Police Grant Report

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I am happy to give my hon. Friend that commitment. He makes an important point and I am glad he has raised it. We have been clear in the Home Office that when the upcoming spending review, on which I will say more in a moment, comes around, it is important that we also look at the national funding formula for policing.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman seems to be saying that the increases he is talking about will lead to better crime-fighting results, but he is denying that the cuts that led to 1,000 fewer officers in the Merseyside police force have affected the rise in crime. Will he now answer the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey)? There is actually a link between police funding and crime levels, and he should come clean about it. The right hon. Gentleman cannot claim that if money is going up, crime rates will get better, but deny there is a link the other way around.

[Sajid Javid]

I thought the hon. Lady was taking over my speech for me, but she raises an important point. On fighting crime, as I mentioned earlier, there has been a particular rise in certain types of crime, especially those that are more complex and so by definition require more resource. That is what the settlement recognises—that where crime, especially more complex crime, has risen, more resources should be provided. This is a record settlement—the largest since 2010—and contains £18 million for the hon. Lady’s local force.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Abbott]

I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the fact that the Labour party is under new management now.

This may be, as Ministers say, the largest funding increase since 2010, but it is still inadequate, as ordinary police officers, senior police officers and PCCs say.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

My right hon. Friend is recognising the truth that resources are connected to results when it comes to dealing with crime. Does she agree that the cuts that have seen 1,000 officers disappear from the Merseyside force have created a situation where those who are committing crimes see less evidence of the police being able to follow them up, which creates a view on the street that lawlessness can be got away with? That actually encourages criminality while making it much harder for the law-abiding to report it to the police.

[Ms Abbott]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Of course, on Merseyside we have also seen an alarming rise in knife crime.

Part of the problem is the new demands on policing to which the Home Secretary referred. However, an increasing problem is that, with the collapse of public sector funding elsewhere, the police have become the public service of last resort, particularly in relation to issues such as mental health. We will be debating this later this afternoon, but central Government have taken 60%—£16 billion—out of local government funding since 2010. Cuts to youth services, housing and schools must have a bearing on levels of crime, particularly youth crime.

Let me touch on something that is often not discussed—the problem with having annual funding reviews. Ministers will be aware of the long-standing concern about annual funding. City of London police has said:

“Annualised funding allocations result in short term strategies that deliver short term impact”,

and that they are a constraint. The PCC for Northamptonshire, Stephen Mold, said that that the

“imposition of one year funding settlements…hampers effective long term financial planning”.

And the PCC for Dorset, Martyn Underhill, said that the

“absence of any indication of funding beyond 12 months”

compromises the ability to formulate

“a realistic medium term financial plan”.

Draft Data Retention and Acquistion Regulations 2018

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2018 General Committees

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I have a few questions for the Minister about some of the matters that he set out. I would like a little more detail on them for the record, so that we can—I hope—go on to support the draft regulations.

These matters concern the delicate balance that must always exist between privacy and the need to fight crime by using material generated in the normal living of life, through new ways of communicating. Will the Minister say a little more about the balance that the Government have decided to strike in the draft regulations? Clearly the wide-ranging system under the existing legislation did not survive the jurisdiction of the Court, so the type of information that can be used for the purpose of fighting crime is being narrowed. How have the Government struck that new balance? I note that none of the draft regulations applies to national security, because it is not within EU competence. Does the regime now being established have any connection with issues of national security?

My second question is a more practical one about the independent authorisation of requests for information. We all agree that it is good to have independent oversight with the capacity to ensure that there is no drift and that the operational behaviour of the system stays within the reasonable bounds of the draft regulations. However, if serious crimes are being pursued, it is equally important that independent authorisation should not become a bureaucratic system that prevents our forces of law and order—which are already under huge pressure from Government expenditure cuts—from doing their job effectively and thereby lets serious criminals off the hook. Will the Minister say a little about the funding arrangements that will be implemented for the independent authorisation of requests, so that the system does not just become a big queue that prevents operational effectiveness in the police force?

Thirdly, does the Minister envisage any parliamentary oversight of the way that the system will evolve over time? Again, it is important to keep such things under review and ensure that they are working well. Clearly, the Home Affairs Committee may have some oversight, but does he envisage coming back to the House in any way?

Fourthly and finally, we are in a situation where Amazon, Facebook and a lot of the tech behemoths have more access to information about how we behave. Cambridge Analytica used 2,000 to 3,000 data points to analyse the likely voting behaviour of millions of people in the US presidential election and in the Brexit referendum in this country, as we know. Private and unaccountable corporations appear to have more access to information about individual citizens of our country than we allow the police. Does the Minister think that balance is right?

Windrush

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 23rd April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I can reassure the hon. Lady on the issue of EU citizens. We have put in place a thorough, simple, effective system, which will go live later this year. We have extensively tested it with EU citizen groups and I have a team over at the European Parliament this week, engaging with European parliamentarians to make sure that it is right. It has been prepared in a way that will be very straightforward to use and it anticipates the need that was not anticipated in the case of the Windrush cohort.

On the compensation for which the hon. Lady asks, as I have said, we are launching the compensation scheme, but I need to consult on it first, appoint someone independently and make sure that it addresses the issues she raises. On the actual applications being made now to the taskforce, while I was there this morning I listened in to some calls and the way in which the callers are engaging with the border people helping them has been very constructive. They do not need to have lawyers: in this process we have put in place, there will be no need for lawyers to engage.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

It is astonishing that, faced with one of the largest scandals we have seen in the way in which a specific group of British citizens have been treated by the Home Secretary’s Department, she has not seen fit to take proper responsibility and resign. Will she tell us, in the light of her failure to resign, what on earth is her concept of ministerial responsibility?

[Amber Rudd]

It is my committed intent to make sure that I put this right. I believe that the measures that I have set out today will address that, but I will make sure that it remains a priority. That, I believe, is what people would expect of me as a Minister.

Gender Pay Gap

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend raises a sensitive issue in her usual sensitive manner. Of course I will look into it. So many issues can impede the career path of a woman or, indeed, a man. It is in the best interests of businesses to find the flexibility to be able to encompass such sensitivities as and when that flexibility is needed. Flexible working really does pay in results for businesses.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

It is now over 40 years since a heroine of mine, Barbara Castle, introduced the Equal Pay Act. She did so with great support from the labour and trade union movement, because the principle that women should be paid the same for doing the same job as men was believed then. Forty years later, we are really no nearer to achieving that pay equality. Although it is important that we have seen transparency, it has laid bare the size of the task. Allowing enforcement mechanisms so that the existing law can actually be enforced is crucial, so that women who are illegally sacked for being pregnant can use the law to get proper redress and so that we can drive out this direct discrimination, which has been illegal for years. Does the Minister understand that?

[Victoria Atkins]

I commend the hon. Lady’s passion on the issue. Of course, equal pay has been the law for 40 years. Paying people unequally for the same or similar work is unlawful. We are currently seeing the impact that inequality has on workforce morale in various organisations, let alone the anger that individual women feel when inequality comes to light. The gender pay gap provisions obviously deal with the pay gap—unequal pay for the same or a similar job is dealt with under separate legislation. I think that Wendy Olsen’s report in 2010 defined the second highest factor impeding women’s participation in the workforce as “unknown”, which we know is direct and indirect discrimination, so we need to ensure that women are aware of their rights. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has the powers set out under the Equality Act 2010, and we will be looking at how powerful and effective those powers are.

[Victoria Atkins]

Yes, this is the first year. As of this month, we are having a conversation about the pay of more than 10,000 private sector businesses and more than 1,600 public sector organisations. We are also reviewing their data, which simply was not there a year ago, let alone 10 years ago. Although I absolutely understand the impatience in the Chamber to get this issue sorted as quickly as possible, we have to be realistic. Rome was not built in a day. We need to be sure about action plans.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

It’s the law.

[Victoria Atkins]

I completely agree; it is the law. But we need to review the action plans and the evidence. We have to give ourselves a bit of time to see what the data says and what lessons we need to learn from that data.

Money Laundering

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

Yes. The tax gap is the lowest it has ever been, and much lower than it was under Labour. We have recovered a record amount of tax that should have been gathered—£160 billion over the past few years—and that has been a major contribution to the coffers. On the register of beneficial ownership, this country has led the way. David Cameron set out his ambition for the Government, and it is still the ambition of this Government. We have led the way, and now Montserrat, one of the overseas territories, also has a public register of beneficial ownership. The key is that the territories all have a register, and it is our ambition for them to be public, but in the meantime our leadership is starting to make a difference around the world.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) asked an extremely important question, to which she did not get an answer from the Minister. I wonder if we can try again. What changes are the Government planning to make to the due diligence for the golden visa, which establishes that someone must have £2 million they are investing in the UK before they get access to free movement here? What changes are the Government going to make to check that that money is clean? He did not answer—answer now.

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Lady will know that there are numerous registers for people’s money. CIFAS and a range of other organisations record people who have been involved in fraud and other criminal actions. There are also the Government registers, such as the police national computer. We will continue with diligence based on applications for visas. [Interruption.] Members need to come to the House and say, “This person was allowed in based on their £2 million and we have prima facie evidence that they should not have been.” We will base it on evidence. Where we find evidence that someone got the money through the wrong means, they will not be allowed a visa to come into this country.

Women’s Suffrage Centenary

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I reassure my hon. Friend that as part of the celebrations this year, we are focused on encouraging more young women to get involved in politics and, potentially, to become Members of Parliament. The Cabinet Office has an education pack that it will be putting out to schools. As I said in my statement, we are also commissioning organisations to engage across the country with young women to make them aware of the opportunities they have to represent their constituency in this place.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

There is nobody more partisan than I am, but today is no time to be partisan. It is a time to be proud that we are all lucky enough to be in this place on such an auspicious day, when we welcome and celebrate 100 years of women’s enfranchisement. When I first came here, there were only 60 women MPs and today we celebrate comprising nearly a third of all Members, but it is still not enough.

While we do not have the representation we want here, there is also an issue outside this place for the women who form 51% of the population: enforcement of the laws to protect them is very bad, particularly in the employment sphere. Will the Home Secretary take this opportunity to say how we can improve the enforcement of employment law to ensure that all women in every workplace up and down this country are properly protected?

[Amber Rudd]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising not only women in Parliament, which is central to what we are discussing today, but the additional subject of women outside Parliament and ensuring that they have the access to top jobs and the full opportunities that men have. The Taylor review contained many recommendations, the vast majority of which we are taking forward. We now have a director of labour market enforcement to co-ordinate the different groups and ensure that there is no abuse of the labour market. We will always take working lives very seriously to ensure that there is no breach of the legislation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I am always delighted to meet my hon. Friend. There has been a lot of airing of this particular issue about the breakdown of the immigration figures, but I think there is a reasonable amount of clarity about which part of them are students and which part are not.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Members of all parties agree that international students coming here to study is a good thing. Therefore, will the Home Secretary say something about how welcome they feel when hate crimes against black, Asian and minority ethnic people went up 41% in the month after Brexit? Many people over here as students report that when they are seen on the streets of our country, they are being told to go home. Should we not make our country more welcoming and deal with this post-Brexit problem?

[Amber Rudd]

I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Lady, and I hope she will join me in spreading the word that international students are welcome here. There should be no hate crime here, which is why I launched my hate crime action plan at the end of July. I can give her some reassurance that the unpleasant and unwelcome spike in hate crime in August has now fallen off.

Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question; we may have been on different sides of the referendum campaign, but we are quite clearly all on the same side now in delivering the result for the British people. The Home Office will be the lead Department in negotiations on this, but we look forward to working with the Brexit Department, and I suspect that the Prime Minister may be taking an interest, given her experience in the Home Office.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

In China, the Prime Minister has unilaterally announced that Britain will not be adopting the points-based system on which the leave campaign put so much emphasis during the referendum, but that we will be doing something more effective. Can the Minister tell us what that is?

[Mr Goodwill]

When the Labour party introduced a points-based system, the numbers went straight up. Australia has a points-based system and higher immigration per capita than Britain. A points-based system would give foreign nationals a right to come to Britain if they meet certain criteria. An immigration system that works for Britain would ensure that the right to decide who comes to the country resides with this Government.

Calais

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. We found out only by accident that this change to the business was going to be announced to the House in this way—we heard about it through the media. Of course, we heard initially that the statutory instrument on hunting was to be debated on Thursday of this week only because we had a load of people from the pro-hunting lobby emailing us about it before it was announced to this House. That was then shifted to Wednesday at the business statement last week. We now learn through the media that it is being withdrawn altogether, while the debate on English votes for English laws has become a general debate. May I ask that we make provision in our Standing Orders for a business statement every day, because the Government seem to be getting into such a shambles with their own legislation?

[Mr Speaker]

The resources of civilisation have not been exhausted. Precisely because I thought that ordinarily such a matter would be treated by way of a supplementary business statement, and in the light of the evident interest in the House in the matter, I will, with the agreement of the House, treat it as a supplementary business statement, in relation to which colleagues’ contributions are therefore not just invited but welcomed.