Yarl’s Wood Detention Centre

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Anna Soubry

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

We take the issue of individuals refusing food and fluid very seriously indeed. We do not want any individual to put their own health and wellbeing at risk. It is important that we have an immigration policy that includes detention, but that we administer it in as fair a way as possible, always seeking to use detention as a last resort. The right hon. Lady referred to a specific case. I am not going to comment on individual people’s immigration status on a case-by-case basis. However, it is important that I am always prepared to listen when Members ask me to review their cases.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her statement and for the assurances that she has given the House. It is right that we have to have detention centres. Nobody likes them, but they have to exist as part of a policy that is the right policy to pursue. But will she be absolutely clear and give us all an assurance that the welfare of anybody—whatever their status may be—is always the primary concern?

[Caroline Nokes]

Of course the welfare of individuals at any of our immigration centres is of paramount importance. I assure my right hon. Friend that Yarl’s Wood was inspected by Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons between 5 and 16 June last year, and the report was published on 15 November. In addition, Yarl’s Wood was subject to a review by Stephen Shaw, who reported in 2016. He is currently looking at the recommendations that he made and the progress that the Government—and Serco, our operative there—have made in implementing them.

Immigration White Paper

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Anna Soubry

Monday 5th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

I am not quite sure how I should respond to being called a dog. However, it is really important to note that we are working incredibly hard to make sure we have an immigration system after Brexit that works in the interests of UK citizens. There is no extreme right-wing cabal controlling the Tory party. This is actually about making sure we deliver on what the British people voted for in 2016.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm two things? First, is it not really important, when we discuss immigration, to recognise that the overwhelming majority of people who come to our country do so to work? We are grateful for the work they do and we should always welcome the contribution they make to our country. Will she also confirm that the customs union has got diddly squat to do with immigration?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Anna Soubry

Monday 3rd February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

I can assure the hon. Lady that this is a matter I am always considering, because I know of the representations from the Forces Pension Society and the War Widow Association of Great Britain. The difficulty is that this is not within our gift; it is a matter for the Treasury. The very important point to make is that if this is done for the armed forces, others will come forward. Presumably, that is why the previous Government did not do it. One could imagine that the widows and widowers of police officers and fire officers would make just the same sort of case.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

7. What assessment he has made of the proportion of women in senior military posts.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Anna Soubry

Monday 4th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

9. What steps he is taking to help improve home ownership among members of the armed forces.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Anna Soubry)]

The Secretary of State for Defence recently announced that £200 million has been allocated for the creation of the forces Help to Buy scheme. Launching on 1 April 2014, it will significantly improve the support available to members of the armed forces who wish to buy their own home. Forces Help to Buy will offer the men and women of our armed forces a deposit loan of 50% of their annual salary, up to a maximum of £25,000. The loans will be interest-free and repaid over an affordable 10-year period. As well as that additional funding, there will be tailored advice on financial and housing matters. Of course, service personnel are also afforded high priority and additional flexibility under the Chancellor’s main Help to Buy equity share scheme.

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank my hon. Friend for that response. What reassurance can she give my armed forces constituents, particularly those in the Army Air Corps at Middle Wallop, that they will be able to combine this new scheme with the schemes already put forward by the Department for Communities and Local Government, in an example of joined-up government?

[Anna Soubry]

There should not be any difficult in doing that at all. I should add that I am always more than willing to come to see some of the excellent accommodation that I know exists already at Middle Wallop, and I look forward to doing so.

Mental Health

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Anna Soubry

Thursday 16th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anna Soubry)]

I would not normally intervene, but will my hon. Friend join me in paying tribute to the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) for the great work he has done to raise with me and my Department this often unheard of, certainly unrecognised and very serious problem of type 1 diabetics with eating disorders? In considering how to tackle it, it is indeed important that we look at the mental conditions and problems my hon. Friend has identified.

[Caroline Nokes]

I certainly join the Minister in paying that tribute. I am delighted to hear her make the point that we must start addressing the underlying mental health conditions, when in too many cases the physical treatments are the sole emphasis.

I want to touch briefly on the significant impact eating disorders can have on future career opportunities and in the workplace. As I said earlier, eating disorders are often trivialised and generalised as being conditions affecting teenage girls. That is far from the truth, as the highest rate of increase is among male sufferers. In addition, many eating disorder sufferers are managing their conditions over many years or even decades. I am the first to emphasise that sufferers can be of any age and of either gender, although I acknowledge that the age at which an eating disorder is most likely to manifest itself is 17, and that it is most likely to do so in girls. It often occurs in academically high-achieving individuals who put themselves under immense pressure to be absolutely perfect in every way they can. That frequently manifests itself in a control of food intake. Those determined to put themselves under significant academic pressure also put themselves under massive physical pressure and wish to conform to a body ideal that is actually far from healthy.

I want to pay tribute to the work of April House in Southampton—a specialist unit that focuses on eating disorders in the city. I paid a very enlightening visit to the centre just over 12 months ago and met a number of sufferers, several of whom came from my constituency. Although April House serves the wider Southampton area, three of them were Romsey residents. They have kept in touch with me since my visit, and have emphasised that they have not only benefited from the work done at April House, but have undertaken other therapies.

I am very aware of the work of an organisation in Southampton called tastelife, which was set up by the families of people suffering from eating disorders. The aim was to move the focus away from the physical, and, through self-help groups, to encourage sufferers to talk about their issues, work through them with other people and concentrate on not just physical but mental wellness.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who drew attention to the stigma experienced not only by those who suffer from mental health problems, but by their families. Before the Westminster Hall debate, I was contacted by many parents, husbands and, indeed, wives of people with eating disorders, who told me that not just their relatives but they themselves suffered that stigma. A number of them believed that they must be in some way to blame for the fact that their relative, perhaps their child, suffered from an eating disorder. Many were suffering from massive levels of guilt and introspection because they felt they must have somehow caused it.

I have tried to emphasise during discussions of this topic that it is not possible to identify a single trigger, and that a parent cannot do anything to prevent the descent of a child into a form of mental illness, but what that parent can do is help. I was pleased to hear various Members stress the importance of having a parent or other relative as an advocate. In the case of eating disorders, it is almost inevitably the parent who will know the young sufferer best. I think it very important that we be prepared to talk openly about the subject and to move away from the stigma.

Many of those who attended the Westminster Hall debate will remember my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark) talking about a pea. He described how he had suffered at school from anorexia nervosa, and had decided to address his condition by seeking to tackle it one step at a time. The first step involved a single green pea on a plate, which he pushed around endlessly, trying to summon up the ability to eat it. His was a moving and interesting account, which gave those of us who had by then been debating the issue for some hours something on which we could really focus: that vision of a plain white plate with a single green pea on it.

Unfortunately the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), is no longer in the Chamber. I am sure the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), will do an admirable job in responding to the debate, but the point I am about to raise is one that I raised with the Minister of State after it was raised with me by an organisation called Anorexia and Bulimia Care.

Once a young person suffering from an eating disorder has turned 16, they can choose to accept or refuse treatment and their parents no longer have a say. In order for them to be force-fed, they must be sectioned. That brings me back to what I said earlier about teenagers who are in the middle of academic exams and approaching A-levels. Being sectioned could have a significant impact on their future career choices.

I am not necessarily suggesting that we should insist that the parents must be in charge until a child reaches the age of 18. The Children’s Minister explained to me carefully and clearly about previous rulings in this place and in the courts which have granted people Gillick competence at an earlier age. I am not saying we should insist that that right be taken away from eating disorder sufferers. I think it important for us to work with health care professionals, and with mental health experts in particular, to find a solution to what I regard as a very knotty problem.

Among the sufferers to whom I have spoken during various meetings at April House and elsewhere, one sticks especially keenly in my mind. She was a lady my own age, and, although she was not one of my constituents, she came from Hampshire. She had suffered from anorexia for decades, and was incredibly frail. When I mentioned April House she shuddered visibly, because she regarded it as a place where she had been effectively force-fed. She had not come through the treatment successfully; here she was, 20 years on, still suffering from anorexia nervosa.

I always find myself—with good reason, I believe—on the side of the sufferer or the patient, and I am therefore not suggesting to the Minister that when it comes to the debate about whether parents should have the right to insist on force-feeding young people until they reach the age of 18, we should enter the fray. I recognise it is a very difficult area. However, I want to leave that thought with the Minister. I have raised the issue with her colleague the Minister of State, and no doubt I will raise it again over the coming months and years.

Green Belt (England)

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Anna Soubry

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Anna Soubry]

The Prime Minister and others have made it clear that there will be no change to the special protection afforded to the green belt. It is unfortunate that there has been a high level of scaremongering. If we believe what has been said by the Prime Minister and his Ministers—no doubt this Minister will give us yet more assurances—that does not square with the notion that our green belt is in any way under threat. I stress again that we are talking about the green belt. Unfortunately, it is under threat in my constituency, and I believe that it is in many other constituencies across the country.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point, but does she agree that her constituency is fortunate to have a green belt? Many of us represent constituencies that do not have one. In my constituency, the city of Southampton, a very large city, has no green belt whatever. That puts the green fields on the edge of the city, which separate it from villages such as Nursling, Rownhams and Chilworth, under extreme stress.

[Anna Soubry]

I absolutely understand the point that my hon. Friend makes, but the great joy, as I see it, in the policy as outlined in the document that we are discussing is that it will enable communities to come together and work together to consider how best they can encourage growth and development in their areas. The two are not incompatible. I shall move on to a good example of sustainable development.