Gaza: Humanitarian Aid
Debate between Baroness Uddin and Baroness Williams of Trafford(8 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, can we hear from the Cross Benches and then the Conservative Benches?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, can we hear from the Cross Benches and then the Conservative Benches?
Primary Care: Inequality
Debate between Baroness Uddin and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, it is the turn of the Liberal Democrat Benches. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, is non-affiliated; she can go afterwards.
Information Commissioner’s Office Report
Debate between Baroness Uddin and Baroness Williams of Trafford(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the Minister will be well aware, as is widely reported in the media, of children not being believed by police officers when they report rape, including in places such as Rotherham. Does she believe there are some significant changes in that pattern of behaviour by police officers in particular forces? On the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, about support for women and children, organisations that offer such support, particularly those through which women support women, have been decimated. Does she believe that adequate resources are available through the Government and local authorities?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
On funding, our VAWG strategy comes with a significant amount of funding. On children and Rotherham, I could not agree more with the noble Baroness. In fact, I can think of other parts of the country where the culture makes some of its leaders completely blind to what is going on under their noses.
Ten-Year Drugs Strategy
Debate between Baroness Uddin and Baroness Williams of Trafford(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
May I finish answering the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher? We want to maintain the availability of needle and syringe programmes to prevent blood-borne infections and widen the availability of Naloxone to prevent overdose deaths. I do not know the document to which the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, refers. I went through some of the figures for drug deaths with the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. We will not go soft on some of the penalties that we have for drug use and drug dealing. As I told the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, the focus of one of the pillars is helping people with treatment and rehabilitation.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)
My Lords, notwithstanding the complexity of the current crisis, as detailed by the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, I welcome this strategy. I have raised the matter of the severe cuts in services over the past decade since I led Addaction, a national pilot by Breaking the Cycle, a project funded by the Zurich Community Trust that invested nearly £1 million over five years to work successfully with 500 families. That is how much it costs when you are doing it right, as is acknowledged on page 55 of the strategy, which is about the complexity of the services required. I hope that the strategy that is to be implemented will add hope for people who have been waiting for services. Can the Minister and her department not reinvent the wheel for services which are already out there waiting to be called, by the Government and local authorities, to make themselves available to very vulnerable families?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, I agree most wholeheartedly. It is not about reinventing wheels but about seeing what works, and about what new interventions might help people to rebuild their lives. There is all this talk about decriminalisation, but drugs destroy lives—we have all seen those effects.
Domestic Abuse and Hidden Harms during Lockdown
Debate between Baroness Uddin and Baroness Williams of Trafford(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I agree with the noble Lord that different communities have different problems in different situations. Perhaps lockdown is the most appropriate one to be talking about now. I do not think we should listen to the same voices; we need to get a range of voices before deciding what our interventions should be and in what context.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I thank the Government for their wonderful efforts on all these different initiatives. I particularly acknowledge the Minister’s role in their formation. We are all grateful. She is aware that women still do not report or seek advice services early enough and have experienced many episodes of violence and abuse. Equally stark is the fact that women of south Asian heritage may take even longer in accessing services or reporting abuse, particularly because they find it difficult to access specialist accommodation and counselling services, which remain in extremely short supply, including in my borough, where policy over the years has meant the complete and utter destruction of specialist services, particularly for bilingual women; they say it is about budgets. Given that there seems to be £50 million outstanding, will the Minister undertake to have a broader discussion with women’s organisations across the country, as the noble Lord, Lord Singh, has just suggested, so that we can mitigate some of the shortfall in their budgets and services?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I do not know whether the noble Baroness knows but we did extensive pre-legislative scrutiny on this topic. I have never been involved with so much engagement with various stakeholders across the sectors. The engagement has certainly been broad and of course we want to get the money out to the organisations that need it, to support the people who need it.
UK Terrorism Threat Level
Debate between Baroness Uddin and Baroness Williams of Trafford(4 years ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
The noble Lord makes an interesting point about the balance between freedom of speech and individuals’ responsibility not to threaten others with what they say. People are perfectly at liberty to insult, even offend, but there is a fine line where freedom of speech ends.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I extend my sympathies to the family of Rabbi Sacks, the late Lord Sacks. It was a privilege to work with him on interfaith issues for many years, including in the early years of his journey. I also extend my thoughts and prayers to the families of all those who were so brutally murdered in Paris, Austria and Kabul. We stand together in their sorrow.
This House will agree that we must not fall prey to the language of hate and divisiveness being normalised in our discourse on terrorism and violent extremism, whoever the source. I am aghast at the hateful incitement and utterances from French leaders in denigrating faiths and communities, which will cause an insurmountable rise in Islamophobia, including Islamophobic attacks on Muslim communities in France and elsewhere.
Will the Minister continue with her commitment to working across faith communities, including women-led organisations, to ensure that their security remains paramount? Does she agree that demonising religion in combating the plague of terrorism is likely to disfranchise societies and, in doing so, demean our best endeavours as a society committed to upholding respect for the values of freedom, liberty, justice and equality?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
It is important that we as a country lead by example. Clearly, we stand in solidarity with France and the French. I do not want to be drawn into discussing the comments that other leaders may have made, but we remain, as an international family, in solidarity with those people and against terrorism.
Windrush Compensation Scheme
Debate between Baroness Uddin and Baroness Williams of Trafford(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I am going to desist from making a cheap point about “hostile environment” and where it originated. I know that the noble Baroness will have heard my right honourable friend the Home Secretary say yesterday that she thought the immigration system was far too complicated and that she wanted to see a “firm but fair” system going forward.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her considered response and agree wholeheartedly with the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, that only a comprehensive race equality strategy will suffice to address embedded, institutionalised racism and Islamophobia. The Windrush report unequivocally deemed the Home Office unfit for purpose. I know the Minister accepts and understands that there is universal lack of confidence and trust in her department and its ability to manage this inexcusable scandal in a fair, humane and respectful manner. Therefore, will the Government consider how they can best work with Mr Lammy in the other place, and call on those leading and trusted individuals, including the Windrush advisory committee, to provide independent oversight as they proceed to remedy the decades of wrongs and centuries of hurt?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I think the noble Baroness will be very pleased to know that we do have a member of the Windrush generation—or their descendant, I think—on the advisory group. They must be front and centre and at the heart of absolutely everything that we do to right the wrongs of the past and introduce more equality into our society.
Reading Terrorist Attack
Debate between Baroness Uddin and Baroness Williams of Trafford(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Lord is right to point out that I will not comment on this individual case. There has been a lot of emphasis on mental health services in the last year or two. It is absolutely right that, if someone comes out from a prison—or indeed a hospital—with mental health needs, the wraparound service is there to protect them as they recover from it.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, as the mother of three grown-up sons, my heart goes out to the families of James Furlong, Joe Ritchie-Bennett and David Wails, to the Holt School and to all those who were injured. Searching questions arise about the integrity of the Prevent strategy, which has been seen to demonise and alienate large swathes of Muslim communities. The same is true of the leadership of the counterterrorism strategies, which has thus far allowed only the voices of the disconnected and discredited within the majority of the communities to be heard. Will the Minister consider setting up a cross-party task force to reach out to the community? This should include women, as well as the Arab community—which must now include Libyan people—with a view to addressing socioeconomic as well as health, housing, employment, education and mental health service inequalities. It could perhaps be led by the Minister, with the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I join the noble Baroness in offering condolences to the families and those who have lost loved ones. She talked about an issue which crosses society, religion and all sorts of boundaries. It is a multi-government effort to ensure that our communities feel included, safe and protected from violence.
Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women
Debate between Baroness Uddin and Baroness Williams of Trafford(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
I hope my noble friend will be pleased to note that in 2018 I attended the Commission on the Status of Women. I found it incredibly useful, and our voice was very influential with a number of states.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness’s question. If and when our Government decide that we should have representation on the committee or on any other international bodies, will she and her Government make sure that it reflects the diversity of women in our country?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
As I said, we have so many women to choose from, not least from your Lordships’ House. I am sure that the woman chosen will be the best woman for the job.