Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. As I say, we have been responsive to the needs that have arisen in our economy. We have been engaging with the various sectors that have come forward to raise concerns. For example, there is a commitment to supporting visas for 4,700 HGV food drivers, up to 5,500 poultry workers and 300 fuel drivers. I think the key thing now is that those industries that sought that extra support and that flexibility through visas now get on and recruit to those roles.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

11. What steps her Department is taking to tackle online fraud and scams.

[The Minister for Security and Borders (Damian Hinds)]

I, too, wish to associate myself with your words, Mr Speaker, and those of the Home Secretary in memory of our two cherished friends, David and James—outstanding parliamentarians both. James, among his many other accomplishments, was also an exceptionally effective and highly respected Security Minister, in which role he set the enduring example. As well as by colleagues in this House, he is very much missed by officials in the Home Office and by the agencies and partners with which he worked.

Online fraud and scams have a devastating impact, and we are taking action to protect the public and make it harder for fraudsters to operate. The online safety Bill will tackle some of the highest harm frauds online.

[Cat Smith]

I wish to put on record my own condolences to the families of James Brokenshire and Sir David. A lot of people have said that Sir David was a good support to new MPs, but he was also a good support to those of us doing things for the first time. Indeed, he chaired the Bill Committee when I was first on the Opposition Front Bench. He was a great support to me and will be dearly missed from the House.

Many of my Fleetwood constituents are seriously concerned about pension scams, which are on the rise. I pay tribute to the work of Age UK raising awareness of the risk of pension scams. Can the Minister tell me what steps he plans to take in the online harms Bill specifically on pension scams?

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Lady is exactly right to identify the wickedness of pension scams picking on people, often at a time of weakness, which is part of a wider field of investment scams. As she will know, the online safety Bill is currently going through pre-legislative scrutiny, which is an opportunity for issues to be fleshed out. She is absolutely right that the Government focus remains very much on the pension scams that she mentions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is known for his innovative approach to policy and he certainly raises something that merits further investigation. He is quite right that we have seen a growth in the number of cannabis farms across the country in all sorts of buildings. Notwithstanding the drugs they produce, there is very often disgusting oppression and victimisation taking place inside—people who are trafficked across the world to tend the plants—and we need to do something about that as well. He might be interested to know, however, that in their off-hours when police helicopters are not dealing with other crimes, one thing they do is circle around using thermal imaging cameras to find houses that are strangely heated to full blast in the middle of summer, indicating that there may be something afoot. That has been a very rewarding way of investigating those farms. I will look at his idea and pursue it further.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

What steps she has taken to help ensure that Border Force staff are trained on exemptions from requirements for covid-19 testing.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)]

Comprehensive guidance and training plans have been developed and are continually reviewed to ensure that all Border Force and frontline officers are trained in new policy, process and system changes relating to covid-19 border health measures, including those set by the devolved Administrations. That comprehensive guidance includes training and shift briefings.

[Cat Smith [V]]

RDI Trucking based in Preesall in my constituency provides international logistics for Formula 1 and other racing industries. Under coronavirus legislation, they are international transport workers. Therefore, as essential workers the legislation applies slightly differently to them, providing an exemption from the requirement for a negative test prior to cross-border travel. However, they have been having some issues in applying that. Will the Minister take the time to meet me and my constituent Baz Scott to discuss some of the issues he is facing in his industry?

[Kevin Foster]

I am certainly happy to look into that if the hon. Member provides the detail. She will appreciate that Border Force’s first priority is to maintain our defences against covid-19. However, as part of our work, we are looking to move exemption decisions away from the border and to have more automatic checking. That is in everyone’s interests, including those passengers who need to comply with the regulations and would otherwise be stood behind those trying to prove exemptions at the primary control point.

Criminal Justice Review: Response to Rape

Cat Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

Violence against women and girls starts really young. I do not know whether the Minister saw the news today about the research done by Radio 4 and the NASUWT into sexual violence and harassment in schools, but a third of teachers had witnessed peer-on-peer sexual harassment or abuse and one in 10 see this happening on a weekly basis.

The problem we have with violence against women and girls in this country starts young and it never ends. We have a real problem, so as well as no more delays to the publication of the end-to-end rape review, will the Minister commit to talking seriously to his colleagues in the Department for Education about addressing the need for education on consent for boys and girls in schools and through youth work?

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Lady makes an important point which, as I am sure she appreciates, is not within my ministerial ambit to comment on. However, through the work of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on the online harms Bill and of the Department for Education, we are all very much aware that young people take their signals and learn their behaviour from the adults around them. We all have a duty to ensure that they grow up as right-thinking members of society.

Birmingham Attacks and Extinction Rebellion Protests

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is quite right that that is the unfortunate effect of some of those protests. As I said earlier, the Metropolitan police has made over 600 arrests now, with dozens made over the weekend. Hopefully that is having an impact on the numbers, but we all want XR to think about the practical consequences of their protests, in terms of not just what we in this House think, but the impact on their fellow citizens.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

Policing and police resourcing is one part of the picture of reducing knife crime. Another part, of course, is preventive work. Youth services in England have seen a cut of £1 billion, or 73%, since 2010. Youth work can provide a really good preventive strategy when it comes to knife crime. What discussions is the Minister having with his colleagues to reverse the cuts to youth services?

[Kit Malthouse]

We are obviously going into a spending round and giving consideration, through the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my Department and the Ministry of Justice, to what funding and capability we can point towards diverting young people away from crime. The hon. Lady will know that, happily, I am also in the middle of a process of engaging with the violence reduction units that we have funded across the country, to learn from them and understand what is working, so that we can promulgate that across the rest of the country.

Channel Crossings in Small Boats

Cat Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

We increased, back in June, the funding that Kent and other authorities accommodating large numbers of UASCs receive, but I recognise that Kent bears a disproportionately large share of UASCs. My local authority of Croydon also does, because Lunar House is in Croydon. I have been in regular contact with Roger Gough, the leader of Kent County Council, and I pay tribute to him and his team for the work they have done. We have been rapidly working with other local authorities around the country to transfer UASCs from Kent to other authorities—I thank those other authorities for the response they have so far demonstrated—and by doing that I hope that we are able to ease the pressure that Kent has been under, which I fully acknowledge. We are working to reduce the pressure that my hon. Friend has accurately described.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

The Minister has just outlined some of the provisions to support children who are intercepted in these channel crossings. Does he feel that the local authorities, right across this country, have enough resources to support children who are intercepted?

[Chris Philp]

We recently increased the funding to support local authorities in relation to UASCs and care leavers—former UASCs who are now aged up to 25. That was increased by about £35 million per year just a few weeks ago. So, yes, I do believe the financial support is adequate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

Absolutely, and the suggestion from the Scottish Government that it would be implemented via the Scottish tax code is rather defeated by the fact that Scottish Members of Parliament are on the Scottish tax code but work across our United Kingdom, and rightly so. So, yes, we will work with interest groups across Scotland to make sure this system works for Scotland as part of our United Kingdom, on a points-based basis. Again, we will focus on what works and what is successful, not on what pleases the separatist grievance agenda.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

7. What recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the number of police officers in Lancashire.

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and the Fire Service (Kit Malthouse)]

We believe that the entire country, including Lancashire, could do with a boost in police numbers to address the changing nature of crime, and as a result we have provided enough money to recruit 6,000 police officers over the next year. Of that, Lancashire will benefit from 153 more.

[Cat Smith]

I am sure, Mr Speaker, you will wish to join me in paying tribute to Lancashire police, who responded over the weekend to the devastating effects of Storm Ciara, alongside all the other emergency services.

The Minister points out that Lancashire is to receive 153 officers under this core grant allocation-style funding, but Lancashire has lost 750 police officers since 2010. On that pattern, we will not regain the total number of officers lost, whereas Surrey, which has lost eight officers since 2010, looks to be gaining hundreds of officers under this funding formula. Can the Minister explain to my constituents why that is fair?

Emergency Summit on Knife Crime

Cat Smith Excerpts

Friday 22nd March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Gentleman is right. For the sake of the families, the victims and the young people who tell me that they are worried about walking around without a knife, it is important that this summit is done properly, and that takes a bit of time to arrange. We have a huge array of experts in this field, and getting everybody into one place on the same day takes a bit of organisation, but that is what will happen. It will be a summit that looks at all areas related to the causes of knife crime, the consequences of serious violence, and the efforts we can make to intervene on young people and those who may be on a wayward path.

The hon. Gentleman should not think for a moment that the knife crime summit is the only thing that is happening in Government; it absolutely is not. A whole roster of work is happening nationally to tackle serious violence. Some of it we have seen having an immediate impact, such as Operation Sceptre last week, and some of it will be longer term, as we know from the Glasgow model. Our efforts to improve alternative provision in education, and to intervene on children and their families if they need a bit of help, will all take a bit longer. However, we are very clear that we have an immediate, a medium-term and a longer term approach to tackling serious violence.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

The causes of this appalling rise in knife crime—particularly among young people—are complex, as are the solutions, so may I draw the Minister’s attention to three facts? Since 2010, 760 youth centres have closed, 4,500 youth worker jobs have gone, and annual budgets for local authority youth services have been cut by more than £700 million. Does she agree that Government cuts have created the conditions in which crime can thrive, and that denying young people somewhere to go, something to do, and someone to speak to, means that they are not getting the support they need to avoid finding themselves in those situations? Is it time for proper investment in our youth services, and for a statutorily funded youth service?

[Victoria Atkins]

I was delighted to visit Morecambe, which is next door to the hon. Lady’s constituency, and to speak with its wonderful local MP, my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris), about issues pertaining to crime and the causes of crime in his constituency. I was also delighted to meet the Chief Constable for Lancashire Constabulary, and to hold a conversation about the range of challenges faced by Lancashire—I should perhaps declare an interest, as that is the county in which I grew up and that I adore.

When I visited Blackpool I saw some of the real issues that are affecting our coastal towns, such as transient communities and the impact of the drugs market. We must be clear that those behind this criminality are the gang leaders and criminals who exploit children for profit. That is why, as well as the serious violence strategy, we also have the serious organised crime strategy. We must help young people to build resilience and intervene on them, but we must also get the criminals at the very top of those gangs.

General Election Campaign: Abuse and Intimidation

Cat Smith Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

Today’s timely debate focuses on the important issue of the abuse and intimidation of candidates and the public in UK elections, but I would like to begin with a note of thanks to Mr Deputy Speaker for his support in ensuring my personal safety and that on colleagues on both sides of the House as we go about our business. I know that many of my colleagues will share my thanks and put them on record.

Let me clear: abusive behaviour has no place in our democracy. I must stress that Opposition Members condemn any action that seeks to undermine our tradition of free and fair elections. We welcome the Government’s decision to conduct an independent inquiry, and we look forward to working with them to tackle this issue, which affects candidates from all political parties. In that spirit, my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) is giving evidence to the Committee on Standards in Public Life this afternoon on behalf of the Labour party.

Sadly, many colleagues on both sides of the House have experienced some form of abuse and intimidation as candidates or MPs, and many can talk about the experiences their party campaigners and volunteers have also had. Unfortunately, candidates and public office holders are vulnerable to abuse. The tragic murder of our parliamentary colleague and friend Jo Cox last year and the stabbing of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) in 2010 remind us of the serious threats we face and of the longevity of this issue.

We would be doing a disservice to the democracy we all believe in if we did not recognise that this is an issue for all political parties. If we are going to have the honest and constructive debate we need to have on this subject, we must recognise that individuals claiming to be supporters of every political party represented in this Chamber have, either online or offline, abused candidates from other political parties. That is wrong and it will always be wrong, no matter which party the abuser claims to support.

Unfortunately, abuse and intimidation have taken place during previous elections too. Those who claim that this is a recent development are perhaps inadvertently covering up the real issue. This topic is not new to scrutiny. In 2013, the all-party parliamentary group against anti-Semitism, of which I am a member, published the findings of its inquiry into electoral conduct. The inquiry had a particular focus on racism and discrimination in campaigning, and it marked the first time that such matters had been analysed in a systematic way by Members of the House. The APPG published its final update in July, which showed that electoral misconduct was a challenge for all parties during elections.

[Alex Chalk]

The hon. Lady is making an important speech, but does she not acknowledge that the tempo and tone of what happened in the 2017 election was of a different order of magnitude from what had gone before? I am quite prepared to accept that what happened was cross-party and affected people on both sides of the House, but it was at a level that was particularly concerning.

[Cat Smith]

I will answer some of those points in my speech. I suspect that what happened was partly due to the increased use of social media sites, which have more users than at previous elections, but I will come to that.

The same inquiry and the Law Commission argue that the current legal system is not fit for purpose. They urged the Government to redraft electoral offences in a more simple and modern way, so that they can be readily understood and enforced by campaigners, the public and the police, and the Opposition would support that.

We must see some action on this issue. The Government’s domestic policy agenda cannot stop because of the Brexit negotiations. In response to a written parliamentary question last week, the Minister stated that the Government will respond to the Law Commission’s 2016 interim report in due course. Can he be a little more specific on the timeframe? The Institute for Jewish Policy Research findings published this week showed that one quarter of British people hold an anti-Semitic belief. Those findings make for sobering reading.

Given the high prevalence of this, it would be foolish and wrong for any party in this House to assume that it did not have members or activists who hold such beliefs. Labour Members recognise that political parties have a responsibility to stamp out any form of abusive behaviour. To ensure that Labour Members comply with the high standards expected by our party, our internal procedures for dealing with abuse and intimidation were reviewed and improved following the Chakrabarti report on anti-Semitism. We have a detailed and publicly available social media policy, and we have employed more staff in our governance and legal unit to make sure that our members’ conduct is up to scratch.

However, social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook must take their share of the responsibility for this issue and act faster to prevent and remove abusive behaviour online. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) pointed out in the Westminster Hall debate on this topic before the summer recess, Facebook was very quick to remove pictures of a woman breastfeeding, but when my hon. Friend reported a fake account that was set up in her name sending out intimidating messages, it took Facebook two weeks to respond.

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing up such an important and relevant topic as the racism and anti-Semitism that are going on. I would like to highlight the unacceptable level of vitriol and aggression directed towards female candidates, in particular, during the election. Does she agree that the Government need to do more to ensure that women are not unjustly dissuaded from campaigning, joining in and putting themselves forward as candidates?

[Cat Smith]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point. Only this week, there were reports in the press regarding some rape threats I reported to Facebook that I was told at first did not breach its community standards. It does appear that women MPs face a particular kind of intimidation—threats of rape. Those comments have now been taken down, but I sometimes wonder whether that would have been the case had I not been a Member of Parliament and received some of the press coverage that I did, which has now seen this issue resolved.

Women MPs have been speaking out about these problems with social media for years. MPs and campaigners involved with the women on banknotes campaign were subject to sustained campaigns of harassment in which some members of the public were arrested and charged. Can the Minister assure us that he is working with social media platforms to combat this issue?

There is also a need for better collection and analysis of election-related racism and discrimination data. In March, the Home Office confirmed in an answer to a question that the Government do not hold specific data relating to hate crimes during election campaigns. If the Government are committed to tackling this very important issue, when will they recognise that data on it must be collected and scrutinised? As a consequence of this failing, the monitoring and reporting of racism during elections has fallen to the third sector. New research by Amnesty International found that my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), who joins me on the Front Bench this afternoon, and who was the first black woman MP in this House, received half of all the threatening tweets sent to women MPs between January and June this year. In fact, black and Asian women MPs received 35% more abusive tweets than white women MPs. As evidenced by the recent report, unacceptable behaviour towards candidates from all parties is disproportionately faced by women and those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds.

[Vicky Ford]

It is not just online that abuse is happening, and not just on the Labour side. The Conservative candidate in Ealing reported that two Asian activists on her side received much abuse to their faces. They were spat at, told that they should have their throats slit, threatened by being told they should die and told that their mothers should never have given birth to them. Their cars were also targeted. It is not just online and on social media—there are many face-to-face examples as well.

[Cat Smith]

The hon. Lady makes an important and correct point. This abuse is indeed faced by activists and volunteers from all political parties, and candidates and activists from black and minority ethnic backgrounds are indeed disproportionately more likely to face it, both online and offline. I will come to some of the offline comments in a moment.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

I heard the point that was made about Ealing. I am not sure whether it concerned the election in Ealing Central and Acton, where I was the winner, but I want to dissociate myself from those stories because they were nothing to do with the Labour party.

I was a candidate in Ealing Central and Acton in the 2015 general election, and there are pictures and footage of the fracas that ensued when I crossed paths with the Conservative canvass team, which included the former Mayor of London, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson). It was reported on “Newsnight”, and the newspapers called what happened to me “manhandling”; I think a lawyer would call it assault. There are documented examples of such things, and I reject the accusation that this is anything to do with the Labour party.

[Cat Smith]

My hon. Friend raises an alarming example to add to the debate, and I thank her for her contribution.

We cannot allow abuse to act as a barrier to participation in public life. A recent survey revealed that the majority of women MPs have received online and verbal abuse from the public and a third have considered quitting as a result. The 2017 general election delivered the most diverse House of Commons in history, but a failure to tackle abuse and intimidation risks reversing that and rolling back the progress we have made in making our politics more representative.

[Vicky Ford]

I want to clarify that in my earlier intervention I did not accuse Labour activists of being responsible for actions against Conservative activists. My point was that Conservative activists, especially women and those from ethnic minorities, were also seriously targeted, face to face, on the streets of London in the 2017 general election.

[Cat Smith]

The point has been made again that activists and campaigners from all political parties receive abuse. I think that there is consensus on that in the House.

Although the debate is about the general election that has just passed, stalkers and trolls continue to blight the lives of candidates in local elections. Unlike parliamentary candidates, those who stand for local elections are required to have their home address printed on the ballot papers, some of which are sent to the homes of postal voters way ahead of the election. My hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Jo Platt) is unable to take part in today’s debate, but she particularly wanted to raise this issue. When she was a councillor, she had her home address published on ballot papers and she was forced, in the end, to get CCTV there after receiving abuse and harassment. That is not an isolated case: I am aware of a councillor in Lancashire who, having previously been a victim of stalking, is incredibly uncomfortable with putting her address on the ballot paper. When will the Government review the inconsistency in the publishing of home addresses on ballot papers for candidates in local elections?

[Alison Thewliss]

I fully support the point that the hon. Lady is making. One of my colleagues found it quite frustrating that although they, as a parliamentary candidate, were able to exempt their address from publication, their partner, who happens to be a local government councillor, had to publish their address—thereby negating the whole point.

[Cat Smith]

The hon. Lady raises an alarming and pertinent point. It may leave many of us considering whether to encourage our partners to take part in democratic life, given the threats of abuse that we sometimes face.

We cannot ignore the funding pressures that local authorities are under, because they have an impact on the matter. According to a study by the University of East Anglia, electoral services were running 129% over budget in 2015-16. The Association of Electoral Administrators described the industry as

“Pushed to the absolute limit”

and highlighted significant challenges that electoral officials face, as well as the rising number of administrators leaving the profession. How can we expect electoral officials to identify and deal with abusive behaviour during elections without the necessary resources?

I have been approached by Members of the House who reported online abuse to their local police but found that investigations were cut short because of a lack of police resources. We cannot ignore the growing crisis, which has been alluded to, in police resources for the investigation of these crimes. The Government have cut more than 20,000 police officers, and we have to say that cuts have consequences. The police forces are overstretched, and that leads to pressure to downgrade crimes or to investigate them less than fully. If we really want to tackle this abuse, we need to resource our police budgets properly and give the police the resources that they need to investigate this serious issue.

The bullying and intimidation that we see on social media and on the streets of this country do not happen in a vacuum. The decisions taken by the press and media outlets, and even by political parties, to target some politicians over others can lead trolls to see that as permission to take their racist and sexist abuse offline and, sadly, in some cases to act it out. Only this week, the former Chancellor told colleagues at the Evening Standard that he would not rest until the Prime Minister is

“chopped up in bags in my freezer”.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Cat Smith]

I will give way in a moment.

The former Chancellor has previously described the Prime Minister as a

“dead woman walking…on death row”,

and compared her with

“the living dead in a second-rate horror film”.

I raise that because—

[Sir Hugo Swire]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the Opposition spokesman to make unfounded allegations against a former Member of this House, who is not here, without any warning and—to underscore what we are debating—to repeat unfounded allegations that she may or may not have read online or as reported in another paper?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I think the hon. Lady was referring to reports, but I also think she was just about to give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

[Cat Smith]

I clarify that I am referring to the press reports that I read in The Times this morning.

I raise that issue because violence against women is a huge problem in this country. Two women a week are killed by their partner or former partner, and rape continues to be a crime that is under-reported and for which it is very hard to achieve a successful prosecution. We as a House need to acknowledge that the problem we have in this country with violence against women is not helped when senior journalists, commentators or politicians use language such as that I have mentioned when referring to female Members of this House.

As well as the press, political parties and politicians have a responsibility to set an example by treating others with dignity and respect, including those with whom we strongly disagree. If we are to have a useful debate, we must be very honest in looking at the campaigns that our national parties run. I am referring to some of the social media advertising that ends up on voters’ Facebook timelines, often without their permission, highlighting and singling out particular Members of the House. I am referring specifically to the advertisements by the Conservative party that singled out my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington.

[Mrs Latham]

Will the hon. Lady distance herself from the “ditch the bitch” remarks made by the shadow Chancellor about one of our candidates, not at the last election but at the previous one?

[Cat Smith]

I associate myself with the remarks of my party leader, who has been very clear—indeed, he sent out such advice to Labour party candidates during the last election—that we should fight elections on the basis of policies, politics and the record of the Government, not play it personal. With that approach, we can have a debate in public that may influence the debate taking place on social media, and we may see a downturn in the levels of abuse highlighted by Members on both sides of the House.

This abuse does not take place in a vacuum. We must look at the campaign spearheaded by Lynton Crosby in the London mayoral election, which was even described by Baroness Warsi as “appalling”. That was because of the attacks on Sadiq Khan, which are widely understood to have been racist in nature.

[Alex Chalk]

I do not want to inflame this discussion, because the hon. Lady is making some fair points, but does she not agree that there is a duty on all of us to moderate our language in the public sphere? For example, it does not help to use language like the word “murderers” in the context of the Grenfell Tower atrocity, because it revs people up. Is there not a duty on all of us to be careful about what we say in the public domain?

[Cat Smith]

I agree that there is a duty on all Members of this House to be very considered in the language they use in all matters and to talk about policies and politics rather than personalities. Politics has been drifting towards a focus on personalities, and I think that is damaging.

The politics of hope will always win out over the politics of fear, and it played a role in the general election. It was positive that 2.5 million people voted who did not cast a vote in the previous general election, and that gives us a great sense of hope. If we want politics to be more representative, and if we want to encourage a diverse selection of candidates from all political parties to stand, we need to conduct our politics in the spirit of hope.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Cat Smith]

I will in a moment.

The Leader of the Labour party has always said that he does not do personal, and he insisted that all Labour candidates ran positive campaigns based on our policies and the Government’s record, rather than peddling attacks on individuals. He tweeted about that in 2016 and reiterated it in the “Question Time” debate during the general election.

As I said earlier, the Committee on Standards in Public Life is taking evidence this afternoon from three of the major political parties. As part of that inquiry, the Labour party submitted written evidence in which we outlined our support for the idea that political parties and their leaders should agree to a joint code of conduct with a framework for reporting, assessing and disciplining discrimination, racism and any other form of abuse. I hope the Conservative party will work with us to ensure election campaigns are run with dignity and respect for all candidates, and do not depend on highly personal attacks on opponents.

We must see some action on this issue. Abuse and the intimidation of candidates and the public have no place in our elections. I look forward to working with all parties to build a democracy that works for the many, not the few.

Orlando Attack: UK Security Measures

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We have some of the toughest, if not the toughest, gun controls in the world. Those, of course, were born out of tragedy here in the United Kingdom. The hon. Gentleman is also right that although the size of the attack in Orlando was significant—the biggest loss of life in a mass shooting in the US—atrocities are also being undertaken elsewhere in the world in the name of this terrible warped Islamist ideology. That is why it is so important for us to defeat that ideology.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

Homophobia can, sadly, be part of the daily reality for LGBT people at home and abroad. What makes this attack particularly upsetting is that it took place in a gay club—a place where LGBT people can feel safe to love the person they love quite publicly. As we approach Pride season, what reassurance can the right hon. Lady give my constituents that it is safe to take part in the celebrations of our diverse community? What conversations is she having with the Secretary of State for Education to tackle homophobia in schools and to have comprehensive sex and relationships education that says love is stronger than hate?

[Mrs May]

I can give the reassurance again that the police will, of course, be making very careful assessments of security issues relating to events in particular, but also venues, for people from the LGBT community. Obviously, if any specific action is necessary, they will take that action.

The Secretary of State for Education was present earlier, and will have heard some of the questions that have been asked. She is also the Minister for Women and Equalities and I know that she takes her responsibility for equalities very seriously. I used to have that responsibility myself, and I can assure the hon. Lady that in considering issues relating to those who wish to divide our communities and sow hatred, we work very closely with the Department for Education.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the sharing of information and intelligence between the UK and France, and it is an essential point to stress in the context of organised immigration crime that may be taking place across the channel. We have significantly stepped up our activities with the French authorities, and that will have a continuing impact in the fight against those who are simply seeking to traffic people into this country.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

The school summer holidays are also known to some as the “cutting season”, when young girls can be flown from the UK to have female genital mutilation forced on them in other countries. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that Border Force is equipped to stop young girls being flown out of the UK to be mutilated?

[James Brokenshire]

The hon. Lady makes a compelling and important point—indeed, I understand that it may well be debated in this afternoon’s consideration of the Policing and Crime Bill. I will certainly continue to discuss the issue with colleagues across the Home Office, but I can assure her that steps are being taken to ensure that Border Force officers are trained and that we recognise this really appalling crime to a much greater extent.