Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Amber Rudd and Karen Lee

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

One way of avoiding the impact of cuts that the hon. Lady highlights would be by having greater efficiencies, and having collaboration between the emergency services is an excellent way of doing that. That is what we have seen up and down the country, and I urge her to see more of it in her own area.

[Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)]

The PCC takeover of fire services will change the perception of firefighters from “public safety” to “law enforcement”. My question is: when are the Government going to provide adequate funding so that councils are not forced into hostile PCC and fire service mergers? I am looking for a meaningful response on central Government funding, not another brush-off about earmarked reserves.

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Lady underestimates the high regard in which firefighters are held right across this country. The public know the difference, and are able to distinguish between firefighters and policemen and women, but they want to see better working of emergency services together.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Amber Rudd and Karen Lee

Thursday 29th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

The gender pay gap, although completely unwelcome, is at the lowest level that we have ever seen. It is actually 9%, and the gender pay gap reporting that we have now mandated will help to drive that down. We are already seeing it very much as part of people’s conversations and I think we will see a material difference.

[Karen Lee]

The response to the Government’s gender pay audit has been slow, and global banks have revealed gender pay gaps as high as 60%. Does the Minister agree that, as Labour has proposed, companies should prove that they are taking timely action to close their pay gaps—apparently it takes a year to turbocharge something—or face a substantial Government fine?

[Amber Rudd]

I share the hon. Lady’s outrage at some of the sizes of the gender pay gaps, but I feel that that just gives even more weight to the fact that it was absolutely right to bring forward last year’s legislation. Revealing pay gaps is exactly how we will start to get proper action.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Amber Rudd and Karen Lee

Thursday 11th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I look forward to working with my right hon. Friend and her important Committee. She has raised an important matter; transparency is such an important part of achieving equality, so I look forward to working with her on this to establish the right way forward.

[Ms Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)]

T5. I welcome the Minister to her new role. The BBC claims that 14.5% of its staff are from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. But others, including Lenny Henry, have claimed that if we look at the staff who actually make the BBC’s programmes, that figure falls to just 1.5%. Is the Minister concerned that there is a major problem with BAME representation at the BBC, and what discussions has she had with the BBC about what it is doing about it?

[Amber Rudd]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising that point, as I had not seen those particular figures. They draw attention to the fact that the overall number suggesting that there is equality sometimes hides the fact that there is nowhere near equality in the specialist areas—often the higher paid areas. I take very seriously the point she has raised, about which there are additional questions for the BBC to answer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Amber Rudd and Karen Lee

Monday 20th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ms Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)]

I recently returned from America, and I would like to update the House on progress made there. Along with the US Justice Department, I met representatives from Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Twitter to discuss our collective efforts to fight child sexual exploitation online. I was very encouraged by the development of Project Arachnid, which is groundbreaking software developed by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, backed by significant investment from this Government as well as start-up funding from Google. The technology proactively detects child sexual abuse material online and issues notices to content hosts, so that they can remove it. It has so far crawled 1 billion web pages to identify illegal material, and approximately 300,000 new images of child sexual abuse have been vetted. Appalling images of children being abused and extremist content have absolutely no place on our internet or in our society, and we will work internationally to combat them.

[Ms Lee]

From December, the Policing and Crime Act 2017 will stop police cells being used as places of safety for people detained under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983. In Lincolnshire, with around 750,000 residents, there will be only four hospital-based places of safety, and two of those will be in Lincoln’s Peter Hodgkinson Centre. Last year, 89 people were detained in police cells because there were no other options. Will the Minister give an assurance that moneys will be made available to provide adequate resources for this change?