Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alex Norris and Jim Cunningham(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alex Norris and Jim Cunningham(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Macpherson Report: 20th Anniversary
Debate between Alex Norris and Jim Cunningham(5 years, 9 months ago)
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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?
Fireworks: Public Sales
Debate between Alex Norris and Jim Cunningham(5 years, 12 months ago)
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Alex Norris
I think I shall be going to Ipswich next November—that sounds wonderful. The situation is very much the same in Nottingham; we have big events, and they are a good way to celebrate and enjoy. The petition shows that it is the things happening beyond those events, in our streets and in our parks, that cause real distress. Technology has moved on and the availability of fireworks has changed, and we have to move with the times.
I am conscious of time and know that many colleagues wish to speak, so I will come to my focus, which is the impact of prolonged periods of firework displays on household pets and the lives of their owners. Since my election to Parliament, I have been working closely on that with the Dogs Trust, and am keen to continue supporting them in championing the issue. I am the proud owner of two border collies, Boomer and Corona, who are such wonderful border collies that, as Members might know, they were joint winners of this year’s Westminster Dog of the Year competition. Please excuse that digression—I tell everyone that I meet. That can never be taken off me. The theme of the competition this year was fireworks, and the reason that we won was that Corona is particularly badly affected by them. We talked about some of the coping strategies we have developed, which I will touch on shortly. One of my commitments as an MP is to tackle the issue and it is something I am keen to do.
We are a nation of animal lovers, and that is not just about dogs. Cats Protection, Blue Cross, the Kennel Club, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and many others have called for action. For these charities and more, it is clear that the sheer number of fireworks displays that take place in the UK around bonfire night is having a detrimental impact on animal welfare. I use the word “display” broadly; this is not just about organised displays, but all fireworks events—from someone letting one off in a park, to the full-blown displays.
Why is it such a problem? Why, as a pet owner and having spoken to pet owners in my constituency, do I think that the issue requires action now? As my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) said, people have been setting off fireworks in their gardens for years. What has changed? Well, the situation is different in terms of the scale and availability of fireworks. From 1 November—if not from Halloween, but certainly from the moment it has passed—pet owners get home from work, it is already dark as the clocks have changed, and they know they are going to have a shivering pet to deal with. They try to do all the things they need to do when they get home, but cannot take the dog out because it is petrified and, when there are fireworks going off, the dog might not want to walk or will not walk on certain streets, which is also a problem.
Dog owners might unlock their front door to be greeted by their dog cowering in the corner, and spend their time trying to ameliorate that with whatever tactics they can. We put a shirt on Corona, which acts like a swaddling coat, and that eases it a bit. Others have other solutions. That takes time and—I do not have children, but I suspect that this is analogous to having a baby— the moment we get peace and think “We have resolved this for now”, it starts again, because somebody else on the road is letting off fireworks. Whole evenings can pass like this, with no peace for the pet. Critically, that happens not just on 5 November, but from Halloween and, for us, it went on for a good week afterwards this year.
We accept that on 5 November, fireworks are inescapable, so our coping mechanism for bonfire night was to put our two dogs in the boot of the car and drive to the middle of nowhere. We thought, “Let’s try and get out of the city, as far away as we can”, and as hon. Members can imagine, that is actually really hard. Part of the problem with the countryside is that sound carries, and clearly we are such city dwellers that we had not grasped that. We spent our evening sat in the middle of Derbyshire.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Quite frankly, my hon. Friend should not have to do that—that is the nub of the problem. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), and I am sure that she would agree that we have debated this issue like nobody’s business over the years, but nothing seems to happen. We must look at the manufacture and contents of fireworks and at how they are policed, while certain events should require licences. The weakness in the system is the lack of trading standards officers to police fireworks. Why should the police have to do the job of trading standards officers?
Alex Norris
As a local authority councillor in the years before I was elected to this place, I had an excellent relationship with trading standards and would always stand up for their work keeping dodgy booze and fags out of children’s hands. Fireworks are another good example of their excellent work but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North said, they also have considerably diminished resources.
On 10 November, the night before Armistice Day, which was a Saturday this year, my wife and I went to a dinner near the city of Nottingham to commemorate it with the Western Front Association. Just before there had been a big flurry of fireworks, although the 10th is getting on for a week after bonfire night. It was a black-tie dinner—not what I am used to going to—but we had to take the dog with us. We went to this incredible dinner at Nottinghamshire County Council’s county hall and we had the dog in the boot, because in a dark, enclosed space he was a little happier. We were able to keep popping out to see that he was all right. As my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) said, it just should not have to be that way. We are in no way unique.
Fireworks are now commonplace for birthday parties, family celebrations and lots of other things. We do not want to stamp out that joy—we are at our worst if we look like killjoys or as if we are humourless—but we have to accept that things are different, and we now have a night-time wall of noise stretching from the beginning of November for pushing a fortnight.
Fireworks may be sold by any person over the age of 18 between 7 am and 11 pm every day of the year. There is no legal requirement to have any form of licence, or training to set them up, once they have been bought. There are not many comparable situations in which we so willingly hand explosives over to people who do not know how to use them, other than by reading the leaflet. That does not seem like a good idea. It is easier than ever to put on private displays, and people are clearly choosing to do so.
In the run-up to 5 November this year, I did a campaign in conjunction with the Dogs Trust to raise awareness of some of the real issues pets face at this time of year and to encourage people positively to behave differently. We highlighted some of the key tips suggested by the Dogs Trust, such as attending organised community displays to reduce neighbourhood disturbance, limiting fireworks displays to half an hour if they are set off in your garden, or—a big one, which we would have really appreciated—people letting their neighbours know in advance when they plan to set off fireworks so that those neighbours can plan what to do. On 5 November, we knew that our neighbour would be letting off fireworks right next to our house, so we knew that we had to get out the house.