Business of the House

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

The hon. Gentleman will know how to apply for a debate, and I am sure that a debate on that topic would be very well attended. He will know that many Conservative Members would have to make a similar declaration of interest if they were to speak in such a debate, so we absolutely understand the issues facing our farmers. We value what farmers do as a tremendous service to this nation, and we rely on them for our resilience.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

In July 2020, Baroness Cumberlege produced a report called “First Do No Harm”, which looked at the damage being done to women by sodium valproate, Primodos and vaginal mesh. Members from across the House have supported that report, and have especially supported listening to the women who have been harmed and debilitated so badly by the use of that mesh. Can we please have a debate in Government time to update us on the Government’s progress in adhering to some of those important recommendations?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Lady for keeping this issue in the public eye. It has received cross-party support and this is long overdue—we have not put enough focus on the particular issues that affect women, and on some of the legacy treatments and devices that have caused so much damage. I thank all Members who have worked towards that goal, most notably my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Dame Jackie Doyle-Price), who did a huge amount of work on the issue when she was at the Department of Health and Social Care. The hon. Lady will know that the Secretary of State has just published an updated report on our strategy for women’s health, and I will make sure that she has heard what the hon. Lady has said about this particular issue.

Business of the House

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and I hope she will recognise that this is actually the first Government genuinely to try to tackle the challenges of adult social care in the country. That is why we have introduced the levy to support the NHS in fighting its backlog, but also to break down the barriers between healthcare and adult social care. It is something the Secretary of State for Health is working on as we speak, and I hope that, as the Health and Care Bill progresses through the House, she will support the Government in delivering on that challenge.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

The covid pandemic has led to a revolutionary change in the way we work, with many jobs able to be successfully completed remotely. Could we have a debate in Government time on how the benefits of remote working can increase productivity, especially in areas such as Hull, because it means people do not have to leave the area they love for the job they want?

Business of the House

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is right to raise the issue of support for town centres. There is the £3.6 billion town centres fund, which is making really important efforts to help rejuvenate town centres. Town centres are important as community centres as much as for the economic activity they provide, but their economic activity is crucial. I cannot provide a specific time for a debate, but I think it is a good issue for a Backbench Business debate.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

I am sure, Mr Speaker, that you do not need me to tell you that rugby league clubs are the lifeblood of cities such as Hull. Yesterday I spoke to the owner of Hull FC, who explained the serious short-term challenges the club faces. May we have a Government statement to scrutinise the evidence behind the decision to close all open-air stadiums and what support can be given to rugby league clubs if the ban remains until April 2021?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

As I have said before in the House, the Government are keen to look at ways of allowing spectators to go back in safely and will consider proposals as they are made. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will be here to answer oral questions shortly after we are back, on 5 November, and that will be a good opportunity to raise this with him.

Business of the House

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Wednesday 20th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful for the points made by my hon. Friend from, I assume, his wonderful constituency, which I visited for a Conservative tea last year, when we were still able to move throughout the country. There is serious economic disruption as a result of coronavirus and, as the Office for Budget Responsibility has outlined, without the package of unprecedented measures, the impact would be much worse. Councils have been given £3.2 billion of extra money and there is a further £2.6 billion in deferred business rate payments coming from central Government, but I agree with my hon. Friend entirely that we have to think of ways in which to grow the economy of our whole nation. I encourage him to speak to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, but I add once again that once we are back normally there will be the opportunity to have these important debates.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab) [V]]

Hull’s proud status as a maritime city is at risk of being tarnished because of the damaging actions by P&O Ferries, which appears to be using the covid-19 crisis to replace UK seafarers with exploited Filipino workers who are paid much less and forced to work much longer hours, putting at risk the safety of everybody aboard the ferry. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) has raised this issue before, and the situation is now even more urgent. May we please have a statement in the House from the maritime Minister on how the Government are going to protect UK seafarers’ jobs?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

This issue has indeed been raised in the House before and is something that the Government are aware of. I will take it up with the Department for Transport so that a fuller answer can be prepared for the hon. Lady.

Business of the House

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend will know that the Conservative manifesto committed to trying to set up a cross-party commission with the aim of establishing proposals for social care, and end-of-life care is an important part of that. I hope that when that commission is established, he will make representations to it to ensure that his concerns are fully reflected.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

In yesterday’s debate on homelessness, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government appeared to dismiss the statistics that I gave him, which were that the number of universal credit claimants in council properties who have fallen into rent arrears was 67.4%, and that universal credit claimants are more likely to be evicted by a ratio of 2.9:1. May we have a debate in Government time about the impact of universal credit on the number of evictions and how we can encourage Secretaries of State to stick to the facts?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I was not present for that exchange. We are lucky that in this House, we have a first-class Library service, which is phenomenally good at checking statistics. It may well be worth while asking the Library experts to dig into these statistics to see what the accurate figures are.

Business of the House

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I welcome back my hon. Friend, who made such a contribution to the former Government. It was a great pleasure for me to campaign for him when he stood in a by-election some years ago, and he was a great hero for winning it.

Broadband roll-out will involve a major effort by the Government and the £5 billion investment that my hon. Friend mentioned. I fear that I am slightly teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, because he knows all this perfectly well, but questions to the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will take place next Thursday, and I think that they will present him with a good initial opportunity to put in his plea for Eddisbury.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

Every hour someone in England has a partial foot amputation, and every two hours someone loses an entire leg. Please may we have a debate in Government time on the growing crisis of vascular disease and the urgent steps that the Government need to take to address it?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I must confess that I was unaware of those figures, which are absolutely shocking. There will be an opportunity for the hon. Lady to raise the issue during the Queen’s Speech debate on health matters, and I hope that she will do so.

Business of the House

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

That exchange should be framed and displayed in a prominent place in the Lincolnshire abode of the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) .

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

As I am sure the Leader of the House is aware, Hull is a beautiful city and definitely a place that every Member should take time to visit. One way to make it even more beautiful than it already is—if that is possible—would be to introduce butterflies throughout the city. Hull wants to become the first city in the UK to be a butterfly city and adopt the brimstone butterfly, so please could the Leader of the House make time for a debate on the importance of biodiversity, butterflies and the beautiful city of Hull?

[Mel Stride]

How nice to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and for raising the matter of the brimstone butterfly, about which I currently know absolutely nothing, but will shortly know a great deal. I would perhaps point her to an Adjournment debate, where an appropriate Minister could be brought to the House to listen to her proposals.

Business of the House

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am sorry to hear about problems in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, and I am very sympathetic to commuters whose journey to work each day is being ruined by problems with the rail network. I do hope that he was present for Transport oral questions earlier and that he raised his question directly with Ministers then, because I think they would have been able to answer it for him.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

Endometriosis is a condition that affects one in 10 women, and it is incredibly painful. It involves cells that should be growing inside the womb growing outside it. Please may we have a debate about endometriosis and its surrounding issues?

Business of the House

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

We can all enjoy my right hon. Friend’s way of putting his question. I would be delighted if I were able to do things by the order of the Leader of the House, but, sadly, that is not really open to me. He might be aware that in December 2017 the Home Office did make it clear that it would revisit plans to change the funding formula at the time of the next spending review. There is a statement from the Home Office to follow this, and indeed we have the Budget debate next week, so he has opportunities to raise this issue. There is some good news: following the 2018-19 police funding settlement, most police and crime commissioners have set out plans to either protect or increase frontline policing next year; and the police workforce has grown by 1% over the past year, following the Government’s decision to protect police funding at the 2015 spending review.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

In March, NHS England changed its guidance on conditions for which over-the-counter items should not be routinely prescribed in primary care, with one being head lice. An average bottle of head lice shampoo costs between £10 and £12, which is a significant sum for parents in the most deprived areas. The charity Community Hygiene Concern fears that that decision will lead to an epidemic in schools and communities. Please may we have a debate, in Government time, about the effects of that change in NHS guidance?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I was not aware of that and I share the hon. Lady’s concern; I remember the nightmare of trying to get rid of head lice when my kids were young, and I am sure all hon. Members will have their own horror stories of how persistent head lice are. I am very sympathetic about this, and if she wishes to write to me, I will be able to take it up with the Department of Health and Social Care. Alternatively, I encourage her to put in a written question to see whether she can get an answer directly.

Private Members’ Bills: Money Resolutions

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg).

In my 11 years as an infant teacher, I found that one of the lessons that children find the hardest to learn is that, just because they do not get the outcome they want does not mean that they get to change the rules. Sometimes there were tears and tantrums, but I have insisted with my own children that they cannot change agreed and established rules part of the way through a game just because they want to win. I would not want to draw any comparison between immature, tantruming children who disregard rules and our Government—that would be unfair to children everywhere.

The principle of accepting that we must all learn to follow the rules, even when it makes us incredibly cross and we do not want to, is crucial. Our constitution is an unwritten one. Some might say that it is based on the trial and error and political victories of our history. It is definitely true that aspects of the constitution have been written to suit the holders of political power at different points in time, but it is even more true that the enterprise has kept working because it is underpinned by shared values and democracy. I celebrate the fact that successive Governments have put aside political advantage for the good of the country and for the survival of this, the mother of all Parliaments.

The Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan), has led to this debate. It is through that scope and the question of democracy and representation that this debate must be viewed. That is why I am saying to the Government today that they should put calculations of their political advantage aside and do what is right for our country.

The Government introduced the boundary review in a previous Parliament, under very different political conditions, the biggest difference being that it happened before we voted to leave the EU and therefore to get rid of all our MEPs. It is not a replicating review because it is based on 650 seats, not 600. The comments about money are a red herring, because if the Government introduce the money resolution and vote against it, they will not have spent any money.

Our constitution is based on the idea that Parliament is sovereign, that it will be bound by no previous Parliament and that, to paraphrase John Maynard Keynes, when the political facts change, it can change its mind. That is what the House was doing when it agreed on Second Reading to my hon. Friend’s Bill on 1 December last year by 229 votes to 44.

The Government must not continue to play political games in the face of such a clear mandate from the House by not bringing forward the money resolution. I argue that we desperately need more MPs rather than reducing the 650. In my constituency, not everybody who comes to me for help is on the electoral register. In fact, Home Office delays take a huge amount of my time and work in my constituency, yet none of those people are counted under the boundary reviews in the changes.

The Government do not need to support the money resolution. The terms of the convention make it perfectly possible for the Government to introduce the resolution and oppose it. Many on the Treasury Bench would fancy themselves as statesmen or stateswomen. Indeed, their manifesto prominently featured the words “in the national interest”. If they truly believe that it is not the will of the House that boundaries should be changed, and if they believe that they have the numbers to stop it, they can table the resolution and demonstrate it to us. Bring it on. To do otherwise is cowardly and simply undemocratic.