G4S: Immigration Removal Centres

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I can only assume that the hon. Lady was not in the Chamber when the shadow Home Secretary asked me that question. The answer is that the decision was taken during the purdah period, so the announcement was made on the first available day after purdah. Again, I reflect on the fact that I am standing here at the Dispatch Box being scrutinised.

The fact is that there is a role for private sector involvement in the delivery of services, as long as we ensure that it is about delivering the best public services at the best value for money. I remind the House that this is not a new thing; it did not come about in 2015 or 2017. Private companies have been helping the Government to deliver various services since the 1990s, including under a Labour Government.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

May I say to the Minister that this is an urgent question, not a statement that she has come to the House to make? She has been brought here to answer questions. G4S seems to be able to fail in a variety of contracts, without any consequences at all. There have been failures in prisons, electronic tagging, secure units and now immigration detention centres. When are the Government going to get a grip and sort this out?

[Victoria Atkins]

As I have said, the Government are awaiting the two reviews that are being conducted, and we will consider those results very carefully. The re-procurement process will be started afresh, and from that, expectations will be set and standards will have to be met.

Home Office Removal Targets

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I do recall that, and I do recall some of the choice phrases that previous Labour Home Secretaries used about the Home Office. Under this leadership, we will be able to change that and make real progress.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Immigration is one of the most high-profile areas the Home Secretary is responsible for, and one that the public care deeply about. Was she asleep when she did not know there were targets for the removal of illegal immigrants?

[Amber Rudd]

Immigration is a really important part of the role of the Home Office and the Home Secretary. It is not the only part, but it is one in which I take a serious interest, and I believe that the changes I will be making will enable better monitoring of issues that arise, such as that of the Windrush cohort, which, as we have discussed, is a situation that has been going on for many years and was not spotted by any previous Government. I hope that those changes will help to give me those sorts of alerts.

Salisbury Incident

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I share my right hon. Friend’s disappointment with that situation. Russia plays a role internationally, although the Prime Minister has been very clear, calling this out at her Mansion House speech in 2017, that she has concerns about its behaviour. Russia does have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and we do engage with the Russians up to a point, but there is no “business as usual” here. We need to make sure that we are very clear-eyed about their role and their intentions, so I do join my right hon. Friend in that matter, and I hope we will be able to work internationally should the situation arise and this be needed.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. Has it been necessary to issue revised guidance to frontline police officers on what to do if they are concerned that such circumstances might arise again? If it has been revised, has she seen it, and is she satisfied with it?

[Amber Rudd]

As the hon. Lady will know, we have been operating at a “severe” terrorism level for a while now—five terrorist attacks got through last year, of course—and we did therefore review police guidelines on unusual substances last year, so I believe that the police have all the right information and tools available to them.

Vote 100 and International Women’s Day

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

We have had an excellent debate so far, with some very inspiring speeches about International Women’s Day. I want to spend the time available to me doing some womansplaining. I want to take stock of how far we have come in gender equality and look back at some amazing ordinary women who have achieved extraordinary changes in our society, but who have often been ignored or written out of history.

I want to tell Members three stories. The first is from July 1888, when 1,400 women at the Bryant and May east end factory went on strike against bullying, low pay and dangerous working conditions, which resulted in many of them developing phossy jaw. The second story is about the June 1968 equal pay dispute by 187 women machinists at Ford in Dagenham. My third story, which is also from 1968, is about the campaign by the Hessle Road women’s committee in Hull, which was led by four great local women: Lily Bilocca, Yvonne Blenkinsop, Mary Denness and Christine Jensen. They campaigned to improve safety at sea for trawlermen.

In 1968, Hull was one of the world’s largest fishing ports, but there was a dark side to the industry. A trawlerman was 17 times more likely to die in an industrial accident at sea than the average worker. It was the most dangerous occupation on earth. Six thousand men had died at sea in the years before 1968. When a further 58 trawlermen were lost on the St Romanus, Kingston Peridot and Ross Cleveland trawlers between January and February 1968, it became known as the triple trawler disaster. Those lost were the husbands, the sons, the brothers, the uncles and the nephews of the women in Hull. After the triple trawler disaster, Lily Bilocca said, “Enough is enough”, and started a campaign to improve safety for their menfolk.

All three of those stories of determined working women getting organised and taking a stand share three similar characteristics. First, all these women took action that shocked the society of their time and offended some. Each went against the view that women should not have views of their own or the will to take action. At this point, I am thinking of the maxim, “Well-behaved women rarely make history.” In 1888, in late Victorian England, matchwomen were dismissed as little more than ignorant young women, largely of Irish immigrant stock, who were easily led astray by outside militant forces.

The 1968 Dagenham women machinists fought as much against the TGWU establishment of the time, tepid at best in any support for equal pay, as much as they fought against the Detroit bosses of Ford. Hull’s headscarf revolutionaries shocked the nation and knocked the Vietnam war off the front pages of newspapers with their 10,000-name petition, their local marches, and their picketing of the dockside. They took the fight to Westminster and met Harold Wilson. They threatened to picket his private home if their demands to improve safety were not met. They did this in the face of death threats, actual violence, and insults from trawler owners and others. They were described as “hysterical women” and told that they should not get involved in men’s business. This was, of course, all before social media. We know now how threats and insults are used to try to put women down and stop them standing up for the issues that they care about.

Secondly, all these women achieved far more in a very short period of time than men, supposedly campaigning for the same causes, achieved over decades. The 1888 Bow strike lasted only about 14 days, but it resulted in more progress than the men had achieved in decades before. The ripple of change throughout the wider labour movement was even more profound from the matchwomen’s strike, because in the following year we had the 1889 dock strike in east London, spawning more politically active new unionism. As such, I believe that the matchwomen can be described as the founding mothers of the Labour party.

The 1968 Ford Dagenham strike lasted just 21 days. Like the matchwomen and the headscarf revolutionaries in Hull, the women brought their case to Westminster and won. As a result of this strike, Labour’s Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity—the wonderful, the marvellous Barbara Castle—introduced the Equal Pay Act 1970. Although we all know in this House that the battle for equal pay goes on, the Dagenham women overturned decades of stalling on pay equality.

In Hull, as one of the headscarf revolutionaries, Mary Denness, said, they had

“achieved more in six weeks than the politicians and trade unions have in years.”

Their campaign persuaded the Government to adopt their demands in the fishermen’s charter, which meant full crewing of ships, radio operators on board every ship, improved weather forecasting, better training, more safety equipment, and a mother ship with medical facilities to accompany the fleet. Those ordinary yet extraordinary Hull women, led by Lily Bilocca, a cod skinner on the docks, saved thousands of men’s lives by their short campaign of direct action.

Thirdly, all the victories won by those women were then obscured in the history books for decades and even written out. The 1888 Bow matchwomen, though recognised by leading trade unionists at the time, were soon written out of history for the entire 20th century. Bow 1888 was downplayed in its significance. Many claim the strike was led by a more establishment figure, Annie Besant, who I think people would describe as the Polly Toynbee of her day.

The real names of the strike leaders—Alice Francis, Kate Slater, Mary Driscoll, Jane Wakeling and Eliza Martin—were finally published in Louise Raw’s brilliant book published in 2009, “Striking a Light”. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) first read those names out in Parliament in 2013. The story of the 1968 Dagenham Ford women slipped from view for decades, until the 2010 film “Made in Dagenham” raised its profile again. It is a delight that some of those original women have now had the recognition they deserve in their lifetime.

I want to conclude by returning to the story of the headscarf revolutionaries. Events in 1968 in Hull faded from popular culture, partly due to the post cod war decline of the local fishing industry, but also because of some frankly very outdated views about women in the city. Lily Bilocca, who led the headscarf revolutionaries, was sacked after the campaign, blacklisted and told she would never work in the fishing industry again. She was out of work for two years, eventually finding work in a nightclub cloakroom. She died at the age of 59 in 1988, and there was no public recognition by the people or the city of Hull of the pivotal role she had played in helping to protect the lives and improve the safety of trawlermen.

Despite that huge victory for safer working conditions, before today Lily Bilocca’s name has only ever been mentioned in this House once, on 25 March 1969 by a local Hull MP, James Johnson—no relation—and, sadly, just in passing. There was no proper recognition of or tribute to what she and those other women did, so it was great to see the story of the headscarf revolutionaries brought back to life in Brian Lavery’s 2015 book “The Headscarf Revolutionaries” and more recently the excellent BBC 4 programme based on his book, as we this year mark the 50th anniversary of the triple trawler disaster.

Interestingly, Hull has granted freedom of the city to many notable citizens over the years, but I have discovered that since 1885, when that honour could first be bestowed, of 47 recipients only two have been women—that is 45 men and only two women. Regrettably for the pioneering city of Hull, one of our most famous daughters, Amy Johnson, did not make that list and did not receive freedom of the city. In fact, we waited more than 100 years for the first woman to receive the freedom of the city of Hull. Janet Suzman, a wonderful anti-apartheid campaigner, received the award in 1987, and then we waited another 30 years before Jean Bishop, a lady in her 90s who has raised more than £100,000 for Age UK, was given the honour of freedom of the city at the end of last year.

Today, along with the other two Hull MPs, I am calling on Hull City Council to honour the leading women of the Hessle Road women’s committee by making them all freewomen of Hull. Fifty years after the triple trawler disaster, Hull needs to properly recognise these women. We have had wonderful theatre plays and murals for the women in the city, but we need to make sure that they get the tribute they really deserve.

As the headscarf revolutionaries achieved change both locally in the fishing industry and nationally in health and safety practices, they should be recognised nationally too. That is why all three Hull MPs are backing Ian Cuthbert’s campaign for Yvonne Blenkinsop, who is sadly the only surviving member of the headscarf revolutionaries, to receive an honour. It is just not on for these wonderful heroines from Hull to be overlooked any longer. In Lily Bilocca’s own words, “Enough is enough.” It is time to act now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Security and Economic Crime (Mr Ben Wallace)]

For security reasons, I am unable to comment on specific recruitment levels and on the geographical distribution of police and intelligence agencies in specialist areas, but I assure my hon. Friend that we are seeing strong levels of recruitment. GCHQ and the National Crime Agency are doing great work in encouraging the next generation of cyber-sleuths through their Cyber First programme.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I am sure the Policing Minister will be as concerned as I am about the 309 assaults on police officers in Humberside in the past year. What more will the Government do to keep our brave police officers safe on the streets?

[Mr Hurd]

I absolutely share the hon. Lady’s concern about an increase in assaults on police, which is why we are looking very favourably at supporting the emergency workers protection Bill—the “protect the protectors” Bill—to try to have greater safeguards through the law. On engagement with police leadership, we keep under regular and constant review the application of operational tools at their disposal, such as Tasers.

Immigration White Paper

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

I absolutely refute the suggestion that we are a Department in chaos. I reassure the hon. Lady that we are determined to ensure that the registration of EU nationals is as simple and straightforward as possible.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Has the Minister had a chance to read the Health Committee’s report on nursing shortages? It clearly sets out how much the NHS relies on nurses from overseas, and how many EU nurses are really worried about their future. Will she tell us how this delay will help the overstretched NHS to plan for the future and ensure that this country has the nurses it needs?

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Lady will be aware that nurses remain on the shortage occupation list. Nurses from the EU who are currently living and working here will of course have the same right to settled status as those in other employments.

Forensic Evidence: Alleged Manipulation

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I agree that retesting is the priority and that that needs to be done as quickly as possible—that is a Government priority—but I do not think that revisiting the decision on the Forensic Science Service is a priority. As I have said, that decision was taken in 2011. We have seen increased stringency in the standards and quality requirements. We should not be revisiting those old arguments.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Following on from the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), the Forensic Science Regulator said in January that she needed statutory powers to enforce regulation as soon as possible—not in 2022, but as soon as possible. Will the Minister think again?

[Mr Hurd]

I do not need to think again. I have said we are going to do that and that we are trying to find the right parliamentary opportunity to do so.

Independent Review: Deaths in Police Custody

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 30th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

The hon. Gentleman raises the important point of devolution, which I will certainly take to the ministerial council. I note the statistics for Northern Ireland. The figures for England and Wales are obviously significantly worse, so I am open to learning from examples of good practice in Northern Ireland.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

One point that the Minister made about supporting bereaved families was the starting presumption that legal aid should be awarded for representation at inquest. Can he give me an indication of which facts would actually rebut the presumption that legal aid would be granted?

[Mr Hurd]

As I said, the director of legal aid casework will have some discretion. The key thing is to shift the default setting. At the moment, legal aid is available only in exceptional circumstances, and this is a shift in the assumption so that bereaved families in these situations will have access to legal aid. The Justice Secretary is working through the details of how that will work and the underpinning guidance, which will be published before the end of the year.

Police Pay and Funding

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I always welcome any opportunity to praise the work of our excellent Devon and Cornwall police. When I go about my business there, I see highly motivated police officers and lots of people who want to join the Devon and Cornwall constabulary. As we have discussed before, it is doing very innovative work, not least with the police force in Dorset. I do not accept the very negative picture that the hon. Gentleman is trying to paint. I encourage him to speak more positively and represent its extremely good work in the House. Crime is falling and it is keeping us safe in Devon and Cornwall.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

The Minister ended her response to the urgent question by talking about the prudent use of reserves, but why does she think she knows better than the National Audit Office, which demands that police forces keep adequate reserves and says that taking staffing costs out of reserves is financially irresponsible? My chief constable in Humberside explained to me last week how important reserves are when unexpected demands are made on the police service, such as multiple murders that have to be investigated. The money is not there to cover the increased pay costs.

[Sarah Newton]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I talked about the prudent use of reserves, but it is important to note that they have been growing year on year. They now stand at £1.8 billion, so there is clearly an opportunity for forces to use them to pay for the extra 1% pay rise. I refer her to the work that Sir Tom Winsor does with Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary reporting on police forces. He has said clearly and consistently that police officers can do much more to improve efficiency.

Drugs Policy

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

There is no complacency in my approach, or in the Government’s approach. In setting out the context of the new strategy, it is worth reflecting on some of our past successes—we have a good evidence base upon which to build for the future. Like the right hon. Gentleman, I am concerned by that increase in the number of deaths, often of people with long-term substance misuse problems. If he stays for the debate, I hope he will hear about our approach to prevent those deaths, which is a key part of our new strategy. I will welcome further interventions at that point. A speech from the right hon. Gentleman, who served so well as a Health Minister in the coalition and who played such an important role in some of the Department’s successes, would be carefully listened to and taken into consideration in our work in the years ahead.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

The rate of drug mortality started to rise in 2013, when the ring fence was removed and local authorities became responsible for drug and alcohol treatment. Does the Minister regret her Government’s decision to remove that ring fence?

[Sarah Newton]

I will address how more people with long-term substance misuse problems are dying, but I remind the hon. Lady that the public health grant remains ring-fenced. It is for local authorities, working with partners in their communities, to come up with the best ways of tackling people’s serious and long-term substance misuse problems.

We have seen a phenomenal improvement in our understanding of the overlap between mental health problems and substance abuse problems. Councils not only have the public health grant and their partnerships in local communities; they also have the significant additional funding that the Government have made available for mental health services and community mental health services, as well as the homelessness prevention and troubled families funding. As I will hopefully have an opportunity to say, what is different about the strategy, in part, is the partnership working that we see as being at the heart of driving further improvements.

--- Later in debate ---

[Diana Johnson]

Let me take the Minister back to investment and the idea that if this matter was treated as a health issue, there would be more investment in drug treatment services. Is it not the case that in France, where this is treated as a health issue, the investment is less than it is here where we have treated it as a criminal justice issue and a health issue combined?

[Sarah Newton]

I just do not accept the premise of what the hon. Lady is saying. We do not take it in the way that she describes. We see this very much as a partnership or a joined-up whole Government approach. Of course health and recovery is at the centre of our strategy. It is not a fair interpretation to say that this is led by justice. It is about a joined-up whole system approach. Recovery remains a vital part of the Government’s approach.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Everyone in this Chamber knows that drug abuse casts a long shadow over our society. Whether it is the many thousands of crimes committed by drug users seeking to fund their habit—fully 45% of acquisitive crime is committed by regular heroin or crack cocaine users—the chaos caused in families and communities by drug use, or the lives ruined or cut short by it, the scale of the problem is truly shocking. We have the highest recorded level of mortality from drugs misuse since records began. There are record numbers of deaths from morphine or heroin, and from cocaine abuse. Under this Government, the UK has become the drugs overdose capital of Europe.

According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, one in three of Europe’s overdose deaths—they are mainly related to opioids—occurs in the UK. That is roughly 10 families a day bereaved as a result of illegal drugs—more than are bereaved in traffic accidents. We have an overwhelming economic, moral and public health case for examining this country’s drugs policy.

Labour Members welcome the publication this month of the 2017 drugs strategy, even though it comes two years after the Government’s self-imposed deadline. However, having waited nearly two years for it, we have to confess to being a little disappointed. Let us remember what has happened along the way. Drug rehabilitation centres have been closed; budgets to tackle drug abuse have been cut; key services such as the NHS are under increasing pressure; and there have been cuts to police officers and Border Force guards by the thousand. In the light of these constrained resources, it is not clear how much impact this strategy, in which there is much to welcome in principle, will have.

Official drug strategies always include reducing demand, increasing awareness and education, restricting supply, tackling organised crime and improving treatment and recovery, so those elements, although important, are not new. The Government’s recognition of the importance of evidence-based treatment, recovery and harm reduction is welcome, but what stakeholders, and families and communities up and down the country who are suffering from drug abuse, want to know is whether the strategy is not just old methods in a shinier package. We frequently use the term “war on drugs”; I ask the Minister how exactly we expect to win a war with reduced forces and resources on the frontline.

Responsibility for drug and alcohol treatment was transferred from the NHS to local authorities in 2013, which was undoubtedly a good idea in principle; local authorities are much better placed than central Government to facilitate co-operation between drug and alcohol services, local police, those involved in social and youth work, education and housing and other stakeholders, but sadly local authorities gained those new responsibilities at a time of bone-crunching pressure on their budgets, and this transfer of responsibility meant an end to ring-fenced budgets for drug treatment.

[Diana Johnson]

I agree exactly with my right hon. Friend, but does she think that when the Government transferred that responsibility to local authorities, they missed a trick by not making it clear that police and crime commissioners and representatives from the criminal justice system should sit on health and wellbeing boards, so that they could provide input on drug and alcohol treatment services?

[Ms Abbott]

My hon. Friend is exactly right, because the purpose of transferring responsibility to local authorities was that they should bring together all the stakeholders, including police and crime commissioners and the local police.