Business of the House

Carolyn Harris Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Lady is quite right that I share her concern about any child going hungry. I know that this is a long-standing and intractable issue, particularly during school holidays. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), who has long tried to seek the opportunity for school lunches to continue even during the holidays. It is a very important issue. However, I would draw the hon. Lady’s attention to the fact that with the increase in our economy—the real rises in wages, the growing number of jobs, and universal credit, which makes sure that benefits are not withdrawn as people increase their working hours—the opportunities for people to increase their earnings are now there more than ever before. We are seeing that the result of that is a decrease in absolute poverty and a decrease in the number of workless households, and therefore a decrease in the number of children being raised in workless households, all of which are very good things in our society.

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

The all-party parliamentary group on home electrical safety will shortly publish the results of a consultation on the need for better regulation of online sales. Websites such as Amazon, Wish.com and eBay are not doing enough to prevent the sale of illegal and unsafe goods to UK customers. Shockingly, Wish.com is openly selling zombie knives and knuckledusters without any checks on the age of the buyer. Will the Leader of the House consider a debate in Government time on better regulation of online sales?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Lady raises a very important point. I know that Members right across the House would wish to see more done to stop online sales being a free-for-all. She raised a particular point about zombie knives being sold online. She will be aware that that will be made illegal under the Offensive Weapons Bill, and I encourage her to raise that point specifically with Ministers during its remaining stages in this House.