Oral Answers to Questions

Catherine West Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

This issue is of concern to many. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and we need to ensure that we learn the lessons from what happened at RBS and HBOS. As my hon. Friend will know, the FCA has reported areas of widespread inappropriate treatment of firms by RBS, which has apologised and set up a scheme for compensation for victims. There is an ongoing investigation being conducted by the FCA into RBS, and it is also undertaking two separate investigations into HBOS. We will continue to work with the independent regulator and the industry to ensure that small and medium-sized businesses get the support they need.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Just since Christmas, there have been five high-profile gun crimes in Haringey, including one last Thursday when a 19-year-old man, Kelvin Udunie, was shot in the head, the marksman being a pillion rider on the back of a moped, at the entrance to a cinema in Wood Green. We know that our streets are plagued by knife crime. The intent to kill with a gun takes the epidemic to a whole new level. This cannot go on and it must stop. Will the Prime Minister please meet me and community leaders to put an end to this epidemic of gun crime?

[The Prime Minister]

I suggest that the hon. Lady meets the Home Secretary, who will shortly publish a strategy in relation to the issue of serious violence. The use of mopeds for mugging has been known for some time, and my right hon. Friend is already looking at and working on that with the police. I am sure that my right hon. Friend would be happy to meet the hon. Lady on the issue of gun crime.

Contaminated Blood Inquiry

Catherine West Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

As I have said, the Government have already committed, through the statement that the Prime Minister made to the House in December, to further consultation with those affected, so that the terms of reference can be set and the chair can commence their work. I certainly expect that that will involve individuals affected—or, indeed, family members—and representative groups.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

As the Minister is aware, there is a two-tier approach for the families affected. Will she be able to look at the postcode lottery that exists for different people now? As she has said, many people are very ill right now and there are differing patterns across the UK. Will she look at bringing those approaches into alignment, perhaps even in advance of the review?

[Chloe Smith]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that question. I shall pass it to my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care who remain responsible for the policy on victims and the funding, as it operates today. The inquiry, about which I am answering today, is about how the situation came about and the more historical nature of things, but I shall ensure that her questions, which are of course in the minds of many hon. Members in relation to constituents who are suffering now, are heard by the Department, as it might be able to provide her with an answer.

Carillion

Catherine West Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I can well understand why apprentices would be worried at the moment. Carillion has 11 training centres across England, with about 1,200 apprentices who are also Carillion employees and who are mostly 16 to 18-year-olds. The Construction Industry Training Board has now agreed to become the training provider for those apprentices, and it will assist apprentices accordingly in finding new employment as rapidly as possible.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

There are 1,200 16 to 18-year-old apprentices. May I suggest that the statement that the CITB is going to call together a taskforce does not match the urgency with which Members across the House have raised the issue of these young people, and the crucial question of their future in construction, which we desperately need to fix in advance of the Brexit debate?

[Mr Lidington]

The 1,200 apprentices obviously needed to be found both a training provider and an employer, and Carillion had been performing both those roles. The CITB has now stepped in and taken up the role of the training provider for all those young men and women. I assure the hon. Lady that the CITB is going to be extremely active—and will be pressed by Ministers to be very active—in ensuring that it reaches out to employers and finds spaces for those young men and women as rapidly as possible.

European Council

Catherine West Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I assure my hon. Friend that, as I said in the Florence speech and have reiterated today, we are clear that we will honour our commitments, but we are going through those commitments line by line. Of course, part of the discussion about those commitments is precisely the legal nature of them. We are a law-abiding nation and we want to ensure that we stand by the commitments that we have made, but we are not just going to sign up to anything, as the Labour party would do.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Tomorrow, a number of EU nationals will converge on Parliament to speak to their Members of Parliament about their many feelings of distress and anxiety. What is the Prime Minister’s message to those individuals?

[The Prime Minister]

My message to them is that we value the contribution they have made here in the United Kingdom and we want them to stay. That is what we are working for, and we have made significant progress in relation to citizens’ rights. I made a number of commitments in a letter I wrote last week to EU citizens living here in the United Kingdom, and I stand by those commitments. We want them to stay.

UK Plans for Leaving the EU

Catherine West Excerpts

Monday 9th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I assure my hon. Friend that I do have discussions with the leaders of France and Germany, and, indeed, with the leaders of other EU member states. Others, such as the Dutch and the Belgians, also have a significant economic interest in our future relationship because of the economic activity at their ports. We discuss arrangements for the future with the leaders of those countries, and, as I said a little earlier, there is a growing sense and recognition of the importance of that deep and special trading relationship to the future of both sides.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Will the Prime Minister please tell the House the cost of Brexit to the public purse (a) if there is a deal and (b) if there is no deal?

[The Prime Minister]

It is not, of course, possible to answer that question at this stage. We are negotiating a deal, and we will not have negotiated that deal until, I suspect, close to the end of the period that has been set aside for it. At that point, we will be able to see what the benefits of the deal will be for the future of the British economy.

G20

Catherine West Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am happy to let my hon. Friend know that we have indeed also been having discussions with New Zealand. This is an issue I think we can progress with a number of other members of the Commonwealth—not just New Zealand, but Canada.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

What concrete steps will the Government take next to get climate change back in the discussion with the US Administration?

[The Prime Minister]

We raise this issue regularly with the US Administration, but, crucially, there was a very clear message from everybody sitting around the table at the G20 to the US Administration about the importance we all placed on the climate change agreement—on the Paris agreement—and on the US being a member of it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Catherine West Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

The North Middlesex hospital accident and emergency unit is in complete meltdown. Will the Prime Minister commit to taking swift action to tackle this crisis?

[The Prime Minister]

I understand that this is a very busy accident and emergency unit: it received more than 13,600 patients through its doors in April alone. It manages, however, to carry out 40,000 operations and more than 62,000 diagnostic tests every year, and since 2010 the trust has recruited 120 more doctors and 280 more nurses, but the Health Secretary will continue to monitor the matter closely. This brings us back, however, to the core argument today: if we remain in, we will have a stronger economy, and then, yes, we will have to take the proceeds of that growth and continue to put them into the NHS, as I have always done as Prime Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

Catherine West Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

2. What funding is provided to local authorities with low rates of voter registration to improve rates.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

May I begin by wishing the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), who is sitting on the Opposition Front Bench, many happy returns on his birthday?

In answer to the question, as well as giving more than £50 million to enable local authorities to carry forward the individual electoral registration system, we have also given more than £10 million to enable them to take proactive steps to increase voter registration.

[Catherine West]

What actions will be taken against local authorities that have coasting rates of registration—those that have registered fewer than 98% of eligible voters?

[Mr Letwin]

I am happy to tell the hon. Lady that the Minister for constitutional reform—my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose)—is proactively stepping in to try to ensure that those local authorities do take further action. The Electoral Commission has also reported on this, and we are keen to see that every local authority ensures right away that it no longer has large groups of people who are unregistered and that it cleans its register.