(2 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe Department delivers national programmes as well as initiatives in partnership with the health system to support disabled people to start, stay and succeed in employment. These include Access to Work and intensive personalised employment support, which continues to provide that support after work has begun.
It is essential to ensure, particularly as we approach the winter, that all workers have access to a liveable sick pay and do not put themselves and others at risk. However, the current earnings threshold disproportionately affects disabled people and those with long-term health conditions. What concrete actions will the UK Government take to finally fix the wholly inadequate sick pay system?
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising those points, and it is a pleasure to work with her once again; I have done on various topics. The Government previously consulted on reform to statutory sick pay, as she will know, but we did not think that the pandemic was the right time to introduce changes to it, as that would have placed an immediate and direct cost on employers at a very difficult time. Instead, we prioritised changes to the wider welfare system. However, I can assure her that our work on this is ongoing and I look forward to talking to her and others further about this.
(4 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
I welcome that glimpse of experience. It is important to say again that what we are discussing here today are the normal operations of the lobby. We are making sure that that is supplemented by these additional briefings.
These are the words of the Prime Minister in 2017 when he was Foreign Secretary:
“Where governments fear freedom of expression they often try to shut down media and civil society, or clip their wings.”
He also said:
“A free media is vital to creating a vibrant, informed and engaged population and helps to support a safer, more prosperous and progressive world.”
Why does he now think that freedom of the press is important everywhere except Downing Street?
Because the hon. Lady is wrongly describing the situation. The Prime Minister stands by those words, as do I.
(4 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberI will be taking a look at that report, and I shall be happy to talk to the hon. Lady further.
(6 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberI am sure that the Electoral Commission will provide those who look for problems with a little bit of data to chew on, but the point is this: it seems to me that the Labour party is looking for problems. Actually, most voters regard this as a reasonable and sensible step that protects our democracy.
We agree about the importance of preventing voter fraud and other electoral malpractice. The Electoral Commission ruled that Leave.EU breached spending limits and other rules, fined the organisation and reported its responsible person to the police. What steps are the Government taking to address that and how will the Minister ensure that the issue of cheating in the Brexit referendum is pursued?
As you will know, Mr Speaker, given your role in connection with it, the Electoral Commission is an independent body. I am not able to respond at this point to questions about investigations that it is undertaking.
(6 years, 8 months ago)
General CommitteesI agree with my hon. Friend and I think that it is rather a shame that we have had to have this discussion. Let us take the point of Brexit: in the time that we have been working hard to deliver transparency, since January 2014, the hon. Member for Pontypridd and his party have taken seven different positions on Brexit alone. We need to do a little better than that.
I am just about to come to the hon. Lady’s comments—I thought she might like it if I did that. She said that the 2014 Act obliged us to publish from then, but I am afraid that it does not. It is an option and not a requirement under that 2014 legislation. She is also of the view that we should not leave anything in the dark, that we should not delay and that we should not set yet another date. Again, why is she is voting against today’s transparency? It is a very unwise thing to do. It would leave donations now in the dark. It would leave us without a date and with no transparency.
Will the Minister explain why MLAs currently declare their donations on their register of interests on the Northern Ireland Assembly website? She is attempting to block publication of donations, which all parties accept is likely to happen, as she has generally recognised since at least 1 January 2014.
(8 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberIt is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).
Courageous Tornado crews based at RAF Marham in my county have been flying to Iraq already in the last year. The question today is whether we should ask them to do more, and my answer is yes. We have a clear, present and extreme threat and we have the ability to help defeat it.
I vote today in favour of diplomacy, of united resolve through the UN, of continued humanitarian leadership, of planning for stabilisation, reconstruction and peace in Syria, of cutting off the sources of finance, fighters and weapons, and of extending our advanced military capabilities in a fight that is already going on, in which we are already involved, and in which our enemies want us dead—a fight that we must win to keep British people safe both at home and abroad, and in which our allies need our help.
It is also right that the Government take domestic action, which is not necessarily named in this motion, but which goes with that coherent military, humanitarian and diplomatic action.
Will the hon. Lady give way?
I will not give way; I want to proceed and there are a few other Members who have been waiting patiently and want to come in.
We all know we are under threat. No action is not an option. We all know there is history behind and there is risk ahead. People are naturally concerned that we may make things worse, and that being part of airstrikes may make us more of a target here in Britain. Those concerns are valid, but we can only hope to have a safer world for British children, and Syrian children too, by having the courage to defeat the evil that we face. Indeed, Syrians are already fleeing it, and desperately. We must act; the UN is asking us to act.
I am prepared to back UK action with all its risks because I want to protect civilians there, here and anywhere in the world from the greater and more certain threat they face from IS: the threat of death, repression and torture.
People rightly argue that it is not possible to bomb an ideology out of existence. That is true, which is why we need the breadth of the motion. We also need to ask what the alternative is. Is it to allow an ideology that recruits from its own military success so far to continue to do so, with a headquarters, and to invoke our silence in its cause? No, it is not. We must back the motion. My morals, my conscience and my heart and head say that it is Parliament’s duty to support the Government in the actions they must take to keep British citizens safe against that active ideological evil. It would be foolhardy to fail to take an action that may allow us to do our part.