Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Edward Argar and Stephen Doughty

Tuesday 26th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

5. What steps he is taking to reduce violence in the secure youth estate.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)]

The number of children in custody has fallen by nearly 70% in the last decade, but that means that those in custody are more complex; 71% of them are detained for violent offences. Although the rate of prisoner-on-prisoner assaults declined by 7% between July and September 2023, compared with the same period in 2022, the rate of assaults on staff increased. That is why all sites have a safety strategy reflecting local drivers of violence. That includes tackling the use of weapons, and training staff in conflict resolution. Much has been done, but there continues to be more to do, and we remain focused on doing it.

[Stephen Doughty]

Those strategies are clearly not working. There were 320 assaults on staff between July and September 2023, of which 24 were serious. That is a 9% increase, year on year, in assaults in the children and young people’s estate. When will the Minister put in place a proper plan to cut violence in the youth estate and keep staff safe?

[Edward Argar]

The plan we have put in place is working, but there is more to do. The hon. Gentleman highlighted statistics that, as he will accept, I acknowledged from the Dispatch Box. We believe that our approach to tackling violence and to conflict resolution in our youth estate is right, and we will continue to press forward with it to reduce rates of assault on our hard-working and dedicated prison officers and staff.

Income tax (charge)

Debate between Edward Argar and Stephen Doughty

Monday 16th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I believe that the package announced last week is the right package, at this time, to meet the challenges posed by this situation. Without necessarily referring to the hon. Gentleman’s particular proposal, I note that the Chancellor continues to keep all interventions under review as the situation develops. At the moment, what was proposed last week remains the right approach.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I underline my support for the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan). The Minister asked us to wait to question the Secretary of State later, but I have a specific question about personal protective equipment. I am hearing a lot of concerns—shared throughout the country—about care homes, and particularly those involved in domiciliary care, as well as about some of the differentials between what is going on in private care homes and in public sector care homes. How is the Minister going to make sure that, working with the devolved Administrations, people throughout the whole UK get the PPE that they need, particularly in the care sector?

[Edward Argar]

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that, first, we are working across the four nations, because the situation needs an entire-United Kingdom response, and secondly, we are working extremely hard to ensure that all those who are on the frontline looking after people and keeping them safe get the protective equipment that they need. I suspect the Secretary of State will say a little more about that later this afternoon.

Trade Union Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Edward Argar and Stephen Doughty

Thursday 15th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Stephen Doughty]

Q 287 Given that you are not aware of the wider circumstances, could you perhaps write to us and tell us what happened during that dispute, given that it has been referred to a number of times, with agency workers who were brought in? I think that is directly relevant to the Bill, because there are obviously proposals that the Government are putting forward on the use of agency workers. I think it is important to understand the sort of tensions that are created. Do you think there is potential for tensions being created more widely in industrial disputes by agency workers being brought in, particularly in professions such as yours where there are specific sets of health and safety concerns and specialities?

Commissioner Dobson: I think there are tensions when agency workers are used. Our emergency fire crew contract, which provides our contingency arrangements, is provided by an external company. We contract it out in order to meet the requirements of the current employment legislation. That obviously does increase tensions, because striking workers see somebody else doing their job; I think it does increase tension.

The difficulty is, in an industry such as mine where we are providing a critical emergency service, we do need arrangements in place to cover public safety if the fire brigade is on strike. Therefore, we did not really have much choice. Other fire brigades outside London use other arrangements; but they have the opportunity to use people who maybe were retained fire fighters. We do not have that opportunity in London and we needed to make sure we had a robust contingency plan in place. That does create tensions, inevitably, but I do not think we have any option on that at the moment.

[Edward Argar (Charnwood) (Con)]

Q 288 You have both referenced how keen you are to ensure good industrial relations in the work you do and the duty you have to your staff, to protect and look after them. We have heard a number of references from both sides, and from both of you, about intimidation. Can you give us a flavour of specific examples that have stuck in your mind of the form that intimidation has taken—what was said, what was done and how that played out?

Commissioner Dobson: In terms of physical intimidation, during the 2010 dispute—and I have to be clear that this did not take place in the recent disputes—we saw the emergency fire crew operatives being refused access to fire stations and being intimidated: followed to incidents when they were actually attending emergency calls. They were followed there by striking workers and intimidated at the incident ground.

We have seen photographs being taken and posted on social media of people who were working during the strike, with comments such as, “We know who you are; we know where you live.” We have seen intimidation of some of the emergency fire crew by taking photographs of them and trying to find out what their names were, and by comments such as, “Don’t come back to London because we know who you are.” So there is a range of intimidation using social media.

All those instances where these things have happened have been reported to the police, but I refer back to the previous people giving evidence about how difficult it is to investigate and bring to a conclusion any offences over social media. So while it was investigated, unfortunately, there was not any result to the investigations; but they certainly took place and the evidence exists and actually has been shown to the Committee before.

David Palmer-Jones: I think from my side it is really the fact that it can occur away from the site itself. That is the bit that concerns us the most. We have had instances where cars have been damaged, threats of violence to our supervisor, and threats to other members of staff, who are not members of the union, who continue to work. That causes a lot of disruption and disharmony in the workforce; and we do not have many strikes, I can assure you—perhaps one in the last 10 years. When it does happen, there needs to be some form of control, very much specifically around secondary action outside the local area where the picket would happen. That is the most worrying for me.