Crime and Neighbourhood Policing

Colleen Fletcher Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

I will bear in mind what you have said, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I welcome the opportunity to participate in today’s debate on crime and policing. As the Home Secretary has just explained, there are few issues as important as protecting the public and ensuring that our streets, communities and residents are safe. Indeed, it is the first duty of any Government to keep their citizens safe, yet successive Tory Governments seem to have failed in that primary duty over the past 13 years.

As we have heard today, the Conservatives’ record on crime and justice is simply dreadful. Crime rates are appallingly high, while charge rates and prosecutions have collapsed. That is not being tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime; it is the exact opposite. This Government are letting criminals off and leaving victims and entire communities feeling abandoned. Not only have their policies failed to keep my constituents safe or to tackle crime in Coventry North East, but they have constantly focused on the wrong priorities and completely ignored the real issues that affect our communities daily.

The Government appear to have no policy, no plan and no strategy to deal with the problems in my constituency. My constituents have told me time and again about problems such as serious violent crime, knife crime, gang culture, drug dealing, domestic abuse, sexual violence and persistent antisocial behaviour. Over the past 13 years, our police force’s ability to tackle those problems has been diminished by successive Tory Governments as they have ruthlessly cut funding to the bone, dismantled neighbourhood policing and slashed officer numbers. After more than a decade of police cuts, the west midlands is finally getting more police officers through the uplift programme, but still nowhere near as many as are needed or as have been lost on this Government’s watch.

Consequently, as our police force has become more overstretched and as demand for its services continues to grow, I have heard complaints from constituents that there is no visible police presence in their area. They say that the police have been unable to physically attend the scene of a crime; that all they have received is a crime number and they are not sure what comes next; or that they have reported a crime but heard nothing more. I have also heard from police officers, who say that they simply do not have the resources to investigate every crime.

Let us be clear: my constituents deserve so much better, and so do our dedicated police officers, who do such a fantastic job in extremely difficult circumstances. They deserve a Government who will give our police force the resources it needs—a Government who will restore neighbourhood policing, keep our streets safer and ensure that more criminals are arrested and prosecuted. They deserve a Labour Government. Sadly, while this Tory Government remain in place, I fear that our police force will continue to be hamstrung, residents will continue to be let down and the streets of Coventry will continue to be less safe than they could and should be.

Preventing Crime and Delivering Justice

Colleen Fletcher Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

The first duty of any Government is to keep its citizens safe. We heard that earlier—it was the Home Secretary’s opening remark when she started the debate—but the Government have failed in that duty over the last 12 years.

On the Conservatives’ watch, we have seen police officers disappearing from our streets, a criminal justice system in chaos and people feeling much less safe in their own communities. The Government’s record on crime and justice is utterly woeful: total crime is up, charge rates are down, and victims appear to be being abandoned. The Queen’s Speech was an opportunity for the Government to finally get tough on crime and the causes of crime, rebuild our broken criminal justice system and make our communities safer. Yet again, they have failed completely to grasp that opportunity. Once more, the Government are chasing the wrong priorities while ignoring the criminality that people face daily. There are vague promises in the Queen’s Speech to make our streets safer, but there is little detail on how they will tackle the real concerns of the people in Coventry North East, such as local neighbourhood crime and persistent antisocial behaviour that has such a serious impact on both individuals and communities in my constituency.

Over recent years, we have seen significant issues with antisocial behaviour on our streets, from problems of noise, nuisance and neighbour disputes to vandalism and the illegal use of off-road motorbikes. More and more residents are now contacting me to tell me that these incidents are leaving them feeling intimidated, threatened and fearful for their safety. Sadly, the Government’s record shows they simply do not seem to understand—or, worse still, care—how persistent antisocial behaviour like this can destroy communities and blight residents’ quality of life. That probably explains why the Government have failed to put in place a co-ordinated national plan on antisocial behaviour for a decade, which has left communities in Coventry North East feeling abandoned.

My local force, West Midlands police, has been badly let down and hamstrung by a lack of resources, with both officer numbers and budgets cut to the bone by successive Tory Governments for more than a decade. The police in my constituency do a wonderful job and I am always grateful for the regular updates they bring me. However, what is really apparent is that they cannot do more with less money and fewer resources. Worst of all, we now have what seems like a postcode lottery on policing resources. For example, how is it Warwickshire police can have a dedicated off-road bike team when West Midlands police does not and cannot? That lack of resources means there is an absence of visible community policing on our streets, with fewer officers to reassure residents, deter criminality, investigate crimes and support victims. Indeed, all too often residents tell me they rarely see bobbies on the beat any more, while the officers I have spoken to tell me there are simply insufficient resources to investigate every crime.

[Jonathan Gullis]

The hon. Lady rightly talks about off-road bikes, which are an issue in my constituency. We have section 59 notices, which I do not think are working as a deterrent. Does she agree with that, and does she think that, cross-party, we can try to find a way to toughen the law in this area?

[Colleen Fletcher]

In my constituency, off-road motorbikes are being used in a very, very intimidating way. They are almost escorting cars around. They are not doing them any actual harm, but they are intimidating people, so much so that one person in my constituency had to stop at the side of the road to gather himself to be able to drive on. That has been said to me time and again through emails and through visits in the community. I visited the police. I had a meeting with our police and crime commissioner. Only two weeks ago I had a summit meeting with the leader of the council and others, where I spoke about off-road motorbikes.

It would be useful if we could do something. The police and the police and crime commissioner tell me that there are not enough resources, and they have to put the resources where they need them. There are pots of money, such as the safer streets fund, but is that really the way to tackle those problems? This must be done far more broadly than it is now. Of all the antisocial behaviour incidents, I deal most with off-road motorbikes, and I know that this goes on across the whole west midlands. It does not happen only in my area, which is why we should look at what we are giving to police forces and say, “This is a problem up and down the country. We need to tackle it.” I would work with anybody to try to tackle it.

In a tacit admission of the damage that they have inflicted on policing, the Government introduced the police uplift programme. Although any uplift in officer numbers is welcome, let us be clear that this will still not take West Midlands police back to pre-austerity levels of policing. We lost 2,221 officers in the west midlands during the austerity years, and although the force is due to get back more than 1,200 officers through the police uplift programme, that still leaves a shortfall in the west midlands of more than 1,000 officers compared with 2010 levels.

[Kit Malthouse]

rose—

[Colleen Fletcher]

I have nearly finished and I have already given way.

When launching the uplift programme in 2019, the Prime Minister said:

“I have been clear from day one I will give the police the resources they need”.

If his rhetoric is to match reality, and if he is to meet his pledge to level up, the Prime Minister must return the 1,000 police officers to the west midlands. Sadly, there was no commitment in the Queen’s Speech to either resource the police properly or tackle the antisocial behaviour problems on our streets effectively. I fear that once more on crime and justice, the Government have failed West Midlands police and failed the people of Coventry North East.

Safe Streets for All

Colleen Fletcher Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

First, I want to put on record my thanks to all those who work in our public services, from the NHS to the police, from social care to local government, and from education to public health. The people who work in our public services have borne the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic. Despite struggling against a backdrop of a decade of Tory cuts and underfunding, they have performed heroically in their efforts to save lives, protect people and support communities. The past year and the covid-19 pandemic served only to underline how essential well-funded public services are to protect and promote good health, address inequalities, educate the next generation and keep our streets safer. They are the lifeblood of a decent society and an essential element in enabling individuals and communities to develop and meet their potential.

The Queen’s Speech gave the Government the opportunity to acknowledge the importance of properly funded public services and to undo the damage their austerity agenda caused. Although there are some welcome proposals, such as the online safety Bill, the Queen’s Speech does nothing to address the damage caused by a decade of cuts, or reverse the Government’s long-standing ideological refusal to invest in our public services. It does nothing to address the crisis in social care, to reverse the savage cuts inflicted on local government, to meet the challenges facing our NHS, to help our struggling schools or to tackle crime.

While the Government chase causes like electoral fraud, they are seemingly happy to ignore the real concerns that my constituents live with. In 2019, there were only four convictions for electoral fraud in the whole of the UK, yet in the month of February, we had 600 antisocial behaviour incidents in Coventry alone.

The much-cherished model of community policing, carefully nurtured and supported under Labour, no longer exists. Indeed, I can cite numerous examples of where crimes occurred, but no action was taken because some residents no longer see any point in contacting the police, or live in fear of reprisals if they report crimes in their neighbourhoods. In many places, residents frequently observe thefts, street violence and drug dealing, to name but a few offences, but feel powerless to do anything about it. That is not good enough.

However, I am pleased that in the west midlands we have returned Simon Foster as our Labour police and crime commissioner. He is committed to employing an additional 450 community police officers throughout the west midlands, as well as fighting for the resources that we need. Of course, that will not deal with the problem in its entirety, but it will demonstrate to our residents that the only party willing and capable of giving the resources that the police need is the Labour party.

Oral Answers to Questions

Colleen Fletcher Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. He mentioned Windrush and the Department’s inefficiencies of the past, and there are a couple of points that I want to make. Windrush was a stain—let us face it—on the Department and the Government, and we are now working through that; we want to right the wrongs. I hear what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. Do not forget that Wendy Williams’s report basically pointed to the ignorance and thoughtlessness about race and the history of the Windrush generation in the Department, but he refers to something much wider—he has raised this point with me numerous times—which is that we must not treat people like cases. That is a fundamental change that I am trying to bring to the Department. It is taking time, and there is no quick fix. I give him every single assurance that I will continue to work night and day to change our systems and make sure we put people first.

[Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

There has been a spate of catalytic converter thefts in Coventry, with more and more vehicles being targeted by thieves. These crimes cause distress and disruption to victims. Will the Home Secretary tell me what steps the Government can take in conjunction with the motor industry and other partner agencies to reduce the theft of catalytic converters, which seems to be a growing problem?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Of course, the long-term answer is to work with the industry, as we are doing, to design out many of those problems and issues. That is about the changing nature of vehicles. The fact of the matter is, as we have already heard from colleagues, that the theft of vehicles or catalytic converters is damaging and blights people’s lives. That is why we are resourcing the police and supporting them in every effort to go after the criminals behind this.

Public Services

Colleen Fletcher Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner). Like him, I want to concentrate on levels of crime. In my constituency of Coventry North East, draconian cuts to police budgets have had a terrible impact on local communities. Although I welcome the fact that the Government now seem alert to the damage they have caused, my Opposition colleagues and I have been warning for years about the problems their policies create, yet all our warnings have fallen on deaf ears. To listen to the Government over the past few weeks, we could be forgiven for thinking that the problems are new and have emerged only in the past 12 months. However, when this Government took over in 2010 and started imposing their austerity measures on communities across the country, crime, particularly violent crime, also began to rise. On this side of the House, we have always understood the reasons for that, and have always been committed to investing not only in the police service but in all the ancillary support and community services needed to give young people and others the opportunities they lack, and to give offenders the support they need to prevent them from reoffending.

The real question my constituents are now asking is why they should trust the Government to tackle crime and violent crime when it has skyrocketed on their watch. In the west midlands, we have one of the highest rates of violent crime, homicide and sexual crime in the country, with rates of violent crime rising by more than a third in the past 12 months. In addition, we have the third highest rate of knife crime in the whole of England and Wales. In Coventry over the past 12 months, children’s lives have been shortened because of knife crime, police officers have been severely injured, and the communities are slowly losing faith in the ability of the police to respond to their needs. This has all happened on the Tory Government’s watch, and it is questionable to think that this Tory Government can ever put it right.

As a result of the Government’s abject failure to tackle crime and their ideological refusal to invest in our public services, the people of Coventry simply do not trust the Government to deliver. The Conservative party is no longer the party of law and order; it is the party of crime and disorder, and the people of Coventry have no faith in its ability to reverse the rise in violent crime seen on too many of the streets on which our friends and families live.

References have been made in this debate to tougher penalties for causing death by dangerous driving, promised in the last Parliament. I myself have asked questions about this after two little boys in my constituency were killed by a speeding driver high on drugs who received a paltry sentence for his crime. I share the concern that these measures have not been included in the Queen’s Speech.

This Government have an appalling record on crime, and however hard they might try with the measures in this Queen’s Speech, my constituents in Coventry will not forget about the damage that they have caused.

Oral Answers to Questions

Colleen Fletcher Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

If the hon. Member for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) were standing, I would call her, but she is not and so I will not—but she now does, so I call Colleen Fletcher.

[Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

17. Thank you, Mr Speaker. A local officer recently told me that the police no longer have the resources available to provide the level of service most people rightfully expect and wanted me to tell the Government that without significant investment in policing this situation is unlikely to change. What does the Minister say to this dedicated officer, whose job is being made impossible due to savage budget cuts, and to the victims of crime, who are being let down so badly by this Government?

[Mr Hurd]

What I say to that officer is what I say to every officer who makes exactly the same point, which is a valid one: the Government understand that police officers are feeling very stretched and under pressure at the moment, which is exactly why we have increased investment in our police. It is exactly why we are investing more than £1 billion more in our police system. He may wonder why the hon. Lady voted against it.

Public Health Model to Reduce Youth Violence

Colleen Fletcher Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman). It is always interesting to hear about Members’ former lives, and about what drove them to come to this place.

Sadly, youth violence, and knife crime in particular, has affected almost every community in the country in recent years, and it is a problem that has reached epidemic levels. Just last month in Coventry, a 16-year-old boy was tragically stabbed to death in the Wood End area of my constituency. That senseless act cost an innocent young man his life, ruined the lives of his family and friends, and left an entire city in a state of shock. It was yet another tragic example of how knife crime destroys lives and devastates communities.

That shocking event is just the latest in a rising toll of knife crime in the city. Over the last five years the number of knife crime incidents has almost doubled, from 164 in 2012-13 to 307 in 2017-18. There were more than 162 knife crimes in the first six months of 2018-19, with three fatalities in this year alone. The levels of knife crime in my area, and in other areas across the country, are rising, at a time when police budgets have been cut to the bone and the number of frontline police officers has fallen to the lowest level in 30 years. The West Midlands police force alone has lost more than 2,000 officers in the last eight years, and £175 million from its budget over the same period. There can be little doubt about the correlation between falling police numbers and rising crime levels. It is time that the Government finally acknowledged this link and acted to increase the number of officers on our streets to help protect our communities.

All forces need additional officers, and the West Midlands is no different; our PCC has asked the Government for an extra £42.2 million to cover inflation and the funding for 500 additional officers to help tackle violent crime more proactively. It is shameful that the Government failed to meet that request in full.

However, I accept that this problem has not been created by cuts to police budgets alone, nor is it a problem that can be resolved by simply putting extra officers on the streets. If we really want to address this problem permanently, we need to understand the social conditions that lie at the root of youth violence and recognise the underlying causes that have fuelled the recent surge in knife crime. In doing so it is impossible to ignore the cumulative impact of eight years of savage Government cuts to local services, which have exacerbated poverty and inequality, hampered our ability to tackle youth violence at source and pushed communities to a tipping point.

It is certainly no coincidence that areas of high deprivation have similarly high rates of knife crime. In Coventry we have seen cuts to education provision, children and youth services, Sure Start, the police and mental health facilities, all of which have had a direct impact on the most vulnerable in society. Cuts to such vital services not only make it difficult to identify young people who are most at risk of early offending due to their environments, but make it more difficult to address those environments through early intervention. That is why we need a long-term, properly funded, integrated public health approach to youth violence, an approach that focuses on the drivers of youth violence rather than the aftermath and that prioritises the safeguarding and protection of vulnerable young people over criminalisation.

We must ensure that carrying knives never becomes normal behaviour and seek to change the culture among many young people. To do this, we need to place a greater emphasis on community policing that builds trust, education programmes that equip young people to be resilient, and early intervention that targets those most at risk of becoming involved in violence, as well as targeting significant resources on prevention activities on a multi-agency basis. As a result, youth violence would no longer simply be within the purview of the criminal justice system; instead, this would involve the police, schools, parents, health professionals, youth workers and council services working alongside community groups, young people, faith groups and the voluntary sector.

There are already practical examples of this holistic approach taking place in Coventry with the roll-out of youth workers in our local A&E department. Those youth workers intervene at “teachable moments” and speak with young people who attend hospital with a knife wound, as victims often become perpetrators of violent crime—although I think we can all agree that it would be preferable to prevent the violent incident in the first place, rather than act in the aftermath.

There is also investment in mentoring projects and youth work, including through the Positive Youth Foundation in Coventry, to divert young people away from violence. Similarly, there is investment in education programmes that warn young people of the dangers of carrying a knife. We have also seen the introduction of violence prevention mentors—young people who mentor other young people in their schools away from violence.

Such local initiatives really do make a difference to both individuals and communities touched by violence, but they do not in any way negate the need for the Government to adopt a public health approach on a national scale. We need the Government to implement and properly fund a national programme, with measurable outcomes, that targets resources at communities to tackle the problem of youth violence at source while protecting future generations from it. I hope this is something the Government will look at very seriously.

International Men’s Day

Colleen Fletcher Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I commend the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) for securing the debate. He has raised many issues, each of which is probably worthy of long debate. It is difficult in a debate like this one, which is quite short, to have the conversations that we really want to have.

I am feminist, and I have two sons. They have brought issues to me while growing up, and we have always talked about equality. We are going back a generation—my sons are in their early 40s. I remember one coming home from school and saying to me, “It’s not fair—the girls have a special room where they can go at lunchtime, and boys don’t have one.” Girls who had their period or were not feeling well were allowed to go to that room and have some quiet time, which I tried to explain to my sons. Should schoolchildren—whether boys or girls—not feel well, they should have a room where they can sit down quietly. That is just sensible.

We have to be careful about our language and ensure that people who have an audience, such as those in the media, think about what they are saying. Another issue was picked up just last year. My son and I were listening to the radio—something was going on in Coventry—and the presenter commented on some men’s “wonderful six-packs”. My son was appalled and said, “What if that was a man on there, talking about what big breasts someone had?” We have to be careful about the language that we use, especially in the media and in newspapers, although we cannot often control what happens there, and people will always read what they want to.

International Men’s Day is designed to highlight some extremely important issues—none more so than men’s mental health and tackling male suicide. I want to focus on those issues, and this debate gives me the opportunity to do so. I will always take the opportunity to talk about it.

Last year, suicide rates among men in the UK were at their lowest for more than 30 years. While that is, of course, extremely encouraging, we must not overlook the underlying statistics, which show that there were 5,821 suicides in the UK last year. Of those, 4,383 were male suicides, which means that more than three quarters of people who took their own lives were men—the rate was 15.5 suicides per 100,000 men. One such death is one too many. Those statistics lay bare the scale of the crisis in men’s mental health, and they also highlight how essential it is for us to continue to target expertise and resources at understanding the causes of male suicide and trying to prevent it.

Why is suicide such a highly gendered occurrence? We know that mental health issues can affect anyone and are caused by a number of factors, including bereavement, unemployment, finance and debt issues, family and relationship problems—as has been said already—social isolation, low self-esteem, drug and alcohol issues, and many other personal factors. It is not that men are necessarily more susceptible to these mental health triggers; societal expectations have shaped men’s behaviour in how they deal with—or, more accurately, how they fail to deal with—their emotions, feelings and wellbeing when confronted by them.

The malign influence of masculine conditioning—it shapes the way men are brought up to behave and the roles, traits and behaviours that society expects of them—demands that rather than talk about their emotions and how they feel in times of difficulty or crisis, men should instead be silent, manly and strong. That social and emotional disconnectedness simply adds to men’s vulnerability and contributes to a higher rate of suicide across the male population.

How do we tackle this problem? Part of the answer is to reduce the stigma around men’s mental health and to encourage men to open up and seek help when they are struggling or feeling in despair. In Coventry, the encouragement and the conversations are being initiated by the award-winning mental health awareness and suicide prevention campaign, “It Takes Balls to Talk”. It is the brainchild of mental health nurse Alex Cotton, who is my constituent.

The campaign is a public information programme targeted at male-dominated sporting venues across Coventry and Warwickshire, which uses sporting themes to raise awareness of mental health support services and seeks to reduce male suicide by encouraging men to talk about their feelings. Since its launch more than two years ago, “It Takes Balls to Talk” has played a vital role in breaking down the barriers that prevent men from initiating conversations about their mental health and wellbeing, and from positively engaging with mental health services in my local area. Such targeted initiatives promote positive mental health and make a lasting difference. That is why I am extremely proud of what the campaign has achieved so far and of the work it does across my city and Warwickshire. It is why I support it wholeheartedly.

I want to conclude by encouraging any men affected by a mental health issue not to bottle it up. Those are wise words for anyone. Talk to a friend, a colleague or a family member. Contact Mind, the Samaritans or “It Takes Balls to Talk”. They need to know that there are always people and organisations out there who will listen and offer practical help, advice and support. After all, you know what they say—it has just been said: a problem shared is a problem halved.

Vote 100 and International Women’s Day

Colleen Fletcher Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

I am very proud to be sitting on these famous green Benches on International Women’s Day, surrounded by other women representing constituencies in all four corners of the United Kingdom.

Since the Representation of the People Act 1918 and the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918, both of which celebrate their 100th anniversary this year, significant advances have been made in ensuring that Parliament represents more accurately the country that it serves. Since those Acts, 489 women have been elected as Members of this House— a milestone that must have seemed so distant to women such as Mary Smith, who delivered the first women’s suffrage petition to Parliament in 1832. Currently, there are 208 female MPs, and I am honoured to be the first female MP for Coventry North East.

Alongside those Acts, great changes—including the industrial revolution and both world wars—successfully challenged the notion that a woman’s role was solely domestic, and opened up possibilities for women economically, politically and socially. Despite this progress, the battle is far from won. Yes, it is fantastic that we have 208 female MPs in the House, but that equates to only 32%. At the last general election, only an additional 12 women were elected; at the current rate it will take 50 years to achieve gender equality in Parliament. One hundred years after some women won the right to vote, and some were afforded the opportunity to stand for election as an MP, the fight for political equality must continue.

I am proud to come from a party that has such an impressive record on striving to achieve these things. Labour has more female MPs than all other parties put together and is the only party to advocate the use of all-women shortlists to address the inequalities still present in the current system.

I have seen many, many changes from when I first started work—in a job where I did not get equal pay. I was happy to see the introduction of the Equal Pay Act 1970 and the Work and Families Act 2006, which extended the right to statutory maternity leave for a full year. When I had my children, I was back at work after six weeks and 12 weeks respectively. I needed the money, and I needed to keep my job.

As we have heard in previous contributions, there have been many other advances in the cause of women’s equality. However, more still needs to be done, especially regarding maternity rights and the gender pay gap. In Coventry—the city I represent—a recent survey found that fewer than 20% of female respondents felt they are treated equally to men. A further 42% believed they have experienced gender discrimination in the workplace, and nearly 60% felt that women are under pressure to look good at all times.

It is clear that significant advances have been made since the Representation of the People Act and the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act. However, the results of that survey are alarming and remind us how far we have yet to go. Women are still paid less than men in many fields, and gender stereotypes surrounding certain degree subjects and industries still exist. Women are still objectified in the media, and for many, politics remains a man’s world, with many women feeling this glass ceiling will never, ever shatter. We have come so far, but the fight for gender equality is not over. With cuts, especially to tax credits, the NHS and social care budgets, it is often women who are hit the hardest.

Before I conclude, I would like to pay tribute on this special day to a great, strong and formidable woman, who was elected and who swept to power on 3 May 1979. She was to inspire a young woman who watched her every move—a young woman who, because of that woman’s inspiration and very presence, would become the 414th woman ever to be elected to this place. She is probably not the person Members are thinking of: this great woman lived in Coventry, and in her kitchen there was a plaque that said, “A woman’s place is in her trade union”. Her name was Dorothy Dalton; she was my mother, and she was elected to Coventry City Council on that very night—a night when the Labour party swept to power in Coventry.

Great women inspire other women. Women of influence give other women confidence. Thinking about all women around the world, I hope the Minister will join me in honouring International Women’s Day with not only a reflection on what we have achieved so far, but an acknowledgment that more can and must be done for gender equality.

EU Referendum: Race Hate Crime

Colleen Fletcher Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I absolutely agree with that. Very disturbingly, one of the arguments used by some leave campaigners was that the refugees who are fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria will come here as terrorists, and that, if we were to leave the European Union, they would not be able to come and somehow we would become safe. That feeds into the “anti-other”, or anti-immigrant, sentiment, and that is irresponsible.

Sadly, as of now, not a single prominent leave campaigner has uttered any condemnation of the rise of racial hatred or, better still, called for unity to heal the deeply dangerous divisions that have been created. Does the Minister agree that we now need a cross-party coalition to make sure that future campaigns on such issues are conducted according to some sort of code of conduct that ensures that we never again allow our political language to become so irresponsible?

The media have not exactly played a good role in this, either. We must consider the media and journalists who portray such politicians as colourful eccentric characters, whose outrageous comments are seen for their entertainment value and as being honest. How many times have we heard, “This person is saying it how people are saying it, and is not pretending to be something else—he is giving honest views”? That serves to legitimise their point of view.

We have heard about famous journalists who have continued with that kind of behaviour. Politicians here in the United Kingdom and in the US who encourage what I call “othering” quickly become big box office hits, especially if they are able to talk, not just unchallenged but endorsed by journalists, in a way that suggests that all Muslims are rapists, or that immigrants are sucking the NHS dry or are stealing our jobs while living on benefits. Imagine the effect on someone in an economically or socially vulnerable situation who is told on a daily basis that they are in that plight because of these immigrants who have taken everything. It is not surprising that some of those people think that the immigrants are to blame. That is why I talked about the need to eradicate poverty and provide good jobs, decent housing, education, schools and hospitals. That is so important. Can we really be surprised at some of the rhetoric and the things people have been saying when that kind of thing is perpetuated by our media?

The free hand of the print and online media to distort facts and blame entire groups of people for the troubles of our country, with almost no fear of contradiction, plays an important part in the spread of hatred, and is worrying. Certain parts of the media are complicit in the rise of bigotry and the consequent discrimination. Here, I touch on what my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) referred to. It is not that suddenly one day everyone decided to become abusive. There has been a consistent level of immigrant bashing over a number of years. There was a time in this country when the Irish were bashed. Then it was the Afro-Caribbean community, then the Muslims. Now it seems like everyone is hated. That is very worrying.

This is a great country to live and work in. I am very passionate about my country, which is why I think it is so important that everyone, including all politicians across the United Kingdom get together and say, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) did, “Not in our name.” This is not what we are as a country. We are a tolerant and liberal country. I have travelled and worked in other countries, and as far as I am concerned this is the best country to live in in the world. When I see this kind of thing happening, it really disheartens me. I know that others feel the same.

Let me give as an example some of the front-page scare stories from the Daily Express, the Daily Mail and The Sun. Recently, a Daily Mail cartoon compared immigrants to vermin and conflated them with gun-wielding terrorists. Who can forget the well-known shock tactic journalist who referred to desperate and scared refugees as “cockroaches”? It is amazing that the newspapers and journalists who make an enormous amount of money from those kinds of things are able to say them again and again and get away with it completely. In fact, the journalists are paid even more by the radio stations, television companies and media to carry on peddling their hate. When did journalists forget that with freedom of speech comes responsibility? Does the Minister agree that it is now more pressing than ever that we proceed with the next stage of the Leveson inquiry, so that the press act responsibly in their treatment of minorities? A free press is great—we want that, and we want the press to cover stories, responsibilities, wrongdoing and investigative journalism, and to tell us what is going on, but some sections of our media seem to have a completely different agenda of their own.

We have a proud tradition of welcoming people from around the world, and our diversity makes us stronger. We are grateful to all those who have chosen and continue to live and work in this nation. Members of the House must pledge to stand together and unite against hatred and intolerance in our communities. We will not, and should not have to tolerate hate crime again.

[Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making important points about the responsibilities of different agencies. The Minister may have heard about the incident in Coventry, where my constituent, the Coventry and Warwickshire radio presenter Trish Adudu, was racially abused in the street last week. Trish said that an individual shouted at her and another Coventry resident, and said vile things, including the N word, which I have never used and cannot bring myself to use even when describing this incident tonight. She was told: “Get out of here. Go back home. Haven’t you heard the result of the vote?” Trish was visibly distressed when she reiterated that on the radio and on TV. Does my hon. Friend—and hopefully the Minister—agree that there is no place for such sickening and deplorable behaviour? We must work together to put a stop to it, bringing in all those agencies and working cross-party. Robust action must be taken—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

Order. I have been very generous with the intervention, but that was very long. There is plenty of time and if the hon. Lady wanted to make a speech, she could have done so, but I think that was it.