Ebola

Baroness Manzoor Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

We are the leading donor for regional preparedness and will certainly be working with Rwanda to ensure that it is firmly on the agenda.

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords, as has already been said, it is important to control the spread of Ebola. Can my noble friend say whether local schools are closed in eastern DRC? Would that help to reduce the spread of this infection?

[Baroness Sugg]

I thank my noble friend for that question. Of course, as I said, we are doing all we can to reduce infection. Unlike in Sierra Leone, schools in the affected area currently remain open; so far, they have not been identified as a major source of transmission. In west Africa, we saw that school closures could have many negative and long-lasting effects on children and the surrounding communities. As the noble Lord, Lord Collins, pointed out, schools are actually a way in which we can educate people on this. Our support for UNICEF helps to fund infection prevention and control work in schools near confirmed cases. While the ultimate decision to shut schools rests with the Government of the DRC, it is something that the UK monitors closely.

Immigration: Children

Baroness Manzoor Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

While I cannot give out the figures, I can say that 54 local authorities can access a database developed by local government with funding from the Home Office. It is called NRPF Connect and allows for online checks and information sharing, enabling the Home Office to identify local authority-supported cases and prioritise them for conclusion. There is communication between the Home Office and local authorities.

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords, some of these children will be rough sleepers. Will the Minister address the accusation that the Rough Sleepers’ Support Service is being used as a secret service?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank my noble friend for referring to that accusation. I have heard it before: it was raised in your Lordships’ House the other day. It is not a secret service. Officials are working with partners to ensure that effective referral processes are established and that rough sleepers will always be made aware of how information collected on them will be shared and used.

Immigration Detention: Victims of Modern Slavery

Baroness Manzoor Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I say to the noble Lord, as I think I said the other day, that someone who is a victim of modern slavery, which may well include those who have been raped—these people are exploited to an insufferable degree—should be treated first and foremost as a victim. The abuse and trauma they have suffered should be dealt with first and foremost. However, it is also true that other issues may be involved, such as immigration control. Quite often, in a number of cases, that immigration control will in and of itself protect the victim, because the whole picture will come out. But I reassure the noble Lord that, if someone comes forward who is a victim of modern slavery, they will be protected and treated as a victim first and foremost, and will get all the support they need.

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords, I totally concur with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. I have two questions. First, is it correct that it is mostly Chinese women who are detained? Secondly, I agree that these kinds of modern slavery cases should not sit with the Home Office, because the issues of immigration, modern slavery and vulnerable people interlink. There are some real sensitivities and we need to do a lot more than just trade statistics. These are individuals with real issues and problems and they need help and support.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend asked whether it was mostly Chinese women who are detained. I do not think that we can give an answer to that—I do not have the statistics before me. However, we can all see in our day-to-day lives examples of where modern slavery may be going on, and in some cases those people are Chinese. On the claim that this should not sit with the Home Office, I am not sure where my noble friend thinks it should sit. The whole point of the national referral mechanism is that it is a multiagency mechanism which keys into NGOs and other agencies, all of which are there to support the victim and help them to move on from what has been terribly traumatic.

Sustainable Development Goals

Baroness Manzoor Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Grand Committee

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for her excellent opening speech and for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. It is always difficult to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bird, because he is so passionate and enthusiastic, but I will do my best.

I will focus my remarks on nutrition, which underpins the success of the SDGs as a whole. Good nutrition is the foundation of good health and human capital. It is essential for the development of a strong immune system, without which the efficacy of all other health interventions is dramatically reduced. I begin by acknowledging the Government’s leadership on nutrition. The UK Government held the first ever Nutrition for Growth summit here in London in 2013. The summit raised $24 billion over seven years to help end malnutrition. The commitments made have saved and transformed the lives of millions, but those commitments expire next year when the next summit takes place in Tokyo. The Tokyo summit is a huge opportunity. To reflect its importance, we have set up an APPG on Nutrition for Growth, which I co-chair with the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, to buoy the Government’s leadership as the summit approaches. At our recent launch event, DfID’s director-general for policy, Richard Clarke, acknowledged nutrition as one of DfID’s “best buys”. He is patently correct, and that is the reason I am so supportive of investing in nutrition.

Let us take the case of Fatima Babanne as an example. Fatima is from a remote and fragile part of northern Nigeria. She has three children and another on the way. With limited local employment opportunities, she struggles to afford the healthy diet that she and her family need. Following an assessment, Fatima has enrolled on to DfID’s child development grant programme, which gives her a monthly cash income of 4,000 Nigerian naira—approximately £8—and a place on an education course about health and nutrition. Fatima uses her grant to buy healthy food and saves a small amount each month to start a millet-grinding business, which now generates 10,000 naira—£21—profit per month.

As a result of DfID’s small intervention, Fatima has been economically empowered and her children will develop healthy immune systems, so vaccines and other health measures will be as effective as possible. Good health will improve these children’s chances of getting a good education and gaining meaningful employment as adults. This in turn will strengthen the Nigerian economy, promote stability and help the country become a valued trading partner and ally with Britain on the global stage.

Nutrition cuts across all aspects of sustainable development. With that in mind, I will finish with three recommendations, which have nutrition at their core but would improve the impact of UK aid overall. First, this debate comes at the beginning of a year-long period of health-financing moments. Last week, the Government announced significant support for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Replenishment of both Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative will follow soon, and the Nutrition for Growth summit will take place next summer. Each of these moments represents an opportunity to accelerate progress on global health but only if each moment is supported and considered part of a single structure, built brick by brick. Failing to fully support any one brick compromises the overall structure. The UK should invest ambitiously and equitably at every moment, certainly at Nutrition for Growth, to get maximum impact from each investment.

Secondly, nutrition needs to be more effectively integrated across all aspects of DfID’s work. Food and agricultural systems and climate resilience programmes are all needed to ensure that nutritious food can grow and reach the people who need it. Education programmes about nutrition are important so that people are aware of what constitutes a diverse, healthy diet. We have seen recent issues regarding diet in the UK, obesity and its effect on cancer. Economic growth programmes are important so that people can afford that diet. All the teams within DfID need knowledge of nutrition and its impact and should work closely and harmoniously with its nutrition team.

Lastly, I started my contribution to this debate by congratulating the Minister on her department’s leadership on nutrition, and I shall finish by encouraging her department to maintain that leadership and utilise it. It is important to improve global collaboration and country ownership of nutrition. The World Bank estimates that an additional $7 billion per year is needed to meet global targets on stunting and wasting. The UK cannot plug this alone—it should not seek to—but it can encourage other Governments, particularly those with high burdens of malnutrition, to do more. One way of doing this would be by making their support for Nutrition for Growth known as early as possible to indicate to others that this initiative is worth supporting.

I congratulate the Minister on her department’s work and encourage her to ensure that it is maintained. I look forward to hearing how she intends to do that. She will certainly have my support in all her endeavours.

Child Refugees

Baroness Manzoor Excerpts

Tuesday 25th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I appreciate the noble Lord’s question because it goes to the heart of what we are trying to do—to protect vulnerable children and to ensure, so far as possible, that they come to this country through recognised routes. I spoke to him last week and he will know that we are now consolidating some of those routes to allow one route for vulnerable children and adults to come here. As to our commitment to resettling 20,000 vulnerable people from the MENA region under the VPRS and VCRS, by 2020 we will have resettled 23,000 of them, which is over the commitment we originally intended.

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords, what are the Government doing to ensure that refugee children are safeguarded once they are in the UK? There have been press reports that we could do more.

Schools: Free Sanitary Products

Baroness Manzoor Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the action the Government are taking in both secondary and primary schools, in hospitals and, in the future, within police settings. Can my noble friend say what DfID is doing about the young girls and women who have to use home-made products such as rags, plastic and paper when they are menstruating? It would be helpful to know what contribution the Government are making in this area.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank my noble friend for that question. In her prior role as Secretary of State for International Development, the Minister for Women and Equalities placed great emphasis on this issue, recognising the awful situations my noble friend describes, and moved to lead a global action campaign to end period poverty by 2030 in line with the global goals. It kick-started an allocation of up to £2 million for small and medium-sized charities working on period poverty in DfID’s priority countries. It also builds on the proud record of the UK’s work that is already under way to tackle period poverty globally, and the range of initiatives that different organisations are leading here at home.

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Baroness Manzoor Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 29th October 2018 Lords Chamber

Amendment 17 withdrawn.

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move that the House be resumed. In moving this Motion, I suggest that the Committee begin again not before 8.17 pm.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, surely we should return at 8.33 pm?

[Baroness Manzoor]

My Lords, it has been decided that the break will be 45 minutes.

House resumed. Committee to begin again not before 8.17 pm.

Saddleworth and Tameside Moors

Baroness Manzoor Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords, I think that it is the turn of the Cross Benches.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, I endorse what has been said about the unspoilt beauty of the area. I too saw Winter Hill at the weekend, and have seen Saddleworth Moor too. As the Minister has said, it is a real tragedy to think of the risks that there have been to the countryside and wildlife. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said, it is crucial that those who have been responsible for so irresponsibly lighting fires on these moors are brought to justice. I hope that the Government will speak out clearly that no quarter will be given on this. Huge damage is being done, which will have to be remedied in due course. There have been reports that some of the communication structures and masts on some of the moors are at risk. Can the Minister tell us anything about that?

Police and Crime Commissioners

Baroness Manzoor Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords, may I please remind all noble Lords that when the clock strikes four, time is up?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a police and crime commissioner for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, for giving me and the House the chance to debate these matters. When, in the spring and summer of 2011, I walked through the Content Lobby to support big amendments to the then Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, I did not think that, five years later, I would be an elected police and crime commissioner myself. I reminded myself of the Second Reading debates in both Houses and I must confess to being a little shocked at the strength of opposition to the establishment of this new system of civilian oversight of policing.

Was this opposition justified? It might not entirely surprise noble Lords to hear me say that I do not think it was. Taking away some of the natural political hyperbole, the underlying genuine fear was that police and crime commissioners would politicise the police in an unnecessary and in particular an un-British way. I do not think it has. Of course, most PCCs are elected on a party ticket—indeed, it was inevitable from the legislation that they would be—but in practice there do not seem to have been many, if any, blatant examples of party-political partisanship that would embarrass the community and the police force itself. I am proud to be a Labour police and crime commissioner and I hope that some of my beliefs and principles show through in how I do the job, but the notion that I can use my executive position either to do down my political opponents, with whom I have to work every day in my job, or even to work to try to persuade my chief constable and his force to somehow adopt my politics is frankly absurd. I believe, as do all my colleagues, whatever party they belong to, that one of the greatest strengths in our society is that its police remain entirely independent of party politics. Long may that continue.

My role is to hold the police accountable to all the people of Leicestershire and to deliver an effective and efficient police service. Frankly, I do not have much time left to spend on party-political shenanigans, even if I wanted to. This is not to say that this very new system does not have real problems. First, I am not sure that all chief officers have accepted the important role in the system that police and crime commissioners now enjoy and are bound by law to assert. Of course it was intended that there should be a natural tension. But, after more than five and a half years, there is sometimes, I believe, not just tension—which is a good thing—but a lack of understanding.

Secondly, there remains, as has been said, a democratic deficit that all of us, as police and crime commissioners, are doing our best, I hope, to reduce. Thirdly, I am not sure—and I say this to the Minister—that the Government really know what they want police and crime commissioners to be. Do they want them to be the elected champions of all the people in their force area, holding the police to account and partnering with others so that crime can be prevented and the criminal justice system improved? Or do they want us to be fall guys who can be conveniently blamed by the Government, which, I am afraid, continue to reduce their central funding to police year on year?

Lastly—something which I hope touches a bell with some noble Lords here—some of us have a concern that the workforce reforms, pushed at great speed by the Home Office and the College of Policing, will mean that many from deprived communities may no longer consider a career in the police, and we will lose that sort of police officer whom we all know, who may not have a master’s degree but has the emotional intelligence and the common sense—

[Baroness Manzoor]

My Lords, I am sorry. Time is up, if we are to enable other noble Lords to take part.

[Lord Bach]

I shall sit down, but I will just say that I am honoured to be a police and crime commissioner in a fine force with an outstanding chief constable. The jury is out as to whether this is a lasting solution to this issue, but I think it should be given many more years’ chance.

Immigration: Hostile Environment

Baroness Manzoor Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Handsworth]

My preference is to wait.

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords, may I suggest that the noble Lord starts his speech?

[Noble Lords]

No.

[Baroness Manzoor]

My Lords, this may then be a convenient point for us to interrupt the list of speakers so that we can wait to observe the national minute’s silence at midday, to remember the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.