International Women’s Day: Language in Politics
Debate between Dawn Butler and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster(8 months, 1 week ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I just remind the hon. Lady that if she is referring to Members, I hope she has notified them that she intended to do so.
Dawn Butler
I have not notified them, Madam Deputy Speaker; I have just been so angry about this. I will withdraw naming them. I thank the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) for calling out the language used by those on both sides of the House.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) is no longer in her place. When she read out her list, it was heartbreaking, and when we saw the family members stand, it broke all of our hearts. The media are failing women and, as legislators, we are too, because that list should be getting shorter every year and it is not getting shorter.
In the short time I have today, I wish to mention three things that we can do as legislators to help stop the killing and abuse of women. I wish to thank Level Up and Glamour magazine for their tireless campaigning in this area. I also thank the Minister for Women, the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), for the productive discussions we have had on language changes to the Independent Press Standards Organisation code. It is important that we have cross-party discussions on that, because we are talking about the safety of women. It is a shame that those changes have not happened yet. I feel that the Minister understands their importance, but I sometimes think there is a barrier stopping her from making them happen. I do not know who or what the barrier is, but I feel that she understands the importance of the changes. The second thing we need to do is put in place 10 days’ paid domestic violence leave. The third thing we need to do is ensure funding for refuges.
Let me start by discussing the IPSO code. The way the press reports is often inaccurate and undignified, and prioritises sensationalist headlines over responsible reporting. That approach needs to be replaced with responsible reporting that tackles the root of domestic abuse and the dynamics of power and control. We need to end victim blaming. By doing that, we will save lives. We need to improve and strengthen clause 4 of the code. As Level Up has said, clause 4 deals with:
“Intrusion into grief or shock”.
The clause states:
“In cases involving personal grief or shock, enquiries and approaches must be made with sympathy and discretion and publication handled sensitively. These provisions should not restrict the right to report legal proceedings.”
Level Up says:
“Given the academic research on the negative impact of romantic framings and the known damage caused to victims’ families, Level Up recommends the Editors’ Code Committee introduce a subclause to the effect of:
‘In cases where a person has been killed by a partner or former partner, care should be taken not to use language which could frame the killing as an act of ‘love’, or which could be construed to blame the victim for their death.’”
That amendment needs to be made to the code with urgent effect. We cannot say that this is voluntary; it has to be enshrined in the code.
One in four women experience domestic abuse in their lifetime. I am sure that all the women in the Chamber today have suffered some kind of domestic abuse or unwanted attention in their lifetime. Every three days a woman is killed by a partner or ex-partner. None of those deaths have come out of the blue. Criminologists have established that when a woman is murdered by a partner, it marks the end of a sustained period of coercive control. Abuse does not end when the relationship ends. In fact, the time when women are most vulnerable is when they leave a relationship. The moment someone leaves an abusive relationship is the moment of greatest risk. I urge the Minister to urge the Government to look into a domestic abuse policy requiring employers to provide up to 10 days’ paid leave, as enacted in the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand. By granting victims paid leave, those 10 days will save lives. As legislators, there is no greater honour than passing legislation that saves lives.
To conclude, the third of my asks is for extra money for refuges. The Women’s Aid “Domestic Abuse Report 2024” states that £189 million should be ringfenced for women’s refuge services. Almost 50% of organisations have said that they are operating without funding, so they are saving lives but they are not being paid for it. Some 79% of people using refuges use food banks and 62.5% of survivors are unable to leave their abusers because they cannot afford to.
Level Up has an acronym: AIDA. A is for accountability: murder is not a loss of control, but the responsibility of the perpetrator. I is for image: centre images of victims, not perpetrators, and do not place their images side by side; and use official photos that have been provided by the police or the family, not social media. D is for dignity: a victim’s children, family and friends will read the coverage many times. They will be in grief and shock. Avoid sensationalising language, invasive or graphic details. Dead women cannot protect their families. Finally, A is for accuracy: name the crime for what it is—fatal domestic abuse, not a horror or a tragedy perpetrated by a monster or unknown evil. Use statistics from the Office for National Statistics for context on how many other women have been killed. Gender-based violence is a national and not a personal problem. It is not an isolated incident and many women are being killed each year.
Political Parties, Elections and Referendums
Debate between Dawn Butler and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster(9 months, 1 week ago)
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Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
The Minister is better than this motion—let us all agree on that. Like the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), I think it is a hangover from the Boris Johnson days, when the Electoral Commission upset him and he wanted to influence it. The Minister can correct me if I am wrong.
The Government claim that this strategy will enhance the parliamentary accountability of the Electoral Commission and increase public confidence in its work, but as everybody has stated today, it will do the complete opposite. This strategy and policy statement is little more than an attempt by the Government to undermine the independence of the Electoral Commission and to stamp their own agenda on the regulation of our democracy. This is a fight for our democracy.
We in this House need to take back control—that is important. Avoiding transparency and accountability seems to be the hallmark of the Government. Do not just take my word for it; the Electoral Commission itself wrote to MPs this week stressing that the principle of independence is crucial to maintaining confidence in our electoral system. It warned Members:
“The introduction of a mechanism such as a strategy and policy statement—by which a government can guide an electoral commission’s work—is inconsistent with this independent role.”
If the commission is saying that, and the Speaker’s Committee is saying it, why is the Minister trying to convince us otherwise? It really does not make any sense.
As we have heard many times, this is not the first time that the Government have attempted to rig our democracy. They forced through their voter ID system, which threatened to disenfranchise the most vulnerable in society. Remember that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) mentioned, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg) let it slip that that was a deliberate attempt to manipulate electoral outcomes in favour of the Conservative party, and then went, “Whoops!” because he had made a mistake and said the quiet bit out loud. It is not a shock that the Government are once again attempting to influence an independent body that oversees our elections, but it should shock us all.
This draft strategy and policy statement sets out the Government’s strategic and policy priorities for the Electoral Commission. It also contains
“guidance to which the Commission must have regard in the discharge of its functions.”
That places on the commission a concerning legal duty to consider first and foremost the Government’s priorities when fulfilling its duties. If it does that, it cannot be independent, and the whole point is that it is supposed to be independent. It is simply unacceptable for the Government to direct the commission on how it should carry out its functions. If a foreign Government were wielding that much power over their elections, there would be calls to send in independent advisers to ensure that their elections were being held democratically—that is how bad this is. When people ask, “Do we have corruption in our Government?”, I say, “Yes, we do, and this is an example of that.”
The Government keep focusing on the prevention and detection of voter fraud, yet there is little evidence that voter fraud is widespread. In fact, it is so rare that there were only nine convictions—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. The hon. Lady talked about corruption in Government. I want her to withdraw that; she needs to rephrase what she said. She does know that—she is very experienced—so I ask her to say at this point that she withdraws any allegations of corruption within Government.
Dawn Butler
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I withdraw the statement that the Government are corrupt, or that there is corruption in the Government—I do not know for sure, but I withdraw that statement.
There are, however, issues that need tackling, and the motion does not achieve that. There are rising considerations, such as the threat of generative AI, the use of deepfakes, the spread of disinformation and the scraping of people’s data. None of that has been tackled today—I wonder why, although according to the fact checking organisation First Draft, 88% of the Conservative party’s most shared online adverts in the final days of the 2019 general election campaign were found to have contained misleading information.
When the Minister gets to his feet, I hope that he will change his mind, because he is respected across the House and this motion is going to damage his reputation. As I have said, I urge the House to take back control and reject the motion.
Point of Order
Debate between Dawn Butler and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster(11 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It has recently come to light that a Conservative donor’s firm has been awarded an £11.5 million contract to supply schools affected by reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete with temporary classrooms. David Wernick of Wernick Buildings Ltd, a Tory councillor and previous chair of a Conservative association, has donated £71,000 to the Tories and won Government contracts with a combined total of £20 million. I wish I could say it shocks me, Madam Deputy Speaker, but given this Government’s record, it does not.
On 5 September, I asked a written question to the Department for Education, asking specifically for details of the portacabin providers it had contracted to provide that temporary accommodation. I stated clearly that I wanted the names of the firms contracted. In his reply, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Wantage (David Johnston), failed to provide a substantive and specific answer to my specific question. It is not acceptable for Ministers to reply with obfuscation and avoidance, and I am increasingly concerned that that is becoming the norm in response to parliamentary questions. I seek your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker, on how Members can ensure that in future we get clear, concise and correct responses from the Government.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me notice of her point of order. As I am sure she knows, the Chair is not responsible for the content of answers to parliamentary questions. Mr Speaker has always made it clear that he wants as much transparency and accuracy as possible. The hon. Lady is fortunate, as I believe the Minister would like to make a point of order.
Madam Deputy Speaker
The Minister said that the Government will provide some further information. I am sure that if the hon. Lady does not find that satisfactory, she will come back, but does she wish to make a further point of order?
Dawn Butler
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, I thank the Minister for that response. If he could please provide information on whether any competition took place before the award of the contract, that would be useful.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I suggest that at this point we do not get into too many details about what will be in the response, but we have started the ball rolling. We await that information being supplied to the hon. Lady, and those on the Treasury Bench will have heard what I said about accuracy and transparency.
Points of Order
Debate between Dawn Butler and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am deeply troubled by the recent admissions by the former Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), regarding the introduction of mandatory voter ID, which have raised the prospect that Ministers may have misled the country about the intentions of the voter ID policy in the Elections Act 2022. Yesterday, the former Minister admitted that the proposal was a deliberate attempt to manipulate electoral outcomes in favour of the Conservative party, a strategy he termed gerrymandering —in other words, the deliberate bending of electoral rules or boundaries for partisan gain—although he said that it had backfired in the recent local elections. It is deeply concerning to see the blatant could-be politicisation of policies and organisations intended to ensure the fairness and security of our democratic process. A recent report by Omnisis for Byline Times indicated that the new rules may have deterred up to 2 million people from voting in the May elections. The justification for the policy was to combat voter fraud. It seems to me that there is a real possibility that the only fraud could be this Government. Can you advise me, Madam Deputy Speaker, whether I should report the matter to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the police?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Did the hon. Lady notify the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) that she intended to raise this matter?
Dawn Butler
No, I have not notified him, but I am raising the issue based on comments that he made yesterday at the National Conservatism conference.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I should say that if the hon. Lady intends to pursue those matters through the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards or through the police, she should not raise them in the House, so she might like to reflect on that. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman to whom she refers will have heard her comments. She has put her concerns on the record. I suggest at this point, given that those on the Treasury Bench will, I am sure, report back what she has said, that we leave it at that.
Coronavirus Act 2020 (Review of Temporary Provisions) (No. 3)
Debate between Dawn Butler and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster(3 years ago)
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Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
Today really feels like groundhog day. The Government are again pushing through the Coronavirus Act with no scrutiny from Parliament. I do not know what it is about this authoritarian Act that the Government love to push through. Some 18 months ago, the Bill was nodded through—understandably, in a way, but it was never, ever proportionate. As the Secretary of State said, it was fast-tracked legislation. It contained really draconian powers, including the powers to postpone elections, close borders, detain people not suspected of a crime, ban gatherings and remove safeguards for disabled people. This is the mother of all Parliaments and we should always have the opportunity to scrutinise Government legislation. That is what we are elected to do. This all-or-nothing approach does not wash; it is wrong.
As a parliamentarian, I want to get my control back. I want to get back my powers to scrutinise the Government. The Government should not be the sole decider of legislation. We live in a democracy, not an autocracy. The Government should not be making all the rules themselves. That said, I am pleased that some of the most draconian parts of the Act have now been expired. I had a meeting with the Minister and am pleased that she listened to my concerns. Section 51 and schedule 21 —the powers relating to potentially infectious persons—have now been removed. As has been said, every single charge under schedule 21 was wrongful. Those 292 charges were incorrect, and that meant 292 distressed people who were already distressed during the pandemic.
We have to make sure that the Bill is fit for purpose, and ultimately it is not. It therefore needs to be scrapped and there needs to be a new Bill. I am already the sponsor of a Bill that has been presented to the House: the Coronavirus (No. 2) Bill. If we were to vote down this Act today, we would have 21 days to bring forward a new Bill. There is already one that is ready—oven-ready, some might say. [Interruption.] You liked that, did you? My Bill is properly ready to go.
This Government have proved time and again that they cannot be trusted. It is one rule for them and one for us. The latest person that we found had broken the rules was the Prime Minister himself, as his wife’s best friend went around to theirs for Christmas dinner, while other people dined alone throughout Christmas. As I have said, if we voted down this Act, we would have 21 days to bring a new Bill to the Floor of the House. We can do that and we can do it quickly.
I congratulate the Secretary of State on his new role and I appeal to him to consider one more vital change. I urge the Government to review every fixed-penalty notice issued under the coronavirus and public health regulations, and to establish an appeals mechanism, because people cannot appeal at the moment. Between March 2020 and June 2021, the police processed 117,213 fines. Let us not forget that we had no chance to scrutinise provisions when the Government raised fines from £960 to £10,000. The Guardian revealed that people of colour were 54% more likely to be fined than white people. I say to colleagues in all parts of the House that we should never be forced into an all-or-nothing approach when it comes to legislation. That is not our job. We are parliamentarians and we need to scrutinise legislation. Twenty-one days is enough time to consider better legislation. As we have the Coronavirus (No. 2) Bill, based on Liberty’s “Protect Everyone Bill”, I say to every single Member of this House that we can do that.
I am clear that we need to repeal and replace the Coronavirus Act not just because it is dangerous with regard to our rights and our liberties, or because it served the purpose that it was meant to 18 months ago, but because we must do better. We must learn the lessons. I am part of the Science and Technology Committee and there is a joint report that says that this Government have failed on so many occasions. This is an opportunity where we can do better and where this Government can do better. Let us do better, not just for us but for the country.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I am going to reduce the limit to four minutes but it should stay at four minutes if I do it now.
Points of Order
Debate between Dawn Butler and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your advice. On Tuesday 21 July, during an evidence session of the Science and Technology Committee, I asked the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care about the role of Topham Guerin Ltd, which was given a £3 million contract by the Government to work on their comms strategy.
I asked the Secretary of State whether he could outline what part of the Government’s strategy Topham Guerin was responsible for. He replied “No.” I then probed further, asking whether he said that because he did not know. He said:
“It was not a Department of Health responsibility.”
The Byline Times and the Good Law Project have been investigating contracts made by the Government, and I established via official records of ministerial meetings that on 26 May, almost two months prior to my question, a telephone call had taken place between a Health Minister and Topham Guerin Ltd to discuss “test and trace marketing”.
Madam Deputy Speaker, Ministers must be honest and transparent, especially when giving evidence to a House of Commons Committee. By omitting that vital information, I fear that the Secretary of State may have inadvertently misled me and the Committee. Can you advise on how I could compel the Secretary of State to be clear and confirm the correct information?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order and for giving me notice of it; I presume that she also gave notice to the Secretary of State.
Covid-19: BAME Communities
Debate between Dawn Butler and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
As I am sure colleagues will have seen, this is a very well-subscribed debate, so I intend to impose a six-minute time limit straight away so that we can get everybody in. I know that the hon. Lady is aware that she has around 15 minutes for her opening speech.
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House is concerned about the level of deaths from covid-19 among Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities; notes that structural inequalities and worse health outcomes for Black, Asian and minority ethnic people go hand in hand; calls on the Government to review the data published by the Office for National Statistics on 11 May 2020 on Coronavirus (COVID-19) related deaths by occupation, England and Wales: deaths registered up to and including 20 April 2020, the Report published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies in May 2020 entitled, Are some ethnic groups more vulnerable to COVID-19 than others? and the full report by Public Health England on Disparities in the risk and outcomes of covid-19; and further calls on the Government to set out in detail the scope and timeframe of the Government’s review and urgently to put a plan in place to prevent avoidable deaths.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee and its Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), for securing this important debate. Many Members who wanted to speak cannot do so, and it is a shame that they cannot participate remotely. The Government are more focused on subverting democracy than protecting lives, but we will not go into that. Their decisions are increasingly illogical and irrational. They finally did a U-turn the other day and now children will be fed this summer; I am glad the Government are doing U-turns. I thank everyone involved, including the all-party group on school food and Marcus Rashford, who joins celebs such as Raheem Sterling, John Boyega and others who are finding their voice and using their position for change.
This is a sobering debate. We all watched the brutal, very public lynching of George Floyd—our lives were interrupted by the killing—but racism does not just manifest itself in brutal ways that can be caught on camera and shared on social media. “I can’t breathe”, the last words of George Floyd, could apply to the disproportionate numbers of black, African-Caribbean and Asian people dying from coronavirus in this country.
Every time the Government get dragged kicking and screaming to do the right thing, I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe every time the Government hide a report or kick an issue into the long grass by announcing another commission or report. I can’t breathe. My breath is taken away by the lack of care, empathy and emotional intelligence shown by the Government time and again. For months, we stood at our doorways and clapped for our key workers, the ones on the frontline—the doctors, the nurses, the carers, the cleaners, the ones driving the buses, the cabs and the forklift trucks or serving people in supermarkets. The people we clapped for are the ones who are being underpaid and who are, disproportionately, dying.
The death rate for covid-19 has exposed and amplified what has been going on in society for decades. The concentration of deaths in areas where people are just about managing should worry us all. As a country, we are better than this. According to the Office for National Statistics, the burden of covid-19 has been felt more strongly in regions with greater deprivation. In those areas, people are dying from the virus at double the rate of those in more affluent areas. According to the ONS, adjusting for age, black people are more than four times as likely to die from covid as white people. Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are more than three times as likely and Indians more than twice as likely.
BAME people account for 13.4% of the population, but they make up 34% of patients admitted to an intensive care unit. My constituency of Brent sadly has the highest number of registered deaths in London. In line with findings from the Office for National Statistics, those areas of greatest deprivation, such as Harlesden, have the highest number of deaths.
Dawn Butler
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is absolutely vital that the Government ensure that risk assessments are carried out in workplaces so as to have fewer deaths.
As I say, this is literally killing us, and just like the killing of George Floyd, we can all see it. If anyone does not believe me—if anyone does not believe that structural racism exists—believe the body count.
Incremental changes are no good if structural barriers still exist. Breaking down systemic and structural barriers will build a society that is better for everyone. Every life matters—of course it does, but not all lives are treated equally. Interestingly, some of the things that would most benefit and save black and Asian lives are the same things that will save everybody: risk assessments, test and trace, and easy access to in-date PPE. What the country needs now is a Government who are going to deliver fast and decisive action. Everyone in this House should stand up and say, “No longer should discrimination, cultural exclusion, poverty and class be allowed to determine whether you live or whether you die.”
That is why this debate is so important. It is said that if a house is on fire in a street, of course all the houses in the street are important, but the focus needs to be on the house that is burning—and right now this situation needs fixing for the BAME community. Right now we have a group of people who are dying at four times the rate of anybody else. It is the same demographic as the people who died in Grenfell Tower just three years ago. It is the same group of people who were subjected to the hostile environment just eight years ago. It is the same people who have been told to stop being victims. There is a pattern here, and we need the Government to show some urgency to address the racial inequalities that exist in the UK.
At first the Government said, “We will not publish the PHE report because it is too sensitive in relation to Black Lives Matter.” On 4 June, the Minister stood up and said, “We’ve asked Professor Kevin Fenton, a black surgeon, to lead on this review”, but apparently he did not lead on it. The Minister then said that the review was not part of the report. Confused? I know I am.
The Minister also stated that PHE did not make recommendations because it was not able to do so, but we know she was aware of the second set of recommendations made by PHE. When she gets to her feet, will she apologise on behalf of the Government for misleading the House? Why did the Government try to bury the PHE report? I was not the only one who was trying to get to the bottom of it. Eastern Eye, Channel 4 and Sky have doggedly pursued the issue because something just did not feel right. That is why people have taken to the streets—they are tired of the dishonesty.
The Government have form on whitewashing reports. Baroness McGregor-Smith’s review has seen very little progress. The Lammy review has not had any recommendations implemented. The 2018 race disparity audit has not been acted upon. The Windrush lessons learned review was edited and delayed for a year. It was published, had sections deleted and it was still not acted upon. The Government need to stop trying to erase from their reports the injustices towards black and brown people and working-class people. It is a disgrace.
The Government announce reviews and consultations to get themselves out of trouble, and then think that everybody will just forget as we stumble into the next crisis. We see what they are doing and we are calling them out on it, because they produced a document a few years ago that talked about “explain or change”. The Government said:
“When significant disparities between ethnic groups cannot be explained by wider factors, we will commit ourselves to working with partners to change them.”
I ask the Minister: what is stopping the Government from acting? The murder of George Floyd and the death toll of covid have forced us to have these overdue, open and, hopefully, honest conversations about race, so that we can ensure a fairer and more equal society.
As a member of the Science and Technology Committee, I have listened to many scientists talk about covid-19, and it is not genetics that have resulted in a higher death rate. It is not internal, and that means it is external. To back up the findings of the PHE report—the one that the Government tried to hide—it is noted that covid-19 potentially has had a less severe impact in the Caribbean, Africa and the Indian subcontinent. That raises questions as to why BAME communities in England are so severely affected. It is suggested that issues such as structural racism and discrimination and a failure to adequately protect key workers may have contributed disproportionately.
I am pleased that I have a covid testing centre in my constituency in Harlesden, which has been so hard-hit. If anyone is interested, they should register with Brent Council. As we build a better life after covid, we must do better. The UN found that the
“structural socio-economic exclusion of racial and ethnic minority communities in the United Kingdom is striking.”
The Minister and the Government should be embarrassed.
Some people have always had worse health outcomes—that is not new. Poor people have always had worse health outcomes, but the virus has magnified the scale of the inequality. Colour of skin, economic background and social and structural racial barriers and infrastructure are all factors as to whether someone has a good chance of surviving this pandemic.
The killing of George Floyd in the middle of a pandemic is a pivotal moment for the world. “I can’t breathe” is as true for covid-19 as it is for racism. History will judge each and every one of us in time on that moment when the world stood still for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. History will judge us on our actions and history will judge the Minister on her response. Minister, before you get to your feet to respond, ask yourself what will be written by your name.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. The hon. Lady knows that she must not address the Minister directly. She speaks through the Chair. She does know that.
Point of Order
Debate between Dawn Butler and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. On 4 June, the Minister for Equalities, the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), misled the House when she made a statement with regard to a Public Health England report. She said that the report was led by the black doctor Professor Kevin Fenton. This was not in fact the case. The Minister also misled the House when she said that third-party submissions were not part of the report. I have written to the Minister, but I wonder if there is a way that we can compel her to return to the House to correct the record.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the hon. Lady for that point of order. I sure she meant that if the Minister misled the House it would be inadvertently. I would expect those on the Treasury Bench to report back the fact that the Minister’s statement had been questioned, and I am sure that if there has been any inadvertent misleading of the House, she would want to correct the record.
In order to allow the safe exit of hon. Members participating in this item of business and the safe arrival of those participating in the next, I am suspending the House for three minutes.