in frontline services and I have been at the end of the phone on a Friday night trying to find a place for someone sitting in front of me who has nowhere to go. I welcome the establishment of a solid fundamental duty to ensure that that provision is in place.
I like the way that MHCLG has consulted many stakeholders about having a board that would include specialist services that map and think carefully about the priorities in any area. All those things would end the idea of, “I am funding something that is not for ‘my residents’,” which has been the attitude from some, although not all, local authorities. Some local authorities have had an attitude of, “Why are we providing this service when it is not our residents who are attending?”, but if everyone did that there would be no place to go.
Some of the measures being introduced will address that in part, but I stress that things such as provision for migrant women or people with no recourse to public funds—I cannot tell you how frustrating it is when you are desperately trying to find suitable, safe accommodation for someone in those circumstances. I am sure you will hear a lot of evidence about that, so I will not go into great detail, but we must seek to improve those things through the Bill in terms of our duties. I do not see it happening any other way.
Local authorities are very constrained. For example, even when you go to a local authority with great solid information and say, “This is the percentage increase in our referrals; this is the breadth of what we are not doing,” the response is not, “Okay, you have given me the evidence, here we go.” Usually, it is, “Let’s have a 10% cut because we are cutting all services right now.” That is the reality out there, and that is why there has been such a lot of enthusiasm for the idea of a duty, which I feel needs to be extended.
Alex Norris
Q
Nicole Jacobs: Yes, it is quite different. I am used to working in an organisation where if I wanted to recruit someone, I could go to my office, write a job description, put in an ad, and it would all be done. It is a bit of a shock. There has been some real learning from Kevin Hyland. The team in the Home Office that has been helping me get set up—I have had some support—has really got ahead of that and the recruitment, which has been great. I feel it has helped to manage my expectations a bit, but it has got a few key posts in place. To be honest, if the team had not done that—it was a courtesy to get me off to a good start—I would be doing it now, and instead of interviewing next week I would be interviewing in three months’ time.
I understand what Kevin Hyland was saying, and it reminds me of something that I would like to point out. I was madly reviewing all the documents in preparation for coming before you—although you are very friendly and not as intimidating as I had thought—and one of the things that I noted was this thing about recruitment. It says that the Domestic Abuse Commissioner would approve the recruitment. When I read that wording, I thought, “This is my staff team, and I will select it. If it is not me, it will be my chief of staff.” I would not approve the recruitment; I would be doing it. Again, I do not anticipate that I will not be able to negotiate that in the framework agreement, but it is something that I noticed yesterday, and I thought, “Actually, it should be worded to be really clear that I or someone on my team will be recruiting, as it is my staff team.” I will be advocating for that small change in the wording.
Domestic Abuse Bill (Second sitting)
Alex Norris ExcerptsTuesday 29th October 2019
(5 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Notices of Amendments as at 7 October 2019 - (8 Oct 2019)
The Chair
We are into the last four minutes, so we must have short questions and short answers.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Q
Zoe Billingham: It is patchy, again, in terms of not just right to know, but need to know. We encourage forces. Each year, we have identified the patchy use, knowledge and understanding of Clare’s law as something that forces have responsibility to do more about in terms of greater publicity and awareness-building. It is another one of those powers that the police have and that are available to them, but that are too often used inconsistently.
Alex Norris
Q
Zoe Billingham: Obviously, putting this on to a statutory footing will help, but two other things need to happen in conjunction with that. First, it needs to be publicised effectively in forces and across the broader population. Secondly, it is absolutely imperative that forces have sufficient resources to deal swiftly and effectively with what we suspect will be an increased number of requests. Our concern is that there might be a lot of local publicity about, “Your force will do this”, or, “Come forward and ask this”, only for victims to be let down because forces have not geared themselves up with the right resources. That would be our word of caution, but as I say, putting it on a statutory footing is welcome.
Alex Norris
Q
Zoe Billingham: We welcome the introduction of the commissioner’s role. I have met her briefly. We need to ensure that we, as an independent inspectorate, work closely alongside the commissioner, that we do not duplicate our efforts, and that our learning from inspections is passed to her and vice versa, so that we can continue to set the expectation that is required of police forces. I expect us to work in close concert on that.
Victoria Atkins
Q
Zoe Billingham: I would say that we are independent. As you know, Minister, we make recommendations without fear or favour. We are very happy to make recommendations directed at the Home Office and have often done so in our work around domestic abuse. We expect action to be taken not only by police forces or police and crime commissioners but by Departments. I feel extremely independent in my role. I suspect that that will be reflected in the role of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner as well. The fact that I have a relationship with the Home Office does not undermine my personal statutory independence as an HMI or our organisation’s independence.
Victoria Atkins
Q
Nazir Afzal: I met with her yesterday, and I very much welcome her. I think she is sitting behind us right now. Obviously, there are restrictions on what she can do: there are devolved areas for the Welsh Government, and she is not permitted to comment on or analyse those areas. There are reserved areas where she can. We agreed yesterday to collaborate, and I know we will do that from here on in. There are opportunities for the sharing of good practice, and there are opportunities for commissioning joint research and things like that. I have no doubt whatsoever that our relationship will be very fruitful.
Alex Norris
Q
Nazir Afzal: We live in the real world, and it is acknowledged that 84%, or thereabouts, of victims are female. Much of the men-on-men abuse, for example, is men abusing, and the vast majority of perpetrators are male. When you recognise that, it does not mean that you ignore male victims. The Welsh Government have been working closely with organisations that support male victims, and I have no doubt that that will continue. Being one thing does not mean that you have to stop being another. That should not cause any problem for us in England and Wales, because it certainly has not caused any problems in Wales.
Alex Norris
Q
Nazir Afzal: There is a substantial learning. For example, there are people working in the male victim sector who previously felt that they were being ignored and not listened to and that perhaps—I think this was underlying your question—they were second-class victims. What they have picked up from those who are suffering has informed the Welsh Government’s work in relation to female victims. There is substantial good practice in that area, which perhaps would not have been picked up had we not engaged with them in the way that we are doing.
Gillian Keegan
Q
Nazir Afzal: Do you mean the national advisor role?
Sarah Newton
Q
Sally Noden: Absolutely. We have to then be very mindful about making sure that we are not keeping children in the abusive relationship, and about whether the parents are willing to do that piece of work or whether someone will continue to be controlling. It is really important to have that open dialogue, and name it. There are a number of projects, such as the Helping Hands project, that you can work with children on, and I know of a number of youth work projects working with young people, but you are right to ask whether they are really doing the joining up. We need to look at that further.
Alex Norris
Q
Eleanor Briggs: I have touched on that already. Although we really welcome the duty and see it as a step forward, we think that, as it stands, it is not adequate and will not provide the support that children and young people, and adult victims and perpetrators, need. We welcome the focus in the duty as drafted on children’s support, and we welcome the fact that children’s social care will sit on the board, although we would like to see DFE on the national steering group as well.
We need to face up to the reality that most victims will not be in a refuge. That is a positive thing—people should not need to leave their home to get support. It seems logical to us that if you are getting all the local partners together, including children, to look at an issue and how they are going to respond to domestic abuse, you should not limit that to accommodation-based support. It should be a holistic, expanded duty where they can look at what support we need in the community as well.
There is a particular concern about refuges and the amount of support, because of the fact that people are being turned away and that children are being turned away. From what Sally has said, and from what we see in our own research with Stirling University, we know that those issues are also there with community-based services. Currently, there is a real postcode lottery for access. Research that we did with Stirling University and local authorities showed that in two thirds of areas there were barriers to children and young people accessing community services. Also in two thirds of areas the funding issues that we have already spoken about were present, with projects being funded by unstable funding streams and not knowing what their future was. In 10% of local authorities, there were actually no services for children and young people, and only two had services for children in the early years. There is a real problem around adequate services for children and young people in the community, which the Domestic Abuse Commissioner picked up this morning.
The duty is a real opportunity, which we welcome, but to do its job properly, it needs to be widened. In that research with Stirling University, local authorities said that there is an absence of guidance, that they are not sure what they are supposed to be providing, and, unusually, that they would welcome a duty to give them that clarity about what is wanted. Of course, they will need it to be properly funded, but having that clarity would be a real step forward for everyone.
I have already addressed our fear that unintentionally the duty as it stands might have a negative impact on some of those vital community services for children and young people, particularly given the funding pressure that we know local authorities are under. MHCLG has said that the duty will not have an impact on community-based services, but no detail was provided about how or why that is the case. We therefore echo the Joint Committee’s recommendation that the duty needs to look at how community-based support can be provided. We know from the services that Sally provides how important that support is in helping children to recover and preventing further abuse in the next generation.
Alex Norris
Q
Eleanor Briggs: Yes. The research that we did with Stirling has three different case studies of how local authorities are operating. One is high functioning, one is doing okay, and one is a really poorly functioning local authority. We will happily share that to show you how the different models are working. We hope that through an expanded duty everyone could get up to that high-functioning model.
Luke Graham
Q
Sally Noden: I can talk about a case study. I think this will answer your question—tell me if it does not. Within our service, we had a referral of a sibling group. There is a waiting list, and by the time of the referral one of the children had been removed—in fact, all three of them had been removed and one was in a foster placement on their own. We continued with that work; our original piece of work was with the foster carer and the young person.
We linked up with children’s social care and with the foster carer, and we met with mum, because the young child was potentially going to go back home—so we linked up in terms of what sort of therapeutic support we could offer this young person. In fairness, children’s social care linked up with us as well and ensured that we were speaking to the right people. We needed to speak to the foster carer. We might have spoken only to mum, or we might not have spoken to her.
The big piece of work that we did with that young person was trying to work out their emotional responses to the uncertainty that they were going to go through. That was a huge piece of work, because they did not know whether they were going to go home. At one point, the courts were looking at whether dad was a potential caregiver. Dad had been the perpetrator of domestic violence towards mum. We had to do some work, although the child was not really in recovery because they still had lots of uncertainties; they really needed some therapeutic support in working out their emotions and their lack of knowledge about what was going on.
I do not know whether that quite answers your question. We ensured that we connected up, and doing so has to be everybody’s responsibility. It is the same with adult services. Often you see the adult presented, and you do not connect up whether the child will have to move school, and what will happen to them and their education. That is why it is so important to have children named as victims in the Bill, because people then have to connect it up, from all services.
Eleanor Briggs: I would add that if we got a wider duty, looking more broadly than accommodation-based services, that would help because you would have the board and representatives from all relevant partners across the local authority on that board looking at their joined-up response. That would get them talking, and would be such an opportunity. If they were looking more widely than just at accommodation, they would pick up on those issues.
Modern Slavery Act: Independent Review
Alex Norris Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Main. I commend the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) on securing this debate, on his tireless work in this area, on his efforts to expedite a review—I remember that it was not necessarily going to happen—and on the excellent review that flowed from that. Of course, I should not miss out of my compliments Baroness Butler-Sloss and the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), as reviewers, and two of my very good pals in this place, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) and Baroness Young, who provided expert advice. Looking down the list of contributors, I feel we should give those guys more difficult problems, because it was a very strong team—I cannot imagine there is much that their collective wits and experience could not tackle. The report really is a terrific bit of work.
The slavery of another human being is a cruel and unthinkable crime. We talk in terms of modern slavery, but, in reality, this is a thread that has run through humanity for centuries, and we are custodians of an abolitionist movement that takes a stand and fights it. Today we stand in the shoes of Wilberforce, Hamilton and Elizabeth Heyrick. It is an awesome opportunity and challenge, and our ambition must match theirs.
Having world-leading legislation is a critical first step. I have no doubt that, as the Prime Minister finishes her final few days in office, the work here will be among her proudest. The 2015 Act stands as a testament to her personal commitment to this agenda. Slavery is a scourge that we have fought for centuries. Slavers innovate, and we too must develop our approaches to make sure that they are fit for a modern context. That is why the review is so important. Even in four years, things move on.
I want to touch on two issues in the report that I have spent my past two-plus years in this place raising. First, the role of the independent commissioner is important; it is one way in which a self-confident, reflective Government are held to account. As the report has shown, however, it has not delivered as planned. Frankly, if a role is hosted, managed and appraised by the very Department it is set up to ensure scrutiny of, it is not independent. It is not possible for someone to be independent of the place where their pay and rations come from. If the Government are serious about independent oversight, it needs to be done properly. The suggestions in the report would be a good approach and would ensure greater independence and effectiveness.
The Minister does not need me to draw her attention to what the right hon. Member for Basingstoke said in the report about the draft Domestic Abuse Bill, on which she and I have spent the past three months. There are some good suggestions there about how we can have a truly independent commissioner. If we carry on along current lines, I can say with certainty that a Member will be standing where I am, facing a Minister, and they will be having the exact same conversation about the independent domestic abuse commissioner that we have been having about the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner. We shall make the same mistakes, because nothing will have changed. No one wants that to happen, but no one at the moment is stopping what seems to be a runaway train. I implore the Minister to stop it and to say there is a better way. I think that there is, and the report suggests one.
While I was a member, the Home Affairs Committee took evidence from the outgoing Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, Kevin Hyland. We heard about the practical difficulties that he had in running the office and the debilitating nature of the Home Office recruitment process. There are good reasons for that, and I fully understand, but I wonder what craft and creativity could be brought to bear so that the post could be made agile and flexible in relation to need.
As to transparency in supply chains, section 54 of the Act is a critical part of disrupting the supply chains on which the global organised crime network is built. However, the record on that is not good enough. It is unthinkable that, four years on, more than a quarter of companies do not comply with the provisions on reporting, as TISCreport states. That does not even account for token compliance. What other laws that we pass in this place are thought of as, “Do them if you fancy doing them”? I certainly do not talk to constituents about many laws of that kind. These laws are not optional extras, and a competitive disadvantage is created, so I offer no apologies for repeating what my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) said about the Co-op and the Bright Future programme: the company has put itself at a competitive disadvantage to do what it has done, which is wrong.
I have, through my written questions over the past couple of years, noticed an evolution within the Home Office. To begin with, it would reply that it did not know “who should” do things or “how many have”. Then it recognised that it had such knowledge. Now there is an idea that something must happen. The shoe needs to drop. I am interested in hearing more about the Government’s plans.
I echo the call in the review for the requirement to be extended to the public sector. Councils and central Government are massive purchasers and could have a real impact on disrupting supply chains. Of course they would have no interest in dealing with disreputable suppliers. However, the latest Sancroft-Tussell report says that more than 40% of the top 100 suppliers to central Government have failed to meet the basic legal requirements of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. That is extraordinary. What is wrong with us, whether we are in the Government, or we are the people who hold them to account? How have we let it come about that 40% of the top 100 suppliers, who get billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money, think, for a start, that they do not need to comply with the law, and do not think it worth their time to cross the road to comply with modern slavery legislation? It is ridiculous, and none of us should stand for it. I would be interested to know when there will be action on that.
The report is excellent. I alluded earlier to the fact that there was a bit of a battle to make the case for it, and I applaud the Members who did so. It is good to come back and ask whether something that was world-leading is now fit for our time. Were amendments rejected previously that now fit the modern context? There are 80 suggestions, and I am pretty much on board with all of them. If we add those things and develop them, we will get what we all want: a strong, forthright and complete attack on slavery in this country.
Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)
I am sure colleagues have not missed the fact that they have shown such discipline that the Minister and shadow Minister will have a generous amount of time—it may well be that interventions are required to tease out further questions. I was strict about the six-minute speeches, and colleagues dutifully did not intervene on each other.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alex Norris Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Hurd
I understand the point that my right hon. Friend makes. We are concerned about the increase in vehicle crime. That is why I have convened a taskforce to bring everyone together to look at it. There are costs that need to be recouped, but he raises a serious point, and we have agreed to look at that again.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
The seasonal agricultural workers scheme presents a real risk of inadvertently creating slavery. What extra resources will the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority get to ensure that that does not happen?
Victoria Atkins
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. He will know how vital the work of the GLAA is to tackling modern slavery. I am working with my ministerial colleague to ensure that the situation he describes does not occur.
Modern Slavery and Victim Support
Alex Norris Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
I am glad to speak on this most important subject. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) on securing this debate and on his outstanding introduction. My only criticism is that he did not leave much for the rest of us to add—he truly was brilliant. I encourage people who read the transcript to share his speech far and wide, so that people can understand where we are, how we got here and where we might go.
It is important that, when we meet people in the course of our normal work, we say that this is happening under our noses. My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) mentioned that it is happening close to here. We walk past it and drive past it. We might unwittingly go into such establishments. It happens on our estates. It behoves us to make a stand and say that it is unacceptable in all of its forms in our community.
There is a high level of understanding of this across the House and everybody is appalled, but we have to ask whether we are doing enough. As the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green said, we brought in world-leading flagship legislation but, three years on, has it done what we want it to do and could we develop it? That does not imply criticism of Home Office Minister—far from it. In many ways we are pioneers, but that means we will have to learn along the way, by looking at what we can do better.
I echo the call for Lord McColl’s Bill to have Government time in the Chamber. If it cannot, what is the hold-up? We know that 45 days passes in the blink of an eye for people recovering from this incredibly traumatic experience. My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling touched on the practicalities of entering the system. From our personal casework, we know that 45 days is no time whatsoever to help people to unpick exceptionally difficult trauma and understand, having had all their agency removed, what they wish to do with their life. For many people, 12 months would feel like a tight period of time, but it would give those individuals better time for proper reflection.
Not everybody would need that. I was with a brilliant charity in Nottingham a few weeks ago—the Micu Bogdan Foundation—which specialises in support services for Romanian men, specifically in helping Romanian men go home if that is what they wish to do. Some do not want that, but many do. To have that quick contact and then leave is absolutely fine, but we need to put the victim at the heart of that, and to finally hear their voice after they have had it taken away for so long. To give them that agency back is a profound thing for us to do. I am interested to hear the Minister’s reflections on rights to work. We have a high level of political consensus that work is exceptionally important for an individual to build their life around and give them dignity, so I am not convinced that having someone sat staring at four walls and reliving a trauma is the most effective way to help them rebuild their lives.
I know the Minister has put a lot of personal investment into reforming and improving the national referral mechanism. When I talk to victims, I always ask them about their experience in the NRM after I have asked them about their experience being trafficked and exploited. The two experiences are eerily similar. They say, “I don’t really know what’s happening. I don’t have a choice over where I am living. I have been moved at short notice.” That will not do. We need clarity in the NRM. The system might be complicated because of the nature of investigations, but we have to get at least a little more dignity into it. I know the Minister is committed to that, but I would be interested to hear a little bit more on it.
We should welcome the review of the Modern Slavery Act chaired by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field). That is a good sign that there is a genuine desire for dialogue and improvement in the Home Office. I hope we look at what comes out of that. I recently left the Select Committee on Home Affairs, where the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) does outstanding work on these matters. I hope that, when the slavery report comes out, the Home Office will listen and try to improve.
There are many causes for optimism. I am pleased that 85 councils have signed the Co-operative party’s charter against modern slavery. I am a proud Co-operative party MP. I bug the Minister a lot on the enforcement and monitoring of section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act. We are moving, but I would like us to be moving a little bit quicker. I hope we hear more about what the Minister plans to do with those who do not comply, but big business—a turnover of £37 million or more—is only one part of it. The collective purchasing power of local government is absolutely massive. Having local authorities come together to say, “We don’t want to be part of this either and we will ensure that we are not,” and holding themselves to that section 54 standard is very good, but Ministers may want to consider whether the public sector should be covered by it more generally.
There is a lot to reflect on. In a positive spirit, we should be proud that we have world-leading legislation, and that other countries have picked up the banner and sought to do the same. Three years on, it is important to say that we share a view that we want to get victims out of their difficult situations, and help them to rebuild and live a full and happy life. We now need to ask whether what we are doing in statute promotes that. As I said, that does not imply criticism—it is just time to develop the legislation.
Macpherson Report: 20th Anniversary
Alex Norris Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That this House notes the twentieth anniversary of the publication of the Macpherson Report on the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry on 24 February 2019; and calls on the Government and all in public life to renew their commitment to fulfilling the recommendations of the Macpherson Report.
Twenty years ago yesterday, the Stephen Lawrence inquiry reported its findings. Last year saw the country mark a more tragic anniversary: it was 25 years since Stephen was killed in a brutal racist attack in Eltham, south London, on 22 April 1993. He was 18 years old. The chair of the inquiry, Sir William Macpherson, and his advisers later concluded:
“Stephen Lawrence’s murder was simply and solely and unequivocally motivated by racism.”
That date also marked the start of a long battle for justice by Stephen’s family. Their courage and dignity in the face of everything that they have faced is extraordinary, and should constitute a call to action for all of us. For the purpose of my speech, I have drawn extensively on Baroness and Dr Lawrence’s work, as well as their contributions to the ongoing Home Affairs Committee inquiry. I have also drawn from the work of—and stood on the shoulders of—my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), who worked so hard to get the inquiry off the ground. I salute his work today.
Looking ahead to this anniversary, the Home Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, began to scope an inquiry last year. We have taken written evidence, and earlier this month we held our first oral evidence session. We heard from Baroness Lawrence, and from representatives of black and minority ethnic policing bodies. We look forward to taking further evidence in the coming months.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. I would contribute to it by making a speech, but unfortunately it clashes with an event that I planned several months ago, which I am chairing and to which I shall return in a second. First, however, let me say this to my hon. Friend.
One of my reflections on the inquiry is that as time has gone by—and it is 20 years into the past—we have lost our focus on the lessons that Macpherson taught us. Some of our public services are not sufficiently aware of the issues surrounding racism and racial tension in some of our communities. I think we need to think again about some of them, and I hope that the Committee will refocus people’s attention on the lessons of Macpherson so that our public services can once again give those issues the priority that they must be given.
Alex Norris
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I was about to come to exactly that point.
The Macpherson report presented 70 recommendations to the Home Office, police forces and other public bodies. Baroness Lawrence told us that she had tried to find out how many had been implemented before coming to see our Committee, but had struggled to find the information that she needed. She said:
“It seems as if things have become really stagnant and nothing seems to have moved”.
So are we really learning the lessons?
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
That raises a question about the Metropolitan police: why has it taken them about 20 years to start an inquiry into, according to the press, between 10 and 12 officers? That suggests to me the Metropolitan police have still not got on top of this problem.
Alex Norris
That is one of the reasons for the Select Committee’s work on this. We are at the early stages and so have not yet drawn any conclusions, but a real and clear audit against the recommendations for both the Metropolitan police and other organisations would be timely. In starting this debate I intend to run through some of the evidence we have seen so far, on just four or so topics.
The phrase “institutional racism” is synonymous with the Macpherson report, which concluded that institutional racism existed in the Metropolitan Police Service, other police services and other institutions countrywide, citing factors such as the Lawrence family’s treatment by the police, the disparity in stop-and-search figures, the under-reporting of racial incidents nationwide and the failure of the police to provide officers with racism awareness or race relations training.
So how far have we come since then, 20 years on?
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that sometimes people talk about the use of the phrase “institutional racism” as if people are saying every single person in the institution in question is a racist, whereas that phrase refers to the workings of institutions that turn out to the disadvantage of black people and others?
Alex Norris
I absolutely agree. I said the phrase was synonymous with the Macpherson report because that report is what made the phrase a part of public life, and people do get very sensitive about it and I think sometimes hide behind those sensitivities as a reason not to act on the things my right hon. Friend talks about.
There is evidence to suggest that we have not made enough progress so far. Police Sergeant Tola Munro, president of the National Black Police Association, told the press that there had been “some progress” but added that
“if I was marking policing I would give us a C at the moment…We within the NBPA would argue that we would consider at least some forces are institutionally racist”.
Baroness Lawrence highlighted the education system as somewhere where black people continually do not have the same outcomes as their white counterparts, and Bevan Powell, one of the founding members of the NBPA, said:
“While I believe a lot has changed, I think, to a certain extent, a lot has gone backwards. I think that is due to leadership; it is because the police and the Government have taken their eye off the ball on race.”
Clearly there is much to do.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman, as a fellow member of the Home Affairs Committee, for securing this debate. On leadership, I am sure he will agree that in order for the police force to command the respect of the population, it needs to reflect that population as much as possible, and the leadership of the organisation also needs to reflect the population as a whole. While, as I am sure the Minister will tell us and as the Committee has heard, there has been some progress in the number of BME officers in the police force, the number of BME officers in high positions is still woefully low and not reflective of that number. The retention rates for those officers are also woefully low, and that is where we need to do an awful lot better.
Alex Norris
I appreciate that intervention, and it is a prescient one as I am about to move on to BAME officers in the police.
Macpherson highlighted the importance of police forces representing the communities they serve, as the hon. Gentleman said, and of recruitment and progression being prioritised. Today, the proportion of officers from BAME backgrounds is still half what it would be if it reflected the general population, so progress has been exceptionally slow. We should be glad that there is a 4% year-on-year increase in the latest data, but it is still very slow and we need to do better. Of course, as the hon. Gentleman said, those officers are also still disproportionately concentrated at lower ranks, and based on current rates of progression it will be 2052 before the police service represents the population it serves. In pulling this speech together I was shocked to learn that 13 of the 43 forces in England and Wales do not have a single black woman police officer, and across the force in total the number of black female officers has increased by 34 in the last 10 years—not 34%, but 34 individuals. That is astounding.
Even when those recruits have entered the service, Detective Sergeant Janet Hills, the chair of the Metropolitan Black Police Association, says that all the good work that is being done to recruit more BAME officers is being undone by
“a culture that is still not embracing diversity, race and difference, which then has people either dismissed or deciding to leave voluntarily”,
and adds that people are being recruited but are not staying because they are not being progressed.
Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there appear to be a disproportionate number of black and ethnic minority police officers above the rank of superintendent under investigation? There appears to be a feeling that they are discriminated against in the profession, which obviously does not encourage them to remain in the service or help their promotion.
Alex Norris
Yes, the Committee has heard that there is disproportionality in disciplinary procedures. That is bad for the individuals, but also sets a tone and sends a message to other officers or would-be officers that their experience will not be a positive one. It fundamentally undermines the authority and legitimacy of police forces for them to fail to represent the communities they serve. Let’s face it, I am not the first person to stand up in this place and cotton on to that fact; how many people over the last 20 years, and probably the 20 years before that, have stood up in this Chamber and said that? But what are we actually doing to change this? People will look to us for leadership and expect that we effect change.
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
May I echo others’ praise of my hon. Friend for securing this debate? One of the most senior BME officers to serve in the Metropolitan police was Chief Superintendent Dal Babu, who led the police in the London Borough of Harrow. The Minister will remember his excellent service in our communities. He has said publicly that he launched a mentoring and support programme for other officers from a BME background and had that initiative rubbished by senior officers. Is that attitude not part of the challenge we face, and should we expect not only Ministers but senior figures in the Metropolitan police to continue to challenge it?
Alex Norris
We will start to see things genuinely changing when we start to see such initiatives embraced. The idea that doing the same things will get us the same outcomes is hardly a revolutionary concept, but people are too slow to grasp that.
The Macpherson report criticised the disproportionality of stop-and-search, stating that
“we are clear that the perception and experience of the minority communities that discrimination is a major element in the stop and search problem is correct”.
One of the performance indicators recommended for measuring progress against the ministerial priority was
“the policy directives governing stop and search procedures and their outcomes”.
Again, I fear we have gone too quiet on that, not least because recent figures suggest that race disproportionality in stop-and-search is actually worse now than it was 20 years ago, although improved recording practices may well have had an impact on that. Still, the latest figures show that black people are nine and a half times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
We often hear that having too many stop-and-searches of members of the black community, especially black males, is affecting the community and its relationship with the police. That can then make it very difficult for people from a black culture and ethnic background to be able to trust the police, so we need to do more on building that relationship between black communities and the police.
Alex Norris
I absolutely agree. I dare say I may have taken part in this at some point, but as a body politic we have a dishonest conversation about stop-and-search. When we are in a community hall faced by parents or individuals who are angry about disproportionality we wring our hands and say it must change, but the moment something happens—somebody is stabbed, for example— we run to this place or the nearest camera and say, “Oh goodness, this can’t happen this way; we have to do more stopping and searching.” We must have an honest conversation in this country. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) has been steadfast in this regard for many decades; we could all learn something from that. We ought to have a much more mature conversation with people in our community.
I can offer some hope from my own police force of Nottinghamshire. Our stop-and-search rates are among the lowest in the country, but due to intelligence-led use of stop-and-search powers our current 41% arrest and positive outcome rate is one of the highest in the country. We should reflect on that: one of the lowest stop-and-search rates produces one of the highest success rates. It is probably not a major surprise that our excellent police and crime commissioner, Paddy Tipping, who is behind this, was also involved in setting up the Macpherson inquiry. He gets it, and we now need more people to join him.
Finally, before I sit down and give others a chance to speak, I want to turn to governance and oversight. Earlier, I referred to Baroness Lawrence’s frustration at the difficulty in finding out what progress has been made against the Macpherson report’s recommendations. We as a Committee intend to address that by writing to the Home Office and other bodies to ask for updates against all 70 recommendations. Frankly, though, the Government should not be leaving this to us. They have been criticised for a lack of governance and oversight. The Stephen Lawrence steering group was disbanded many years ago, and in 2012, Bevan Powell called for the re-establishment of a pan- Whitehall group to restore trust between the police and communities.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and setting out very powerfully the key issues in the Macpherson report that are still being raised 20 years on. As he says, the Home Affairs Committee is looking again at all the issues around diversity and policing, and around institutional racism, that were raised at the time. When we heard evidence from Baroness Lawrence, we asked her what she wanted Stephen Lawrence’s legacy to be. She mentioned Stephen Lawrence Day, the first of which will be in April. We also asked her what she most wanted to change, and she answered that we should change how we treat our young people, because they are our future. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important for us to look forward at the positive legacy of Stephen’s life and, on Stephen Lawrence Day, for us to celebrate what more we can do in the future as well as bringing about the changes that we still need to make after 20 years?
Alex Norris
I am grateful to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee for that intervention. She and I and many others were keen for this debate to take place now, around the anniversary of the inquiry, rather than around Stephen Lawrence Day, because the family are very clear about what they want the day to be, and about the positives to be gained from it. I am glad that we are able to honour it in that way, and I will certainly be participating fully and supporting the family in their really important goal.
I shall quote something that Bevan Powell said to us, and this is certainly something for the Chair of the Committee to consider. He stated:
“The only time the police seem to respond to the recommendations and the associated issues that came out of Macpherson is when there is a Home Affairs Committee or a public inquiry of some sort. That cannot be the case.”
Our Committee’s recent report, “Policing for the Future”, criticised the extent to which the Home Office had stepped away from policing policy, with the Department being widely criticised by policing stakeholders and the National Audit Office for its lack of leadership. I am glad to see the Policing Minister in his place. I know that he is a man motivated by a strong sense of duty and decency and a believer in the importance of public service. In that spirit, I say to him that we are crying out for someone on the Government Front Bench to grab hold of the lessons learned from the Macpherson inquiry and to finish the job, audit progress, reconvene a steering group and drive this forward. I really would not worry about the partisan risk in doing that. Frankly, there will be enough blame to go around: we will all have our share.
Tim Loughton
I want to take up the hon. Gentleman’s point about young people. A report produced a few years ago by the all-party parliamentary group for children on the relationship between young people and the police made some recommendations which, to give them their due, the Government took up and changed the law. The shocking finding from that report was the lack of confidence in the police among young people, particularly those from BME communities. There always used to be confidence in the police among young people—we all remember the friendly bobby coming to our school—but if we can no longer instil that confidence in people at a young age, that does not bode well for adults having confidence in the police. We need to do so much better in that regard, and it should not just be down to all-party groups and our Select Committee to bring about that change.
Alex Norris
I appreciate that intervention from the hon. Gentleman. That lack of confidence has been seen across the piece. All young people have less confidence in the police than we do, on average, and that is a toxic situation. It means that reporting is not as strong as it could be, that people are not as willing as they should be to say when they are scared for their own safety, and that they are less likely to think of the police as a profession that is for them. The situation is toxic across the piece.
During our careers, a lot of us will have had a “never again” moment. Perhaps it has involved sitting with a bereaved parent talking about the loss of their child. That happened to me in my first couple of months as a councillor in 2011. I sat there feeling impotent, and I wished I could take the pain away, but I could not. At that time, I thought “never again”, but that feeling dissipates over time. I have to tell colleagues and friends today that this is what “never again” is. It is grasping the moment and using our privileged position to say, “Here are 70 ways in which we were told that things would be better, but we have not finished the job yet. We must stand up and use our privileged position to do those things.” It is time for that now: not just words, but actions.
Alex Norris
To quickly sum up, I thank the Backbench Business Committee for its support in securing this debate and the Home Affairs Committee for its support in its execution, and also their Chairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). Both have given me extraordinary guidance throughout my time here, but especially for this debate.
I would also like to put on record—I am not sure whether it is in order for me to do so, Mr Speaker, but sometimes it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission—my thanks to the Clerks of both Committees, but especially the Home Affairs Committee. They are an outstanding bunch of people and professionals, and I really appreciated their support.
I also thank the Government for finding time for this debate. I wondered whether it would get in in a timely manner, but I take the fact that it did as a sign of good faith. It would have been easy for that not to have happened, so I appreciate that too.
I particularly thank colleagues for their contributions, including my hon. Friends the Members for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) and for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) and, from other parts of the House, the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) and the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross). The hon. Gentleman said in the Committee, and again today, that he felt that he grew up with this case. He is just a year older than me, although perhaps no one could tell by looking at him—I think there is something in the highlands and islands fresh air that gives him eternal youth. I also feel that I grew up with this case, but I do not want to grow old with it. I hope that long before then we will show that we have delivered.
I was interested to hear from the SNP Front Bench about what has worked in Scotland and to hear a positive plug for a public health approach to knife crime. We cannot say that loudly enough. I strongly believe that we need to build a rock-solid consensus around that.
From our Front Bench, we also heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott). Her leadership on this and similar issues, not just over the last 20 years but over many years preceding that, is something that I look up to and that we cannot applaud enough. It was eerie to hear her words from two decades ago, because I am afraid they resonate down the years, which is why it is still important that we talk about this today. During the debate I was sent a message from someone basically saying, “What a stupid topic to talk about. Why don’t you focus on something more important?” Modern technology is unique in allowing people to feel inadequate in real time about how they are doing their job. However, as we heard from the words of my right hon. Friend from the Front Bench, as well as many others, this is a case that echoes down the years. If we continually fail to learn the lessons, we will continually seem to get these tragedies. That is why it is important that we talk about this issue today, and I make absolutely no apology for it.
To conclude, I was pleased to hear from the Minister for Policing about the figure of 68 out of 70. He very much invited the scrutiny of the Committee, and that is what he will get. We will get into that detail and report, and I would be interested to hear the response once we have, because I am not quite sure how we would know that the figure was 68 out of 70. I would be grateful if that could be clarified, because certainly in three weeks of trying I have yet to find a marshalled list of progress made, so it would be wonderful if that could be shared.
This has been an exceptionally high-quality debate, and I appreciate the contributions of all hon. Members. It has shown us at our very best.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House notes the twentieth anniversary of the publication of the Macpherson Report on the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry on 24 February 2019; and calls on the Government and all in public life to renew their commitment to fulfilling the recommendations of the Macpherson Report.
Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme
Alex Norris Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the seasonal agricultural workers scheme.
I represent a particularly urban part of one of the UK’s biggest cities, so why do I want to talk about agriculture? That is because the issue, as much as it is about food and food security, especially after Brexit, is about slavery.
Since my election in 2017, I have been proud to play my part in highlighting, combating and working to eradicate the appalling scourge of modern slavery. I work alongside Members from all parties on the Select Committee on Home Affairs, hon. Friends from the Co-operative party, colleagues from the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and friends at FLEX—Focus on Labour Exploitation—the Human Trafficking Foundation and the rights lab at my alma mater, the University of Nottingham. I have been proud to use my place in the House of Commons to do so.
I am joined in the Chamber by my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), the chair of our all-party parliamentary group on human trafficking and modern slavery. We will continue to raise the issue, because slavery is a disease, pure and simple. It is much more widespread than people would ever countenance, it is appalling and it impacts on and blights lives throughout our communities, but all too often it is hidden from view by a deadly combination of fear, shame and circumstance.
Nevertheless, despite the scale of the challenge, I remain confident that we can achieve the goal of stamping modern slavery out in its totality by 2030. That will necessitate identifying, challenging and eradicating sources of slavery at home and abroad. It is also vital that, as we fight existing sources of slavery, we do not unwittingly create new opportunities through decisions that we make. That is why I am in the Chamber today.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the immense amount of work that he and our hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) do on modern slavery and preventing it in this country. Does he agree that the seasonal agricultural workers scheme proposed by the Government could, because of the way it is set out, create greater opportunities for modern slavery to exist, and that one way to tackle that properly would be to ensure that every worker brought into the UK under a seasonal scheme is given access to a trade union, and clear and comprehensive knowledge of what their rights are and how to enforce them?
Alex Norris
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and for his commitment to this agenda. I share his view, and it will not surprise him to hear that I will address that shortly. As he said, it is vital that we do not inadvertently create new opportunities.
As formulated, the seasonal agricultural workers scheme, or SAWS, presents a significant risk of creating slavery. In theory, SAWS offers fruit and vegetable farmers a route to alleviate labour shortages during peak production periods by employing migrant workers for up to six months—but that is a tale as old as time, frankly. The pilot will start this spring and run until the end of 2020. For migrant workers, it represents a chance to improve their lives, but it carries the risk of workers being treated as a disposable asset, creating a recipe for exploitation.
Several hon. Members rose—
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
My constituency has a large agri-food sector, which has a real need for agricultural workers coming in to bring in the vegetables so that the factories can process them, selling them throughout the United Kingdom and further afield. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need some sort of scheme in place to provide that important protection and, in doing so, enable the factories in my constituency and others to do the job that they want to do and export their products?
Alex Norris
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. After Brexit, we have a chance to reform our migration system, but we have to ensure that we still meet the needs of our growing industries. I am about to highlight the fact that the soft fruit production industry has doubled in size over the past two decades. We have to move and to keep pace with that, building in the regulation to make things work.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. He is right to express legitimate and long-standing concerns about modern-day slavery. Wilkin & Sons is an outstanding soft fruit production company and manufacturer in my constituency. Does he agree that other businesses, and in fact the Government, could learn best practice from how such businesses have conducted their own seasonal agricultural workers schemes in the past?
Alex Norris
I very much recognise what the right hon. Lady is saying. Only this morning, during Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy questions, I mentioned the example of Hermes and the GMB which, while untangling the difficulties in the so-called gig economy, have gone ahead of the Government and this place by building their own regulations, which work for both employer and employee. That is wonderful and where it happens, such as in the example she suggested, we should highlight and be proud of it.
To be clear, I do not wish to prevent the seasonal agricultural workers scheme from running—it is important—but I want to ensure that we get honesty in the debate and that the workers who will be at the heart of the scheme get a fair deal and are heard. I feel that I ought to use my place here in support of that.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman is making a hugely significant point. I agree with him that the scheme has great benefits, but does he agree that, as well as risking potential slavery, a six-month scheme is so restrictive that many people will simply choose to go underground? The Government are setting themselves up for that to be a serious problem. Does he also agree that for many other industries—the 10,000 people working in hospitality and tourism in Cumbria, for example—that kind of option is neither available nor even proposed? That will have a huge impact on the economy in communities such as mine.
Alex Norris
Many of the technical points about the scheme, such as those that the hon. Gentleman has made, will be seen in the pilot. We will have to test that and see the evaluation. I am interested to hear from the Minister how much that evaluation will be shared with all of us, so that we can have a say. Moving beyond agriculture, I know that other Members have an interest in the tourism sector, so if they wish to intervene at any point, I will be happy to accept.
There are real dangers in the scheme. Looking at history, a seasonal agricultural workers scheme ran from the second world war until only six years ago. It was not perfect: there were examples of abuse, the minimum wage being dodged, workers being misled about available work and recruiters purposefully over-recruiting. I have pressed the Home Office on this, so I know that
“ensuring the protection and wellbeing of participating migrant workers is of primary importance”,
but part of this debate is about wanting to know how that will be so and what safeguards and accountability will be in place.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
I agree with what the hon. Gentleman is saying about workers’ rights, but is he aware that in 1961 this country signed a treaty produced by the Council of Europe to give all workers the proper rights within their countries? That is still in force, despite the wealth of European Union legislation that has come in since. Will he hang on to that as a hope for the future?
Alex Norris
Those protections are in place, although we have seen that they have not been enough in the past. In the 50 or so years since, it is important that we have built on them.
Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman might be aware that I have a significant soft fruit industry in my constituency. When I visit my farmers, I see migrants who have come over year after year. I met someone in a packhouse who had been there for nine years consecutively, working their way up into their role. If the conditions were particularly hard, people would not come back year on year.
Alex Norris
I thank the hon. Lady for highlighting that and for adding to the debate with her experience back home. Those are exactly the sort of things that we should weave in to how we proceed in future.
To put ourselves in the place of people who wish to enter the scheme, and so seek insecure and relatively low-paid work in this country, it is reasonable to expect that they would not have ready access to funding or the hard cash to pay for, for example, a visa, their flights, any recruitment fees, medical costs and other associated fees. The likelihood is therefore very high that, in order to get a better income for themselves and their families and to start a better life, they would be forced to seek a loan—
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way—although I did not mean to interrupt him mid-sentence. I have one point to make. Those of us with significant soft fruit farmers in our constituencies are calling for a seasonal agricultural workers scheme to ensure sufficient labour. At the moment, one of the challenges for the industry is that workers have choices of where to go, so we are competing with other countries to attract them. Workers will therefore only come to this country if there are good opportunities and working conditions for them. It is important for us to offer good working conditions and extend the hand of welcome to seasonal workers who come to the UK.
Albert Owen (in the Chair)
Order. The Member in charge is being very generous in allowing interventions from a number of people, but I warn him that I want to give the Minister the chance to give a comprehensive response to the debate. Could he please bear that in mind? I notice that he has a number of papers in front of him that he may wish to go through.
Alex Norris
A couple of them are just for you to autograph to put on eBay, Mr Owen. I am sure the Minister will not mind my gobbling a little of his time so his colleagues may make interventions.
The point raised by the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) makes my heart bleed a bit. By raising our standards—whether on pay, accommodation or the nature of work or management—to ensure that we attract those workers, we would make Britain a beacon that would attract the best. That can be only a good thing. It would mean the market was working well, and I would be keen for that to happen.
I worry about sources of money. People like us go to banks to get loans; too often our constituents go to loan sharks. The people we are talking about are likely to enter debt bondage. A recruiter offers the chance to enter the scheme and says, “Don’t worry about the upfront cost and your flights,” but that turns into an inflated or artificial debt that people never actually work off. That happens around the world, but in our country, too, there is a very live risk. It cannot be right that about half the victims of forced labour in the private economy are in some sort of debt bondage, according to the International Labour Organisation. We must not defer our responsibility as a country for ensuring that that does not happen to whichever recruitment firms we work with. We cannot give away our responsibility.
Bill Grant (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Con)
I share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about slavery and allowing gangmasters to flourish in any migration system we create. To temper that, among Ayrshire vegetable growers there is a great relationship between the employer and the migrant worker on accommodation and rates of pay. Surely, we need to encourage a system to ensure that that continues to thrive, for the benefit of the industry and the individuals who choose to work in the UK.
Alex Norris
The hon. Gentleman gives an example of something else that we should seek to build on. We should not think that the fears that I am raising apply across the industry to all employers—far from it—but where it does happen, it is exceptionally serious and we should want to tackle it. The scheme that ran until 2013 would cost workers often more than £10,000 for their jobs. Overcoming that challenge is a matter for the state and not just about good commissioning or contracting.
The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority will play a very important role. As colleagues have highlighted, the GLAA has 123 members of staff in the entire country, who are tasked with licensing gangmasters in agriculture, horticulture and shellfish gathering. They oversee the entire labour market to protect workers from modern slavery. Those 123 people must be very talented. There is no proposal to increase the number of staff as part of SAWS. They will be expected to license and monitor overseas labour agents from anywhere outside the EU. How are they likely to be able to do that? I hope the Minister will address that in his reply.
Under the previous iteration of SAWS, workers reported utter deprivation due to low hours, bad weather affecting their work, and being paid less than the minimum wage and being unable to afford to fly home. That situation cannot be repeated, because workers in the scheme rely on their employer for all their necessities: accommodation, transportation, food and information. They will not have access to public funds. People may face a choice between remaining in an abusive situation and becoming destitute. None of us would want to be in that situation. The Government need to ensure that individuals who enter the scheme will have access to support to leave their situation if they are being exploited.
Debt bondage and entrapped workers are the two risks that I am most concerned about, but there are other issues, too. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) said that, because migrant workers by definition are here for a short time, they are less likely to know their immigration and employment rights. Therefore, they are less likely to be able to identify abuses. We will all have heard extraordinary stories of car washes, where individuals who are liberated from their slavery find out that the minimum wage is three or four times what they are paid. They did know they were being exploited; they just thought that was what happened. The only information they had access to led them to think that was the case.
We should draw on the trade union movement. I thank Unite for its support in preparing this speech; it has proposed a series of things to work well alongside the scheme to help to organise these workers. I hope the Minister will look at that. Not speaking English puts people at risk of abuse, and those who are not here for long are not likely to develop language skills. Let us make sure that rights advice and support is available in the UK beyond the current limited multilingual support.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
Very often, the people who abuse workers are from the workers’ own communities. This is as much about ensuring that police have access in the ways the hon. Gentleman describes, as it is about talking to those communities.
Alex Norris
Slavery operations are incredibly sophisticated, while also being simple: people from the same place who speak the same language take a person from home and exploit them, cutting out all the other links in the chain, so that they do not know that they are in an exploitative situation. As constituency MPs, we all know that our labour inspection regime in this country is predominantly reactive and relies on workers’ complaints. How would a catchment of workers who have not identified their own abuse be able to say that is the case? We ought to be mindful of that.
I have laid out a number of real challenges in the scheme that none of us would design legislation to support—quite the opposite. We know that after we leave the European Union we will face a defining moment for our country, when we decide where we want to be. We have heard a lot in the Chamber in recent weeks about being a high-standards country, especially when it comes to workers’ rights. Now is a good time for that. I want that for my constituents, neighbours, friends and family. I also want that for the people who come here and make sure we have food on our table. Those high standards must apply to them, too. We cannot use strong language in this place while allowing gaps in our system where abuse prevails.
I am pleased that, through my engagement with the Home Affairs Committee, I have received a commitment from the Home Secretary that slavery will be given due regard as part of the evaluation of the pilot. I would like to know what that looks like, when we will start to understand that and what Ministers will be doing about the agents used as intermediary third parties. The breadth of contributions from Members from every corner of the UK shows the strength of feeling. I hope that we can work collectively to get this right.
Knife Crime Prevention Orders
Alex Norris Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Victoria Atkins
A total of 65% of those who are caught under the minimum mandatory sentence legislation receive terms of immediate imprisonment, but that is always at the discretion of the court. We are mindful, especially when it comes to the first offence of a young person, of not fettering the hands of the judge who is considering that case if he or she believes that forms of intensive community work may help that child out of the cycle of violence and into a much happier, safer adulthood.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Before joining the Home Department, the Home Secretary was responsible for local government, where he authored significant cuts that have translated into a decimation of youth services in this country. We are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of our young people because we have no one out there trying to engage with them. These cuts will continue tomorrow in this place. If the Home Secretary and the Home Office are really serious about tackling youth crime and violent crime, why are they not banging down the door of the Treasury with their colleagues from local government and saying that youth service cuts not only need to be stopped, but must be reversed through the service being properly and fully funded?
Victoria Atkins
I know that the hon. Gentleman will have welcomed the news announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government that there would be a specific concentration in the troubled families programme on tackling knife crime. That is precisely because those two Secretaries of State wanted to have a united approach to tackling knife crime. I gently point out that although youth services are really important—of course they are—we have a wealth of amazing charities across the country, which provide services. For example, the charity Redthread sits in accident and emergency departments to try to reach children and young people at the teachable moment. A mixture of youth services and charitable work is one of many ways in which we can help to tackle this matter together
Draft Domestic Abuse Bill: Territorial Extent
Alex Norris Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Victoria Atkins
I am grateful, Mr Speaker. First, I thank the hon. Lady for pointing to the fact that the draft Bill, important though it is, is not the only action the Government are taking to tackle domestic abuse. Indeed, there are some 120 commitments that sit alongside the Bill. She mentioned training. That is a crucial part of our package, not just for DWP or jobcentre workers but across what I would call the frontline, for example housing association officers, police officers and the judiciary. The judiciary in England and Wales already receive training, which we keep under review. I should also say that we are looking at the offence of coercive control and behaviour. It has been in force for three years, but we appreciate that it can be a very difficult offence to investigate and prosecute. We are reviewing it to ensure that it is as effective as possible. On the DWP more generally, I am in conversation with my counterparts there. We want a wraparound approach, which is why the announcement by the Secretary of State was so significant.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Like many Members from across this place, I am very enthusiastic about the Bill and the potential for making a real difference in our communities. That is why it is so disappointing that we are not even at the first hurdle and we are already divided. I have worked very constructively with the Minister on a number of issues, so it gives me no pleasure to ask this question but I feel that I must. When the decision was made to not put things in the Bill such as migration and welfare, therefore allowing the Government to restrict their territorial scope to just England and Wales, was it based on the best interests of women in the United Kingdom or was it a narrow political judgment?