Police Funding

David Drew Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh]

Absolutely. If the Government were in opposition they would be crying bloody murder, because there is not only an economic but a human cost to the enormous rise in crime that we have seen as a result of their cuts in police funding.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent case. Does she accept that one of the hidden areas is small shop retail crime? Nowadays when goods have been stolen, it is virtually impossible to get a police officer to go to the scene of the crime, and as a result many smaller shops have gone out of business.

[Louise Haigh]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Small businesses are facing huge costs thanks to the cuts in police numbers. Many shoplifting offences are not prosecuted, and often police officers do not attend at all. The same applies to residential burglaries and many other crimes. Offenders are going scot-free because the police simply do not have the resources to attend.

Since the Tories came to power, we have lost 21,000 police officers, 18,000 police staff and 6,800 police community support officers, but I fear that, rather than facing up to this crisis, the Government are determined to try to spin their way out of it. This will be the eighth consecutive year in which Government funding for local forces has fallen.

Seasonal Migrant Workers

David Drew Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House recognises that seasonal migrant workers make a substantial and positive impact on the UK economy; believes that easy access to seasonal migrant workers is vital for economic prosperity; and calls on the Government to bring forward proposals to allow businesses to continue to access seasonal migrant workers from EU and non-EU countries.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for accepting the application for this important debate, and I thank the right hon. and hon. Members who supported it. I also thank all those in the British agricultural community who have campaigned relentlessly on this issue, and I am grateful for the work that has been carried out by the all-party group on fruit and vegetable farmers, of which I am a vice chair.

Madam Deputy Speaker, £1.2 billion was the value of soft fruit production—

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is the hon. Lady not a little surprised that given that the word “agriculture” is in the title—a bit of a hint there—this debate is not being responded to by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and that a Home Office Minister is responding instead? Is it not important that we get DEFRA to put on the record what its position is on this crucial issue?

[Kirstene Hair]

I believe we have the right Minister on the Front Bench; this is an immigration issue, and that is the case I am indeed fighting.

The sector has grown by 131% over the past two decades. These incredible figures are proof of all the skill and talent, and the industrious nature, of the British farmer. My constituency reveals the true scale of production that is now possible. Despite being less than 3% of the country, we certainly pull our weight, producing more than 30% of Scotland’s soft fruit. The noble strawberry is symbolic of Angus, and it is a wonderful experience for my constituents to be able to buy on their doorstep a punnet of fruit that has been grown in the surrounding countryside.

Given this sizeable industry, within the first two months of being elected I personally toured all the major fruit farms in Angus. I was greeted with a product with a taste and flavour that would be the envy of anyone, but I was also confronted with something else: a sector that was struggling. Although automation and modernisation are at the centre of the British farming sector, as they should be in any area that wishes to thrive, certain aspects of getting a crop from the field to the supermarket shelf will still require a human touch and may always rely, to a degree, on manual labour. At this time, the picking and harvesting of soft fruit crops can only be done effectively by hand. The picking of crops requires efficiency, endurance, and a deceptive level of knowledge. It is not a simple task. The whole production process is not down to unskilled labour, as is often said, but rather a skill gleaned through years of working on farms. Without question, this is tough work. I remember as a child a day of fruit picking being sold to me as a fun day out, but as soon as the sick feeling overcame me from eating too many raspberries, the novelty soon wore off and the labour intensity of the role shone through.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted to be able to make a short contribution; some of us have to try to get back via non-existent stations and railway lines that will not be open. I am sure that will be the case for many people.

I have a couple of observations. I intervened on the hon. Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair), and she put forward a valuable case with which I entirely agree. I do not know why the scheme that she called for has not yet happened. We had a debate in November 2016 and, more particularly, the debate on the back of a Select Committee report in July last year, in both of which Members said categorically that there was a need to reintroduce the seasonal agricultural workers scheme in some form.

Last year, somewhere between 10% and 15% of fruit and vegetables were ploughed back into the ground due to the lack of available labour. There are different reasons why some labourers may not want to come—it is to do with not just Brexit but the change in the value of the pound—but they did not come because there was very little encouragement for them to come. The scheme is all about trying to make sure that there is sufficient labour from abroad. Labourers have traditionally come from abroad, so this is not a recent thing; it has happened for decades. It has been more important recently because we do not have enough domestic labour. There is an issue to be addressed there.

People say that technology may be one of the answers, but, unfortunately, technology cannot yet pick strawberries—not without bruising them and making them next to useless. I do not understand why it has taken so long to address this matter. Is it because DEFRA has not made strong enough representations? The Secretary of State seems very keen to go out and embrace every green group and get every farming organisation on his side, and, certainly, he seems to be very savvy with the media, but when it comes to delivery on a fairly basic part of his Department’s responsibility, we have not seen any real action. Although he has not been in office for that long, this is a pretty important issue for the farming community. I know that because the NFU and other parts of the farming industry lobby me regularly and tell me that this is, while not their top concern, one of their major concerns.

My first question is why the matter has not been addressed. Is it because the Secretary of State is not able to make efficient representation, or is it just that, at the moment, the Home Office seems to want to block any attempt to allow people into this country because it wants to get the numbers down, even when those people are desperately needed, as they are in this sector? The hon. Lady told us that very clearly.

My second and concluding point is that we need to recognise that the whole rural community feels that it is not being listened to on this issue, especially given the way it has made its representations—over time and in a very detailed, comprehensive and thoughtful manner. The hon. Lady quoted all the figures, and I will not in any way try to reproduce them. My understanding here is that, unless we get those numbers, organisations will go out of business and fruit and veg will not be picked. Indeed, it is not just that part of the agricultural industry that is facing these issues. The dairy industry has regularly employed people from abroad. Those people come here because of the nature of the experiences they get, the English they learn and, indeed, the way in which we have looked after them for generations. So the second underlying point here is the rural economy versus the urban economy. I make no bones about the fact that I am always trying to represent the rural community in my constituency. Its voice is not always heard as loudly as it might be and it is not always heard as loudly as it might be on these Labour Benches, but it is important that we get its point of view across. It is important to ensure that our farming industry has a very strong voice, because it will mean that we get action.

Therefore, between DEFRA not delivering on this and the rural community feeling somewhat isolated and unable to deliver on one of its key demands, we need some assurance from the Home Office today that it will move this matter forward. It is too late for this year; the harvest is already well under way in that it has been planted. Perhaps somebody, somewhere, will pick the produce, but—I am not being funny—who will want to change their whole life experience by suddenly thinking come May, June or July, “Well, I’ll go to Britain.” People make plans months and months in advance, and yet they have been given no assurance whatever that a scheme exists for which they can get a visa, and no assurance that they will be—dare I say it—welcomed in this country, because there is an underlying view either that they are not needed, or that they are needed in far fewer numbers than they used to be.

I say to the Home Office: please can we have a scheme back in place? Hopefully, it will do what the old scheme used to do, which was very efficient—in fact I do not know why it was removed. I was not in the House at the time, so I was not part of any decision. None the less, it was removed and we are now seeing the catastrophic consequences of that. It is a tragedy when food is wasted because it is not picked. We need an answer today, and we need a scheme, if not for this year, certainly for next year. Perhaps people will reconsider and still come to this country in the summer. I pray that the Home Office and DEFRA will get their act together and put this scheme back in place, because it is desperately needed.

Police Grant Report

David Drew Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bailey]

I agree with everything that my hon. Friend says. Indeed, he leads me on to my next point.

We can bandy statistics around, but what matters in the end is the perception of the people who work in the police force and the perception of the public who experience the service it provides. Find me an area in the west midlands policing zone where local people will not complain of a reduction in the frontline neighbourhood policing in their area. Find me an area in the west midlands that has not seen an increase in crime rates and a lowering in satisfaction with the service.

For me, that was reinforced when, six months ago, a middle-ranking policeman asked to come and see me. He explained that he had joined the force over 10 years ago, risen in the ranks, and found it incredibly satisfying, but was going to have to leave. The strains on him, the public expectations of what he could deliver, and how demoralised he was feeling because he knew that he could not deliver were such that he could face it no more. That may be a one-off, but I am worried by the fact that the chief constable and the police commissioner reiterate to me everything that officer cited as his reasons for leaving when they describe the overall funding statistics for their service.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

If the West Midlands force is like Gloucestershire’s, at weekends it is almost held together with specials. Without those specials, the police could not do nearly as much as they try to do on a normal weekend. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Mr Bailey]

Yes. My hon. Friend raises an important point. Increasingly, the police are becoming dependent on the activities of specials and others. Again, I pay enormous tribute to them, but obviously there comes a critical balance when one thinks, “Is this the correct way forward?”

Another aspect of the West Midlands police budget is funding for counter-terrorism. The force has been particularly hard hit over the past year. It had to freeze neighbourhood policing during that time, for the very good reason that it has had to devote resources to counter-terrorism. With depleted numbers of officers and huge additional burdens being placed on the service, for very good and strategic reasons—the protection of the public—something has to give. That is worrying, because there should not be a choice between counter-terrorism policing and neighbourhood policing; the one is complementary to the other.

I would like to give a very good example of that in the west midlands that is of particular significance to me. Only a few years ago, the Ukrainian terrorist Pavlo Lapshyn was arrested and tried after he had killed Mohammed Saleem in Walsall. That same terrorist placed a nail bomb outside a mosque in my constituency. It went off, and had it not been for the fact that the worshippers at the mosque had changed the time of their service, the casualty numbers could have been enormous. That case highlights the significance of neighbourhood policing, because it was the information provided to local police forces by local people that enabled the man to be arrested and brought to justice. One wonders whether that would happen today, given the current level of neighbourhood policing. In any case, it underlines the point that without frontline neighbourhood policing—people engaging every day with the communities in their local areas—the efforts of the counter-terrorist police will be blunted. They need the work of neighbourhood police.

I conclude by emphasising that I am sticking up for the West Midlands police. They do a fantastic job in a multicultural area with a lot of low-income people and great challenges. The people of the west midlands and the police that look after them deserve a funding formula that will give them the resources necessary to adequately meet the expectations of local people, so that they can live in the security that they are entitled to expect.

Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill

David Drew Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 2nd February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

I have precisely the statistics that my hon. Friend is looking for. If she is patient for a few minutes longer, I will give her exactly that information.

Such people are mostly in committed loving relationships, but if they do not want to go for a traditional marriage, they have no way of having that recognised in the eyes of the state. That brings me on to the third main rationale for this reform—I promise that I will then come to my hon. Friend’s point. Particularly worrying is the common misconception that there is such a thing as a common-law wife or husband, as a woman typically finds out abruptly on the death of the partner when there is an inheritance tax bill on the estate and potentially on the family home. If a woman has a child with her partner and the relationship breaks down, she is not entitled to any form of financial support if they are not married. There is no automatic entitlement to property, even if she had been paying into the mortgage.

When one partner is much older than the other and there is a reasonable expectation that one will die some years before the other, the long-term survivor would not receive the same tax benefits as a married woman or those in a civil partnership. That would be discriminatory towards the couples’ children. The same vulnerabilities can apply if one partner does a runner. Even a couple engaged to be married have more rights than a cohabiting opposite-sex couple.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I do not want to stop the hon. Gentleman’s flow, but he will be aware of the work of Resolution, the family solicitors group, which has a Cohabitation Awareness Week. It has drawn my attention, and I am sure that of many other hon. Members, to the lack of rights and the fact that people are totally ignorant about their lack of rights, if there is a breakdown or a loss of one of the cohabiting parents. Hopefully this change in the law will put that right.

[Tim Loughton]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I am grateful for his intervention. I was not aware of the Cohabitation Awareness Week, but many family law solicitors have written to me and support the campaign, because they see the fall-out when this goes wrong. People come to them thinking that they had entitlements and legal status because they had been living together for so long, but they suddenly find out that they do not. They have a tax bill and lots of problems and headaches, and their children do not have a home to live in. If anything, I hope that the Bill will help to publicise that real problem in the law that the Government need to address at some stage. I am giving them the opportunity to take the bull by the horns and get on and do something about it now.

The question is: why should not those who have made a conscious choice not to go for a traditional marriage have the opportunity to have the same legal rights, responsibilities and protections in the eyes of the law that we, rightly and not before time, extended to same-sex couples back in 2004? There are also several further applications. Many people with strong religious beliefs—particularly Catholics who have ended up getting divorced, which is in conflict with certain religious teachings—may not be inclined to get married again if they meet a new partner, because their Church supposedly believes that they should be married for life. In many cases, however, they would be able to reconcile that position by entering into a new formal commitment through an opposite-sex civil partnership. In addition, as it stands, someone admitting to being in a civil partnership currently automatically carries the revelation that they are in a same-sex relationship. That could be an unintended invasion of their privacy when some may wish to keep that private. There are a number of practical, real-life scenarios in which civil partnerships for opposite-sex couples could achieve something very positive and non-discriminatory.

I am pleased with the widespread support that the measure has attracted. The Marriage Foundation, for example, has gone on record as saying that it “fully supports” the Bill

“to introduce civil partnerships for heterosexual couples. It is a strong pro-family measure which, crucially, encourages commitment and stability. By making civil partnerships available to heterosexual couples, we would provide a new, formal basis for those who want to make a solid and legally backed commitment to one another but who prefer not to marry for whatever reason.”

I also welcome the support from The Times and the campaign spearheaded by Frances Gibb as part of that newspaper’s family law reform campaign. I see this measure as an important part of reforming family law and making family arrangements fit for the 21st century. We need to grasp the nettle on no-fault divorces and bring relationships into the modern age, and we need to find new ways for the state to recognise committed relationships and give stability, especially to the children within them. Making sure that shared parenting works and keeping warring parents out of the courts, where their children become bargaining chips, still needs further work too.

I come to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow). Opposite-sex civil partnerships are not something that has been cooked up in this country. In South Africa, the Civil Union Act 2006 gave same-sex and opposite-sex couples the option to register a civil union by way of a marriage or a civil partnership on the same basis. In France, the pacte civil de solidarité—or PACS, as it is known—was introduced in 1999 as a form of civil union between two adults of the same sex or the opposite sex. A few years ago, marriage was added to that. Interestingly, one in 10 PACS has been dissolved in France, yet one in three marriages ends in divorce. There is evidence that some of those civil partnerships have created greater stability, whether they are opposite-sex or same-sex partnerships, than traditional marriage.

No complications are involved in my proposal. I want opposite-sex civil partnerships to be offered on exactly the same basis as same-sex civil partnerships, notwithstanding the earlier comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). It would not be possible for someone to become a civil partner with a close family member, or if that person was already in a union, and the partnership would need to be subject to the same termination criteria.

It is a simple proposal, and surely the case is now overwhelming. All that would be required is a simple one-line amendment to the Civil Partnership Act 2004. It could all be done and dusted in Committee by tea time—although I guess that by the time drafting officials have got their teeth into it, many more clauses will be required. That is what I originally intended in the Bill and put forward in my amendment to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 and subsequent ten-minute rule Bill and presentation Bills.

I acknowledge, however, that the Government have concerns about taking the full plunge and going the whole hog at this stage, and want to carry out further research about the demand and practicalities for such a reform. I have doubts about what that would achieve, given that, as hon. Friends have mentioned, we have had two public consultations on the subject in the last five years, and we now have 13 years’ worth of civil partnerships for same-sex couples in practice from which to garner evidence. However, I recognise the Government’s caution, and in securing a clear commitment to learn from the experience so far and promote equality further, I hope that they will come to the same conclusion as I have, together with the Equal Civil Partnerships campaign and the now more than 80,000 people who have signed a petition in support, many of whom have been enthusiastically lobbying their MPs in recent weeks.

There is a growing tide of support for the measure, fuelled by a court case that is currently destined to go before the Supreme Court in May. I pay tribute to Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan, who have pioneered equal civil partnerships and whose application for a civil partnership to the authorities in Kensington and Chelsea triggered this campaign.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

I am very conscious that I must not comment on an individual case. The Government intend to get on with this piece of work, frankly regardless of whether the House permits this Bill to have its Second Reading, although I sense that it will not come to that. This piece of work will be commenced immediately because we are determined to resolve the matter.

The work to which we are committing involves four elements. First, we are committing to continue our existing work on assessing the relative take-up of civil partnership and marriage among same-sex couples. Since 2013, when marriage was introduced for same-sex couples, an increasing number of couples have chosen marriage instead of civil partnerships. We do not know, however, whether the current levels of demand will be sustained or whether they will change over time.

We currently have only two full years of data for civil partnership formation following the introduction of marriage for same-sex couples. Given the scale and significance of the decision, it is proportionate to gather more data so that we can be sure that demand has stabilised. Our assessment is that we will have a proportionate amount of evidence by September 2019 to be confident in assessing the ongoing level of demand for civil partnerships among same-sex couples.

The second piece of work that we are committing to undertake relates to those already in civil partnerships. We continue to consider whether phasing out civil partnerships for same-sex couples is the best way forward. We want to approach the issue sensitively and delicately because it would be wrong to rush towards a decision without understanding how it would affect same-sex couples who continue to opt for a civil partnership and who do not wish to convert their civil partnership into a marriage. We are therefore committing to undertake research with same-sex couples to understand their motivations for forming and remaining in a civil partnership, and what they may do if the evidence drives us to remove them.

The third piece of work we are committing to is to undertake surveys to understand the demand for civil partnership among opposite-sex unmarried couples. Our previous consultations did not suggest that a significant number of opposite-sex couples wished to enter a civil partnership. Indeed, the most recent survey, which was conducted in 2014—admittedly, with a relatively small number of respondents—suggested that people would not wish for an extension of civil partnerships. But rather than relying on that survey, we want to conduct a thorough survey to ensure that our evidence is accurate and up to date when it comes to assessing the demand for civil partnerships from opposite-sex partners.

The fourth piece of work will be a review of what has happened in other countries when they have been faced with similar choices. This is an important part of the evidence base. Although drawn from a different social context, the experience of other countries gives us information on the choices couples actually make when offered the choice between marriage and another form of legal recognition, such as civil partnerships.

[Dr Drew]

Would the Minister consider a fifth piece of work? She heard my intervention on the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). I suggest a piece of work to publicise the lack of rights that co-habiting couples have if that partnership breaks down. There is just no awareness at all of that lack of rights, so anything that the Government can do to get people at least to check what their rights are would be very helpful.

Police Pay and Funding

David Drew Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that important matter. Local police forces—the Metropolitan police is no exception—have funding from the taxpayer via the Government, but they also have the ability to raise precepts in the local community. All police forces that use their precepting powers are seeing an increase in the amount of money that they have to spend. I strongly encourage all London Members, across the political divide, to ask the Mayor to use his precepting powers, so that cuts do not have to be made to services.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have met both the police and crime commissioner and the chief constable of Gloucestershire over the last couple of weeks. They already faced a very difficult funding situation, but this announcement will only make it worse. They have made all the back-office savings that they can possibly make, and their worry is that restructuring is again on the Government’s agenda. Will the Minister at least rule that out today, so that I can go back to them and give them the assurance that they are not expected to waste yet more time and money on a useless restructuring exercise?

[Sarah Newton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me this opportunity to say that it is plain scaremongering to suggest that there is some hidden agenda of reorganisation. Operational decisions are made by police officers.

[Dr Drew]

What about Dorset?

[Sarah Newton]

As a Cornish MP, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that Devon and Cornwall police leaders have decided for themselves to work in partnership with Dorset. That has been a very successful partnership, which is saving back-office expenditure and enabling the force to be more efficient and keep our communities in Devon, Cornwall and Dorset safer. These are independent operational decisions made by the police themselves.

To answer the hon. Gentleman’s question directly, the police in his constabulary area have reserves of more than 6% of their annual budget that they could prudently use—they would have to use only a very small percentage—to reward extremely brave and hard-working frontline officers. I am sure all his constituents would want them to do that.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Drew Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that. He has been a tireless champion for volunteering, and for special constables in particular. He represents a county that, through the leadership of police and crime commissioner Roger Hirst, is showing real leadership in trying to encourage more special constables. At the moment, we provide access to insurance for legal expenses. There is provision for out-of-allowance expenses, and there is provision in law for discretionary benefits such as discounts on council tax, but I am happy to meet my right hon. Friend to discuss how we can go further.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

In welcoming back the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew), I am informed that during his enforced and involuntary absence he has become a doctor of philosophy, upon which the House wishes to congratulate him, I am sure.

[Dr Drew]

I had to do something with my wasted years.

I welcome the police Minister to his place. We all congratulate the specials on the work they do, which is of course first-rate, but it seems to me from my experience—I am going out with the specials on Friday, so I am sure they will tell me in no uncertain terms whether I am right—that being in the specials is no longer an entrance point to the full-time constabulary. Is there a reason for that? If it is because of problems of release or of financial support, will the Minister look into that and do something about it?

[Mr Hurd]

I add my voice to the congratulations to the hon. Gentleman, with whom I used to serve on the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; it seems like 1,000 years ago. I would be concerned if what he says were true. It is not what I hear and not what the data tell me about the number of specials who go on to become regular police officers, but I will keep it under regular review.