Spiking Incidents: Prevention

Debate between Esther McVey and Richard Graham

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point, although, as we have heard, there are young males who are also victims of spiking. As a father, when my daughter was young and first going out to nightclubs, I advised her to be very cautious. I gave her a list of things she could do to reduce the possibility of inadvertently getting mixed up in spiking and all sorts of other things. The hon. Lady is right to highlight that we should be focusing on the perpetrators and where the problem is, which is why it is so important to have spiking as an overall offence. She is right to say that this is not in any way about telling young women that they cannot go out and have a night of fun.

That leads me on to the next point I want to highlight from the Minister’s letter, which is about violence against women and girls. The Minister writes that the Government are focused on practical rather than legal action, and goes on to list various funding streams for VAWG initiatives. I believe that all of those are important, but they miss the specific point. I, my constituent Maisy, her mother Rosie, so many other constituents of colleagues here—including the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), who sent me a case from her constituency—the Stamp Out Spiking group, which is represented here today, and many other colleagues who are not able to be here but would have wanted to, all want to see legal action as well as practical action in the form of a simple amendment such as I outlined earlier.

Such an amendment would also be very practical, I believe. It would enable media, social media, local government authorities, police, licensed victualling associations and nightclub managers to say, absolutely correctly and for the first time, that spiking is a named legal offence—that those who even attempt to do it might be cautioned or prosecuted, and might therefore be convicted of a criminal offence, which would seriously damage their chances of keeping or winning a job. I believe that will be very powerful, particularly for students. That message, clear and unambiguous, is what I believe the law should say, not just as guidance to the night-time economy managers but to everyone. It can be done through a simple amendment, which Government and parliamentary lawyers will be able to quickly come up with. I believe work was already being done on that by previous Ministers. It will add to the commitment made by the Prime Minister and this Government to reducing violence against women and girls, as well as affected males—a point that was made earlier by my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes).

So, Minister, will this Government see the light, recognise the value of a simple amendment—not a new law; I get the point on that—and recognise that it is both desirable and necessary to get the message out there? This Government and Parliament could be the ones that make spiking completely illegal for the first time. I believe that other Ministers understood that, and I call on Ministers at the Home Office today to finish the job, and avoid the need for further debate and my wasting their precious ministerial time again. That is the challenge today, and I hope very much that the Minister and the Department will rise to it.

[Esther McVey (in the Chair)]

There are a great number of Members wanting to speak in this debate, so I will have to impose a maximum limit on speeches of three and a half minutes, to allow everybody to get in. I will remind people of the times. I will call the Front Benchers just before 3.40 pm, to allow Richard Graham to wind up at about 3.58 pm. I also want to mention that there could be a vote; if so, I will suspend the sitting for that.

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[Richard Graham]

I believe that today the Government have heard a very clear message from colleagues from five different parties that something more should be done in law about spiking. I accept that we do not need a new and separate law, and I think most other Members do too, but I also believe that the Minister has registered the strength of feeling about our arguments for amending the existing law to include the offence of spiking in all its different forms.

I thank all colleagues who came and spoke in the debate, some of whom are not here now, understandably. I am particularly grateful for the contributions from the former Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel); the former safeguarding Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean); the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson); my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie), who rightly highlighted the good work done by our police and crime commissioner in Gloucestershire; the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Allan Dorans); and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). They all raised different issues, and the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) made a particularly important speech.

The point of everything that was said in today’s debate is that we have all spoken with one voice in order to represent the thousands and thousands of people across the country who have been spiked. Although some of them are men, they are mostly young women, such as my constituent Maisy Farmer and Lorna Street, who is in the Public Gallery. Many victims have not reported their cases and their hurt, and we have therefore given them a voice today.

We also heard from the Minister that the door is open a fraction, which I appreciate. I believe—I hope that colleagues will join me—that we must now do what we can to push that door further open and reach the success of an amendment.

[Esther McVey (in the Chair)]

Order.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Esther McVey and Richard Graham

Monday 15th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Richard Graham. Why is he surprised by that? He is standing. Get in there.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

23. The Secretary of State knows that one of the difficulties with trying to correlate the people on universal credit with those who go to food banks is that there is no precise data to compare the two. I know anecdotally that the number of foreigners claiming food bank vouchers is quite high. Is there a state at which we can, with the Trussell Trust, arrange to have data that tells us much more about who is going to food banks and what sort of help they need, including DWP people in their food banks?

[Ms McVey]

Of course we have to understand the underlying issues and problems and support people as best we can. I met the Trussell Trust and various poverty groups and we have talked about how we best support families. We believe that the best way to support a family out of poverty is by getting them into work—hence why I pointed out that, under the previous Labour Government, the number of households where no one ever worked doubled. This Government believe that work is the best way out of poverty and we will continue helping people.

Personal Independence Payments

Debate between Esther McVey and Richard Graham

Monday 4th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms McVey]

We have not saved any money; let me make that point clear now. We spend more money on PIP, and will continue to do so to 2022—more money every year from 2010 than we ever spent on DLA. If I can dispel the myth that anybody is saving any money through moving from DLA to PIP, that will be the best thing I can do today. This Conservative Government will be spending more on disabled people through PIP from 2010 through to 2022.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement today because I do not believe that fighting these cases in court is in the long-term benefit of anyone in this country, so I congratulate her on that. Clearly any of these PIP assessments can be incredibly stressful for our constituents and the system must react when mistakes have been made or situations are difficult. But anecdotally what I am hearing, especially from people with degenerative diseases like MS, is that the PIP system is working better than DLA. Many statistics have been bandied around today, but one statistic is that 30% rather than 15% are now getting the top level of benefit, and that is making a real difference to many individual lives. Can my right hon. Friend confirm today whether the number of assessment appeals is going up or down and whether the percentage of those being accepted as against those being rejected is going up or down?

[Ms McVey]

I have already given the numbers, which show that we are getting the vast majority right: 9% are appealing and 4% are being overturned. This brand new benefit is a personal and modern benefit, and we are adjusting it so that it meets the needs of a 21st century benefit. That is what we are seeking to do. So for the first time we are looking at mental health conditions and exploring the extra support we can give there. This Government, across all Departments, are spending £11 billion more on mental health, so under PIP 66% are getting the higher daily living rate, whereas the figure for that under DLA would have been 22%.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Esther McVey and Richard Graham

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms McVey]

The regulator and assessors are now looking into a whole series of issues. Fundamentally, one of them has to be how Carillion’s books went from being a healthy balance-sheet to, a year later, not being a healthy balance-sheet. The auditors and accountants who had signed those books are now being thoroughly examined to establish what happened there before the regulator would have had to look into things, so a lot of investigations are going on.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

2. What assessment she has made of the efficacy of the roll-out of universal credit.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Ms Esther McVey)]

Universal credit is a modern flexible benefit which provides tailored support to claimants. Three separate research studies show that UC is having a positive impact on employer outcomes. The changes announced in the Budget are giving even more support for claimants.

[Richard Graham]

Before Christmas, many on the Opposition Benches predicted disaster as more of our constituents claimed their benefits through universal credit. In fact—and I believe the changes made by the DWP have made a significant difference—the early anecdotal evidence in Gloucestershire, from the Jobcentre Plus and Gloucester City Homes, is that things are moving smoothly ahead. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is broadly the case across the country, and that the introduction of trusted landlords is making a significant improvement to relationships with housing associations, and will she do more to roll that out?

[Ms McVey]

My hon. Friend is correct. Three independent studies are saying that universal credit is getting people into work quicker, and that they are staying in work longer and also looking for more work. He is exactly right about the trusted partner status. The reason he has started to do extra work with his jobcentre, looking at tenants who might not have a roof over their head, was the false information cited in Prime Minister’s questions by Jeremy Corbyn, who said that one in eight would be evicted. That was not the case, and, as we are seeing, people are now getting into work and their homes are being protected.

Private Sector Pensions

Debate between Esther McVey and Richard Graham

Monday 22nd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms McVey]

I reassure my hon. Friend that that is exactly what we will be doing. We are looking at how we empower the Pensions Regulator and, if need be, how we allow it to levy fines. It has to be a balanced response, not a knee-jerk response, and we have to make sure it works for both pensioners and businesses.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

When a major UK business collapses it is incredibly important that both existing and future pensioners are given reassurances about their situation. In the case of BHS, this House elected to constitute a joint Select Committee inquiry to consider aspects of both the pensions and the business. Does she agree that a joint Select Committee inquiry looking into both the pensions and business aspects of the collapse of Carillion would be welcome?

Secondly, in the worst-case scenario, existing pensioners will get 100% of what is due to them through the Pension Protection Fund, and future pensioners will get 90%. The PPF, with assets of some £29 billion, is extremely well funded and capable of looking after the worst-case scenario.

[Ms McVey]

My hon. Friend, who has a lot of experience in these matters, is right in saying that the Pension Protection Fund is robust. It has a lot of resources, so people are safe and will be protected. That is what they need to know now. The Government have very clearly, from the moment this happened, set out the support for pensioners, so that they knew that their pensions were safe and they could go to work knowing that they were being looked after. He is quite right: we have to make sure that we are taking the right approach going forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Esther McVey and Richard Graham

Tuesday 13th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

4. What plans he has to promote work in prisons.

[Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)]

6. What plans he has to promote work in prisons.

Adoption

Debate between Esther McVey and Richard Graham

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Esther McVey]

Absolutely. The key point is, “When does tolerance become intolerance?” The Catholics who came to see me thought that that had happened. They believed that providing choice could bring about equality, but that what we had stopped was choice.

My second point, which a constituent of mine, Paula Davies, raised with me, is about the lack of awareness in the education system. She had adopted a daughter, and thought that she had unique needs arising from the adoption, which had happened later in life. She was concerned that the schools did not seem to be fully aware of the requirements of children from such backgrounds. She did not want something specific for her child; she did not want anybody taking her aside or teaching her differently. She was not looking for something different or extreme. However, she told me that two county councils, Hertfordshire and Somerset, have documents for staff who work with looked-after or adopted children in schools, and she wondered why every county council could not have those documents to hand for teachers to read, so that they could be aware of such children’s unique sensitivities and awareness.

Children adopted later in life are particularly vulnerable to rejection. They might take being told off or made to sit over there in a slightly different way, having been rejected early or later in life. It would be a simple change. The documents already exist, so I am not asking for anything with a cost implication. We are asking that they be made available to other councils, and therefore to teachers across the country.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point about education for adopted children. Does she agree that local authorities treat adopted children differently from children in care, in terms of the support that they get and the schools that they go to? Does she agree with the proposal to change that and enable adopted children to receive the same support as children in care?

[Esther McVey]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. I was not aware that there were differences, but if so, of course they need to be addressed. Particularly for children adopted later in life, it is painfully apparent that they might need the same support as children in care. I will conclude on that point, but I would like replies from the Minister on my points about choice, equality and awareness of the need to help children in school.

Apprenticeships (Small Businesses)

Debate between Esther McVey and Richard Graham

Thursday 9th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)]

I want to add some personal knowledge as someone who has had an apprentice since last October and as the owner of a small business. It is the cost that concerns small businesses. What can the Government do to incentivise them to take on apprentices? We need to look at the cost to employ one and the payroll costs.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise those points. The incentives—the carrots—to encourage more small businesses are a crucial part of the argument, which I will come on to. May I take the opportunity to congratulate her? She has helped a number of us to take on our own apprentices, demonstrating the local and national leadership that she is renowned for in her constituency.

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[Richard Graham]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point about the ways in which we can get people back into work. The Work programme is starting this week. I am sure that he is already in touch with both the contractors and sub-contractors in his own constituency. Working closely with those who are rolling out the Work programme offers the best chances of getting older people back into the workplace. What we are really talking about today is apprenticeships that are focused specifically on the 16-to-24 age group. I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s general point, but I think that it ranges wider than today’s debate, although the Minister might want to comment on that.

I will return to the obstacles for small businesses and quote from the NAS in Gloucestershire, which works with hundreds of SMEs on a daily basis. We know that the definition of an SME can include businesses that, on a constituency basis, are really quite large. Companies employing 250 employees are big employers as far as I am concerned, but they are categorised as SMEs. One of the challenges for the NAS, which is resourced by one representative per county, is to engage with the small businesses that we are discussing today, which would technically be called micro-businesses. I do not use the term “micro” because I do not think that companies enjoy being called “micro”—they do not relate to that word. We are talking today predominantly about companies with fewer than 12 employees.

The NAS in Gloucestershire has spoken to more than 15,000 small businesses in the past five months. That is an astonishing achievement, and I pay tribute to its hard work in spreading its tentacles so widely among small businesses in our county. Its experience has shown that it has been able to spread the word about apprenticeships and their role.

As hon. Members have said, the role of the media and further education colleges has also been critical in spreading the word, but it can be very difficult to reach businesses of the size that we are discussing today. Many people

“simply don’t have the time to come out of their businesses”

to attend events. Such companies—often one man, one woman or a family working together—do not have the sort of people who typically sit on the committees of their local Federation of Small Businesses. We are fortunate if we can persuade them to come to an event, a lunch or a supper to discuss topical issues.

There are some breakfast clubs for very small businesses—I have certainly been to them, as have other hon. Members. They are quite good at doing business-to-business with each other, but the process of filling in forms, searching on websites, discussing with training providers and working out whether to go to the further education college or a more specialist training provider is quite time-consuming for people who are dealing with customers minute by minute in their shops.

To try to ensure that very small businesses get the opportunities to incorporate apprenticeships into their companies, the Department and the NAS are therefore supporting projects among group training associations and apprenticeship training agencies. In response to a letter that I wrote him, the Minister highlighted that

“recently, Group Training Association and Apprenticeship Training Agency models have been proving successful in making it easier for small business to take on apprentices.”

I hope that the Minister will share some examples of those successes with us, whether they are geographical or sectoral, and share with us how we can help him to promote GTA and ATA models in our own constituencies, as a way of helping small businesses to overcome the apparent obstacle of administration.

It is true, for example, that the South West Apprenticeship Company in my own constituency is able to provide the legal ownership of apprentices taken on by small businesses should there be future employment law concerns with an apprentice who has not worked out. Many of us will know that the business of finding the right apprentice is the single most important thing and often a very hard thing for a small company to do. As far as employment law is concerned, ownership of the apprenticeship is with the training provider, which can be enormously helpful to small businesses.

The next stage covers what sort of carrots might be offered to very small businesses as part of the incentive to take on an apprentice. I start from the presumption that if we were all able to persuade half the small companies in our constituencies to take on one apprentice each, we would have solved the youth unemployment problem in this country by that step alone. The opportunity, if we were able to seize it, would be enormous. The goal would be considerable, so how can we get closer to achieving it? We could consider two or three things, the first of which is to provide a financial incentive. In March 2010, there was an apprenticeship grant for employer scheme—AGE—which gave a straightforward cash amount of £2,500 to employers taking on their first apprentice. As a result of that incentive, which was offered for a limited period of three months, 5,000 unemployed 16 to 17-year-olds were taken on during that time.

It is right to ask ourselves whether that incentive was entirely motivated by a long-term solution for youth unemployment or by a short-term concern to keep teenagers off the unemployment statistics in the run-up to a general election. It is also right to ask whether cash incentives for taking on a first apprentice, without necessarily a time commitment on how long that apprentice will work, will always generate good long-term results, or whether that is a very short-term way to enhance small business profitability without necessarily leading on to career opportunities for 16 to 17-year-olds, but it is something on which perhaps the Minister might comment today.

A slightly different thought offered to me by the chairman of the FSB in Gloucester was to look at ways to subsidise apprentices over a three-year period. For example, when a company takes on an apprentice for the first time, a percentage of the amount paid by the employer could be reimbursed by the Government at the end of the first year. A smaller amount would be reimbursed in the second year, and in the third year all the cost would be absorbed by the company. That is a slightly different and more interesting model to look at, were the Government able to offer financial compensation for some of the employment costs of taking on new apprentices for small businesses.

Other ways to help small businesses to take on apprentices could be considered. One of them could be to rationalise the training costs for 18 to 24-year-olds as well as 16 to 18-year-olds. The Government have previously differentiated between the two age groups on the basis that getting people started is the most important thing and that, by the time people are 19 to 24, they should have more experience and more maturity to offer employers. But we know that that is not always the case. Some 19-year-olds and older people might still need considerable investment of time and effort by very small businesses to bring them to a stage where they can contribute to the growth of that company. The cost of that investment in time is as important to the smallest companies as the financial cost of paying apprentices for however many hours a week they are employed.

[Esther McVey]

I totally agree. If there is one thing that small companies have told me about the hurdles to taking on apprentices and about why they want incentivising to do so, it is that the hidden cost of spending time with a person, bringing them on, encouraging them and making them work-ready cannot be underestimated.

[Richard Graham]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. She has direct experience of these things, as do so many Members here today. It is absolutely true that the smallest companies’ greatest fear on the administrative or bureaucratic side relates not necessarily to the paperwork involved in filling in an application form or designing an advert, but to the fact that a huge amount of time and effort may be required, hour by hour and day by day, to manage the apprentice. The worry is that the investment that will need to be made over a year or two before the apprentice can make a significant contribution to the business may not be rewarded at the end of that time because the apprentice might leave, might be recruited by somebody else or might not be able to deliver the return that the small business is looking for on its investment.

I want now to raise a few of the points that the FSB has raised with me, which it believes are relevant to the promotion of apprenticeships in the smallest businesses. On the promotion of ATAs to help small business, one advantage of such agencies is that they would employ the apprentice in the same way that the training company I mentioned in my constituency does. The ATA would deal with issues such as employer compulsory liability insurance, and help of that kind with modern administrative requirements would be useful.

On skill recognition, GTAs could provide an effective route for solving the problem I raised in answer to the point about tailoring the training of apprentices to companies’ requirements. GTAs might well be able to help design new training programmes for specific companies to meet their requirements. Component manufacturers in the engineering sector, for example, which are an important employer in my constituency, may have more concerns and requirements regarding training than we realise. There might be small businesses out there that need something like a GTA to help them design the appropriate training course.

Perhaps I can bring that point alive with an anecdote. In my constituency, we have two makers of high-quality shirts; in fact, when I made my maiden speech in the House last year, I was delighted to be wearing a shirt made in Gloucester. Their shirts are made from high-quality English cotton and sometimes cotton from abroad. They are made in England, but one of the firms is increasingly taking on workers from Poland, where there is a high-quality sewing qualification. People arriving here with that qualification can immediately be put on the factory floor to contribute to the making of high-quality English shirts. It appears that this country does not yet have a similar qualification, which could easily provide the basis for a new form of apprenticeship with shirt manufacturers in my constituency and elsewhere.

I have also touched base with the British Chambers of Commerce, and it is important to recognise its remarks on the take-up of apprentices among small businesses. It believes that there is a case for better marketing to businesses of the resources that are available to them and of the benefits of apprenticeships. If we follow the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), such issues could be covered in what would, effectively, be a marketing flyer. Indeed, it could be designed by the company that he used to run in Swindon. That could be done at very low cost—possibly even pro bono—and the Department could distribute the details with information on business rates.

The British Chambers of Commerce also wants to place greater emphasis on the relevant agency sifting through candidates to find the right ones, rather than simply box-ticking. It says that small businesses have

“a greater fear than larger companies of the wrong candidate”.

From my own experience, I know that finding the right candidate and spending time taking them through an induction programme before offering them a job, which is difficult for a small business, will be increasingly relevant.

Two weeks ago, I presented certificates to people on an apprenticeship course in a large distribution company in my constituency. I asked the gentleman in charge of recruiting apprentices how he did it. He explained that he took all the people who applied, and who had not been ruled out because of a criminal background, on a one-day induction course in his warehousing company. He made a point of having an escorted walk through the company, which was led by a manager who explained the business as the group went through the various parts of the company. A lot of candidates were ruled out early on because they simply were not paying attention or contributing. When the group sat down later for a PowerPoint presentation on the business and what it was trying to achieve, some of those at the back of the room were texting on their mobiles or BlackBerries—something, Mr Davies, I am sure would never happen in this Chamber. In effect, there was a series of soft hurdles, which, by the end of the day, had reduced the number of candidates from about 40 to 15.

The vast majority of our teenagers do not realise how important such things are and what an impact they will have on their job opportunities. There is therefore a duty on us all as constituency MPs, and possibly on the National Apprenticeship Service, to ask employers to lay out in schools, before teenagers leave after their GCSEs or A-levels, exactly what is involved in getting a job, because it is not just about writing a CV. The NAS and the Department for Education could do something on that. The Minister wears the hats of two Departments, and he might want to comment on the way in which the Department for Education could co-operate more with employers to promote apprenticeships for businesses and, indeed, for small businesses that decide to take them up, so that school leavers really understand the challenges ahead.

National Apprenticeship Scheme

Debate between Esther McVey and Richard Graham

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Gentleman makes a number of good points, some of which I am coming to. He is absolutely right that training providers need to tailor their courses to be most relevant to business needs.

That leads conveniently to my next point. The approach that the coalition Government should take is about not simply good management practice, but a political philosophy. I agree with the former Labour Minister, Lord Myners, who told the other House that his colleagues never understood the fact that the Government do not create jobs, but set, or fail to set, the framework in which businesses create jobs. I also agree with Oona King, who recently regretted that new Labour’s belief in social justice counted for nothing if it forgot successful economic stewardship. Our mission is therefore to spread apprenticeships, which are critical to restoring the economy, and to boost social justice. There is no justice in increasing the number of those dependent on handouts. My city of Gloucester is a proud working city, not a centre of benefits, and apprenticeships are a major gateway to work and a better life.

[Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)]

I want to pick up on the point about the Wirral apprenticeships raised by the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern). Although we are doing well in Wirral, we are seriously over-subscribed. Last year, more than 1,000 young people submitted 3,117 applications to the fewer than 150 businesses involved. To move forward, we are looking to build on something that has done so well.

Do colleagues agree that although we are talking about apprenticeships, there is something that each and every one of us in the room could do? It is good to talk about these things, but we in Wirral West are about to embark on taking on political apprentices, and I know that other colleagues are doing the same. Former apprentices include Sir Alex Ferguson, Alan Titchmarsh, Henry Ford, Vincent van Gogh, Isambard Kingdom Brunel—

[Esther McVey]

Thank you, Mr Caton. I was responding to what had been said.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend makes a number of good points and anticipates brilliantly what was going to be my punchline.