Oral Answers to Questions

Bridget Phillipson Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

Hon. Members on both sides of the House will agree with my hon. Friend—female genital mutilation is a brutal act of child abuse. On 24 February, I launched new multi-agency practice guidelines to raise awareness of FGM. One important symptom that I imagine hon. Members and others do not know of is that girls can be absent when they go to the toilet for a long time—say, 30 minutes. It is important that teachers and nurses understand that, and that we all highlight such symptoms.

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

Specialist police domestic violence units have saved lives and improved the way in which police forces handle domestic violence across their force areas. What pressure is the Minister bringing to bear across Government so that chief constables are encouraged to protect those vital front-line services?

[Lynne Featherstone]

The message we continually send to forces throughout the country is the importance of supporting the sector and taking action on domestic violence, and I hope chief constables are listening today.

Asylum: Children

Bridget Phillipson Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2010 Ministerial Corrections

[Bridget Phillipson]

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which UK Border Agency offices provide child care when asylum seekers are being interviewed; and what plans she has for the future of that provision.

[Official Report, 13 October 2010, Vol. 516, c. 299-300W.]

Letter of correction from Mr Damian Green:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) on 13 October 2010.

The answer given was as follows:

[Damian Green]

We are committed to ensuring that parents who are being interviewed about their reasons for seeking protection are not placed in the position of having to give an account of personal victimisation or humiliation in the presence of their children. In general, applicants are advised in their letter of invitation not to bring their children to the interview but to make alternative arrangements.

For some families, child care will be easier to arrange-in London, for example, the majority of asylum applicants are able to reside with family and friends and as a result have a wider support network for child care. We do recognise, however, that this will not be possible for all families.

At present, the only UK Border Agency building that provides child care facilities when a parent is being interviewed about their asylum claim is in the North West. Additionally, however, in the West Midlands, the UK Border Agency is currently in the final stages of discussions with the Children's Society and hope to be in a position to provide a supervised play facility for the dependents of interviewees by January 2011. If these facilities prove successful and cost effective, we will consider extending this approach to other offices.

The answer should have been:

Socio-economic Equality Duty

Bridget Phillipson Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. That question suffers from the disadvantage that it has absolutely nothing whatever to do with the socio-economic duty.

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

The Minister came to the Chamber and said that the duty was “weak” and a “gesture”, and that substantive legislation is required. When will she introduce that legislation?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I think the hon. Lady misheard. I did not say that. I said that if we want to make a difference with substantive legislation, we should introduce it. I have already said that the Equality Act 2010 is substantive legislation, but that duty is a little bit of it that is not substantive.

Identity Documents Bill

Bridget Phillipson Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will answer the formal question from the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch about consultation. The scrapping of ID cards formed part of the manifesto for the 2010 general election for both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. The policy received considerable media coverage and our opposition to ID cards has been in the public domain from the outset. The coalition agreement clearly sets out our aim to scrap ID cards and to destroy the national identity register. Therefore, although a formal consultation was not undertaken, we have been open and transparent in what we intended to do and what we are doing.

It is clear from the messages—Opposition Members may think a website is not a formal place—from the community that transgendered people do not welcome the state emphasising their individual circumstances. That is why we will be engaging with the transgendered community and others to determine what they consider is the best approach and how we can best achieve a suitable outcome to the issue raised by Opposition Members, which I agree is extremely important—how to deal with the state of not quite being one gender or the other, or in process between the two.

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

So what the Minister is telling us is that the Government did not carry out an equality impact assessment, and that the substitute for that is correspondence with individuals on her blog. That takes the place of an impact assessment, which is a legal requirement.

[Lynne Featherstone]

No, that is not exactly what I said. The impact assessment for the Bill was published on 4 June 2010 and is available on the website of the Identity and Passport Service. The impact assessment indicates that the policy of scrapping ID cards does not have an impact on statutory equality duties.

As the Minister for Immigration indicated in his letter of 19 July to the Chairs of the Committee considering the Bill, the ID card is just one form of identity and although the policy in respect of issuing two cards to a transgendered person may be considered as innovative, scrapping ID cards would not impact on their ability to access services or to travel in their chosen gender. It ill behoves the Opposition to make light of the transgender community communicating through whichever means it wishes.

We need to be careful that in seeking to extend the rights of the transgendered person when travelling, we do not create the potential for additional difficulties. That is why we intend to work with the transgendered community and others on determining what they consider is the best approach and, in conjunction with the Government Equalities Office, consider how we can move this important issue forward. It is important that we listen to those who are most affected. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge mentioned in Committee, a number of his constituents who would be affected and with whom he has had discussions do not favour the approach suggested by the amendment.

At the same time, through the International Civil Aviation Organisation, we will discuss with our international partners the issue of gender recognition in passports. It is possible for a passport to be issued with an X instead of an M for male and F for female. However, we anticipate that the use of an X may raise more questions than answers. Instead, we will consider other options, including whether it might be possible to remove gender identifiers from passports, and look at any potential consequential security implications of this. We aim to consult groups in the UK this autumn and with the ICAO and others over the coming months.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bridget Phillipson Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I rather agree with my hon. Friend, who will know that, under the previous Government, one of the many shambles in the immigration and asylum system was the problem of being able to remove people to safe countries. We will try to do better. The Dublin regulation, which is the system under which we do this, is working—in 2009, the UK removed 625 more cases than we accepted—but it is not working well enough. [Interruption.] If former Ministers on the Opposition Front Bench can contain themselves, I shall give the reason: we must do better at returning cases to specific EU countries. We are doing better with Italy. The next case that we really need to get to grips with is Greece, but the Government are determined to do this.

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware of the great difficulties many of my constituents face when lodging an asylum claim? They have to travel to the UK Border Agency in Croydon to lodge claims for initial screening, and the full cost of that must be met by the individual concerned. Will the Minister look again at that system and consider any review that can make it fairer, so that constituents in the north-east do not need to travel to London?

[Damian Green]

It is perhaps a shame that the hon. Lady has launched an attack on a change made by her own Government in their last 12 months in office. I can see some logic in why Ministers in the previous Government made the change that she objects to: by and large, people who claim asylum should claim it as soon as they get to this country. That is one area where there is not much difference between those who sit on the Front Benches. So I am afraid that I will have to ignore her plea to change the system to make it easy for people who may have been here for many months or, in some cases, many years to claim asylum. Asylum is meant for people who come to this country as genuine refugees.