Public Order Policing

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Of course, it is important that any complaints made about how the police operated are looked into and properly investigated. They should be accountable.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Is the Home Secretary confident that every peaceful protestor contained within a cordon was aware that they could leave peacefully via Whitehall?

[Mrs May]

Of course I was not actually down there talking to every protester. The police have assured me that a significant number of peaceful protesters left Parliament square, that that option was open to individuals, and that they facilitated it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

We are constantly in negotiation with all foreign countries where a significant number of prisoners are involved, and we now have charters going back regularly to Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Jamaica. We are continuing with and trying to expand this campaign, because it is extremely important that when foreign prisoners have finished their sentence, they return to their own countries and do not hang around in this country, as sadly they have been doing.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

In the discussion about reducing police numbers, the Home Secretary puts a lot of emphasis on visible policing, but some of the most effective policing is invisible. This morning, I attended a briefing by the Operation Golf team, which has dealt very effectively with child trafficking. Can she assure the House that resources will be available for the police to tackle human trafficking and that they will have sufficient numbers of officers to mount similar operations with other police forces in future?

[Damian Green]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady about the importance of the effectiveness of combating human trafficking. Indeed, she was on the Front Bench when I revealed that early next year, as part of the new national crime strategy, we will produce a new anti-trafficking strategy precisely so that all the forces of law and order can be more effective in combating that disgraceful and evil crime.

Controlling Migration

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

We are confident in the work that we have done, and in the fact that we have got the cap—and, crucially, the changes to policy—right. The announcement is about not just the figure, but the change in policy. The Migration Advisory Committee will undertake an annual review, so it will be able to advise the Government on what the figure should be in future, after considering how behaviour has adapted to the policy changes that we are introducing.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The right hon. Lady says, “We will end the link between temporary and permanent migration.” How can temporary migrants, whether spouses or workers, earn permanent settlement?

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, because she gives me the opportunity to say that we will be making initial changes to the settlement proposals, but that we also intend to consult more fully on exactly how we will introduce changes to settlement more widely. The initial changes will relate to the language requirements, but we will also look at the salary levels required for a sponsor to bring somebody in for settlement, and at the criminality thresholds. Those are the immediate issues that we will consider. I also intend to ask the Migration Advisory Committee to do some more work on changing the settlement requirements in the longer term.

Immigration

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Field]

I am immensely grateful for that intervention. Although I intended to stress that point, I did not wish to labour it. I do not think that there is any disagreement between Members, who, while seeing the advantages of immigration, consider that the argument is essentially about numbers, but who do not wish to control those numbers in a way that would harm any economic recovery. If I ever manage to make progress, I shall say more about that.

I think that the electorate managed to convey to us during the three or so weeks of the general election campaign that their concern extended beyond that which had previously been expressed in the House. In their view, the numbers debate was about the growth of population. We see that all around us. According to the most recent data from the Government, 25% of all babies—50% in London—are now born to women who were not themselves born here. There are regular reports of overcrowding in maternity units. In a number of areas, there is real pressure on many primary schools. At a time when our waiting list for housing is growing, 40% of new households consist of immigrants.

As the hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) just said, we must not shoot ourselves in the foot, or, even worse, in the head, by calling for further controls and restrictions that would result in an impairment of the necessary recovery on which many of our constituents depend. The Mayor of London is always the most interesting of political characters in the country, but in this context he has held a position, changed his position, and then changed it again. I hope that he will shortly change it for the fourth time, and take a more rounded view of the issue.

The statement issued by the Mayor for today’s debate has three misleading comments—I will not call them longitudinal inexactitudes. First, it is not true that the figure for the number of people coming here last year would suit the Government’s cap. The 2009 figure for net migration is 196,000. If that is a cap, it may be one that the Mayor of London wishes to wear, but it is not one that I would encourage the Government to wear.

Secondly, the Mayor said that if we restrict immigration, there is a danger that our gross national product will fall. That is based on years when the economy was thriving and growing at a record rate. It is impossible to interpret past data in that way when a huge number of our constituents are unemployed—not long-term unemployed but recently unemployed, and anxious to return to work. Any restriction in the numbers might well help them rather than impeding the growth of GDP.

Thirdly, it is wrong to say that 80% of students leave within five years. It is true that 80% are lost in the system within five years, but we have absolutely no idea whether they leave or not.

The Government recently asked the Migration Advisory Committee to report both on the cap and on how, in the longer term, they could best achieve their goal of reducing the net migration figure, which currently stands at hundreds of thousands, to tens of thousands. It is with pleasure that I record my gratitude—as, I am sure, will other speakers—to David Metcalf, whom I knew long before I came to the House of Commons, for the distinguished and intelligent way in which he has chaired the committee, and for his willingness to engage in debate. I know that he has appeared before the Committee chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East, but his door is open to others who wish to talk to him about this issue.

The report published by the MAC just before we began our debate is helpful. David Metcalf says that the Government are proceeding in the right direction, and suggests that the reduction should be split—20% among those coming here to work and 80% among non-economic migrants. I think we should debate that. We might ask, for instance, whether we should increase the proportion of non-economic migrants within the cap. He did not say—because he did not have the authority to do so—how important it is to take the heat out of the debate. Perhaps we can move the debate on, by being more relaxed about people coming here to work while also being more concerned about that becoming a route which automatically leads to citizenship.

In the spirit of a constructive debate, may I suggest four ways in which the Government might seek to meet their coalition pledge to reduce net migration significantly? First, I do not see how the Government can make sense of this debate—on which they have, thank goodness, now embarked—unless they look at student numbers. To June this year, those numbers are up 26% on last year, at 362,000. When I make the plea for the Government to look at this area, I am not talking about what most of us would regard as universities. I am asking the Government to focus on what are clearly bogus colleges that have realised that they can sell courses by implying, “Entry to the UK, and from here you can disappear into the UK labour market.”

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend accept that many of the people who enrol on those courses do so in the belief that they are signing up for a proper education? Does he agree that they are victims of exploitation by these colleges, rather than people trying to suborn our immigration system?

[Mr Field]

I would rephrase that slightly. My hon. Friend makes the absolutely valid point that large numbers of people who want to get on in their lives come here and believe the prospectuses of such colleges, but my worry is that increasingly the news has gone round the traps, so to speak, that such courses are one way in—a bogus route. That is deeply cruel to those who have paid to enrol because they wish to build a more constructive life for themselves by getting an education; I could not agree more about that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Will my right hon. Friend support my campaign to ensure that education in the English language is available in the places from which spouses come? The current proposals are unfair, particularly on women on the Indian subcontinent who are unable to get access to good-quality English language teaching and are therefore doomed to fail the test.

[Mr Field]

I have never underestimated the entrepreneurial skills on the subcontinent, and I am disappointed to hear my hon. Friend report back in those terms. When I crossed swords on this matter with the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East, I thought that in no time English language schools would be established to ensure that people could speak English before arriving. It is very important that that rule is maintained, and I hope the Government will look at the point I have raised.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Brazier]

I believed that the hon. Gentleman was a member of the Committee and I apologise if I am incorrect. I have certainly heard him talk sense on this subject in the past.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I have a brother and a sister, both of whom have migrated to America, and I am rather concerned. When the hon. Gentleman says it is about numbers, whose brother and sister should not be allowed to travel? That is what the question boils down to when we say it is about numbers. Whose relatives are to be debarred from engaging in family visits if we are trying to reduce the carbon footprint of migration?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I think we are straying off the debate somewhat, into climate change and aviation. The debate is on immigration, so perhaps we can focus on that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to speak in the debate. I had not originally planned to do so because I knew that I would be unable to be here for most of it, although I was here at the beginning. I have been moved to speak, however, by a report of the remarks that the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) made about my views, which I have now read in Hansard. I would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight before the House.

I want to start by informing the House about the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion that I made remarks as a Minister that immigration officers deserved to be called by a four-letter word. They were not made by me when I was a Minister. I made the remarks that he is referring to when I was a Back Bencher, and I never suggested that that label should be given to the class of immigration officers. I pointed out, in response to a question, that it is a fact that large numbers of people—not some, but large numbers—seek to cheat the immigration system, which hardens immigration officers. Inevitably, that leads to a kind of cynicism, which means that they cannot necessarily give each case a completely fresh and individual look. I argued at the time for proper training to ensure that immigration officers did not make that kind of mistake in future. Obviously, it is unfair on the genuine that they should be disadvantaged because of those who are not genuine. I am glad to set the matter straight. If one wants to look at evidence about the degree of cynicism in some immigration officers—as I say, I do not believe that this is universally true by any means—the book “Refusal Shoes” is full of the most shocking anecdotes.

I want to speak briefly about the general issue of immigration. I am pleased to debate it. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) will know that I am not one of those who has ever been backward on this subject; I have never been worried about debating immigration.

I am hugely proud to represent one of the most productive towns in this country. One reason why it is such a productive and successful town is that thousands of people have come from countries all over the world to build their future in Slough, which has offered them work. I was so proud just a week ago to sit in a school prom and watch 850 Slough children singing about how people from different countries had contributed so much to the town that they live in and love. This was a celebration of the multiculturalism that is without doubt one of the reasons for the wealth of Slough. It is one reason why, according to the chief executive of Slough borough council, there are more headquarters of European companies in our town than in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland put together. That is why we should celebrate the economic prosperity that migrants bring to Britain. I am glad to do that.

We know that migration offers and brings much. The hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) put it rather well when he said that we need to work to make the best of it and make the consequences of multiculturalism worth celebrating. I will find it depressing if that is not done. The last Labour Government introduced the migration impacts fund as a mechanism to help to achieve that. I profoundly regret the huge cut to Slough borough council’s budget that has resulted from the abolition of that fund.

I did not originally expect to participate in the debate because I was hoping to attend the Westminster Hall debate about houses in multiple occupation. One point of investing resources from the migration impacts fund in Slough was to ensure that migrants in the town did not have to live in sheds—and I mean sheds in people’s back gardens. Government funding enabled the council to inspect HMOs and occupied sheds. It was used successfully to prosecute a landlord who had put a shower on the stairs of a house in multiple occupation in the expectation that people could somehow walk past it. Now we have lost the resources to carry on doing such things, which is much to be regretted.

[Robert Halfon]

As I have said, I apologise for not giving the hon. Lady advance notice of my comments. I was not aware that I should have done, and I will make sure that I do in any future instances. However, all I did was publicly to quote from what the BBC said. I accept that you were a former Minister, but in being a former Minister, you actually give more prescience to your remarks—

[Robert Halfon]

I apologise again, Mr Speaker. However, what the hon. Lady said, as reported by the BBC, is one reason why immigration officers are viewed as “s***s”—because some people decide that if one is like that, all of them are like that. She made no attempt to distinguish between them, and by her remarks she has tarred every immigration officer with the same brush.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Actually, I did not say “some”, I said “large numbers”. That is one of the corrections that I have just inserted in Hansard. Unlike some of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues who have only read the blog that he wrote about the subject rather than the original BBC article, he knows that the original BBC article makes it entirely clear that I was asked about the negative attitude of some border officials by a questioner who implied that it was universal. I corrected her, suggesting that that was not a universal belief.

I cannot take responsibility for the words that the BBC put in its report. If the hon. Gentleman reads the BBC article that he claims to have in his hand, he will see that when I gave the reason for the fact that some officials acted in this way, I used the phrase “large numbers”. Every time he has quoted from it, he has referred to “some”, rather than to “large numbers”, which was the phrase that I used.

I do not want to bore the House with quibbles about the details, but the words that I have used are accurate, and I regret to say that the words that the hon. Gentleman used—inadvertently, I am sure—are not. I think it important for the House to know my views.

We need to invest in helping communities to deal with the consequences of migration. If we fail to do that, we may create the tensions and vulnerabilities in our communities that we in Slough have experienced in the past. The competition between people of different races and origins poses a risk to our peaceful, multicultural co-existence, which was genuinely reflected by those 850 children from Slough singing in the Albert Hall. The risk is that it will not continue to be a positive attitude, but will create such a source of stress in communities that it could turn into tension and violence between individual communities. No one in the House would like to see that outcome.

[Robert Halfon]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) implied that I have misled the House. I am quoting directly from the BBC article. The part that is in quotation marks reads as follows:

“One of the reasons immigration officers are”

s***s—

“is actually because some people cheat and they decide everyone is like that”.

It is a direct quotation, and that is all that I wish to say about the matter.

Socio-economic Equality Duty

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Minister to make a statement on the announcement yesterday outside Parliament that the Government intend to drop section 1 of the Equality Act 2010, which places duties on public bodies to act in respect of socio-economic disadvantage.

[The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)]

Equality is at the heart of what this coalition Government are all about. We have come together as a coalition to govern on the principles of freedom, fairness and responsibility.

In Britain today, those growing up in households that have fallen too far behind still have fewer opportunities available to them and they are still less able to take the opportunities that are available. We need to design intelligent policies that give those at the bottom real opportunities to make a better life for themselves. That is why we are devoting all our efforts and energies to policies that can give people real opportunities to make life better for themselves, and not just to new and unnecessary legislation.

We do not need new laws to come up with policies that open up opportunities, and we do not need new laws to come up with policies that support and protect the most vulnerable. We have already begun to implement them. That is why over the course of the spending review, we will spend over £7 billion on a new fairness premium. That will give all disadvantaged two-year-olds an entitlement to 15 hours a week of pre-school education, in addition to the free entitlement that all three and four-year-olds already receive. It also includes a £2.5 billion per year pupil premium to support disadvantaged children.

Those measures, combined with our plans for extra health visitors and a more focused Sure Start, will give children the best possible start in life. That is why we are extending the right to request flexible working to all, helping to shift behaviour away from the traditional nine-to-five model of work, which can act as a barrier to so many people and often does not make sense for many modern businesses, and why we will implement a new system of flexible parental leave, which will end the state-endorsed stereotype of women doing the caring and men earning the money when a couple start a family.

We do not need laws to make choices that protect the most vulnerable. When we have had to make difficult choices about how to deal with the record budget deficit left by Labour, we have done so in a way that protects the most vulnerable. We will increase child tax credits for the poorest families, protecting against rises in child poverty; we will increase spending on the NHS and schools in real terms every year; we will lift 880,000 of the lowest-paid workers out of income tax altogether; and we will protect the lowest-paid public sector workers from the public sector pay freeze.

All those policies were designed by the coalition to protect those most at risk and to give opportunities to those most in need. They are real action, not unnecessary empty gestures. That is why we are scrapping the socio-economic duty. I said during the passage of the Bill that this was a weak measure, that it was gesture politics, and that it would not have achieved anything concrete. The policy would only have been a bureaucratic box to tick—another form to fill in. It would have distracted hard-pressed council staff and other public sector workers away from coming up with the right policies that will make a real difference to people’s chances in life.

We cannot solve a problem as complex as inequality in one weak legal clause, and we cannot make people’s lives better by simply passing a law saying that they should be made better. We believe that real action should be taken to address the root causes of disadvantage and inequality. We do not need empty gestures, and we do not need the socio-economic duty, to do that.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

It is very disappointing that I had to ask the Minister to come here. I would have expected at least a written ministerial statement or a statement to the House on a decision of this nature.

Dropping the socio-economic duty was not in the coalition agreement. It was a major part of the Equality Act 2010, which Parliament passed only this year. While we know that the Conservatives have never wanted Government to take responsibility for building a more equal society, that is not the view that the hon. Lady herself has previously taken. In fact, despite her words just now, on Second Reading of the Equality Bill she called for more legislation:

“The Government should have made legislative proposals to tackle socio-economic inequality in a Bill of its own”.—[Official Report, 11 May 2009; Vol. 492, c. 579.]

Given the importance of narrowing the equality gap, does she still think this?

What proposals will the Minister now bring forward to assess the impact of Government policies on the most disadvantaged? Despite her fine words, is it not true that this Government simply do not care about socio-economic inequality? The Institute for Fiscal Studies has proved that the Government are hitting the poorest hardest. If there is no duty, how will people know about the impact of Government decisions on the most disadvantaged?

With this duty in place, public bodies would have had to think about what they should be doing to improve life chances. We all know about Sure Start; indeed, the Minister referred to it. We know its fantastic work, and how its impact is greatest on the most disadvantaged children. Councils would have had a duty to take that into account if they were thinking of closing children’s centres, but she is now saying that they will not. Does she think that is right?

The hon. Lady said that the duty is bureaucratic, but the truth is that the Government have the power to decide how it is implemented. Did the Government even attempt to draw up a flexible way of introducing it?

The Minister said that we cannot deliver equality by legislation, but the simple truth is that the Government do not believe that they have any responsibility to deliver a fairer society. Of course, legislation does not work like magic, but it is a key way that Government can change things. Road safety legislation does not stop all accidents, but it does make our roads safer and it does save children’s lives. This duty would have helped to make our society fairer, and it would have given poorer people a fair chance, so why is she scrapping it?

[Lynne Featherstone]

After 13 years of a Labour Government who left behind them a more unequal society with a widening gap between rich and poor, the idea that an exceptionally weak clause in an Act that has not been enacted or implemented was major legislation, when it contained only a duty to consider, is everything that is bad about politics. [Interruption.] It has not been implemented.

The public sector equality duty that will be introduced in the spring is the strongest measure possible. It will allow for transparency, and it will allow people to hold the authority to account in their locality. What the Government are doing is far more important than the duty the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) mentions. We are taking 880,000 lower-paid people out of tax, and spending £7 billion on the fairness premium and £2.5 billion on the pupil premium, which is additional money and the single most important measure for changing children’s life chances.

What is more, let me read to the hon. Lady what the last Government’s social mobility tsar Alan Milburn said:

“The challenges of the future call for a different relationship between the state and the citizen…It will mean…not just passing laws.”

But that was all the Labour party did—pass laws. What we are doing is about outcomes, not ticking boxes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

One of the changes that the hon. Gentleman has made to the immigration service system is to bring forward pre-entry English language testing for spouses overseas. What assessment has he made of the availability and quality of English language teaching in places such as Pakistan and India, where many of these spouses come from?

[Damian Green]

The hon. Lady mentions two particularly entrepreneurial societies where, if there is a need for businesses, businesses will spring up. I remind her that the desire to introduce English language tests in that sphere was promoted by a Government of which she was a member. We have brought it forward to this November because, as I am sure she agrees, it is a significant way of ensuring that everybody who comes to this country can be fully integrated into the life of this country. That seems to me to be an extremely important goal for the long-term health of our society.

Anti-Slavery Day

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

It is a good sign that you have had to shorten the time limit, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I am pleased that so many hon. Members are interested in the subject.

The scale of this worldwide problem has not sunk in. My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) opened the debate by saying that 27 million people are in some form of slavery around the world, which is just less than half the population of the United Kingdom. That is a truly shocking statistic.

Some passion has been expended in this House this week, whether on the date of a referendum, the reform of housing benefit, the European Union budget, or contaminated blood. This subject, above all, is one on which we should expend considerable passion. We should state how outrageous it is that 200 years after Wilberforce got rid of the visible slave trade, that cruel and inhumane form of treatment of our fellow human beings has crept back.

We are discussing a truly global phenomenon, which is happening not only in this country and in Europe but around the world. Last night I trawled the internet and picked out relevant press cuttings from the past two days. There are press reports about trafficking across east Africa, and countries such as Tanzania, Kenya and Rwanda are forming a regional network to do something about it.

A national action plan has been established in Greece, where the situation is relevant to this country. Children and young people, often young girls, from Romania, Albania, Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria and Russia are often tempted to travel to Athens. Their families may be in economic difficulties, and they are lured to Athens by the prospect of a better life having been told that they will be working as, for example, a hairdresser. They are taken to Athens before being sent to Amsterdam, London, Hamburg or another great European city, where they end up working in brothels as captives. It is good to see Greece taking the matter seriously.

In Malaysia nine people have been arrested in the past two days, seven of whom are immigration officials. I ask the Minister whether we are checking our staff to ensure that they are not complicit with gangs.

Those examples illustrate that we are discussing a worldwide problem, but at the same time it is a local problem that happens in our constituents’ streets. We know that brothels operate in private houses; we know that people are being used for domestic servitude in private houses; and we know that people are being forced to work as bonded labour in businesses that are close to us and to our constituents. We can all do our bit, because we can all be eyes and ears. We all need to look out and help the police and the authorities. Even buying Fairtrade chocolate provides us with an assurance that the chocolate that we are eating has not been produced by children who have been forced to work on cocoa plantations in Africa.

Prevention is obviously better than cure. How much public education and awareness raising is being done in the source countries from which people are being trafficked? How engaged are the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development in trying to spread public education and awareness, so that those young girls realise that there is great danger in being lured to be a hairdresser in Europe, and that it will probably not end up that way.

As Members of Parliament we all have a close relationship with our local newspapers, yet virtually all those newspapers—this is certainly true of the five newspapers in my constituency—carry advertisements for “adult services”, as they are euphemistically called.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman mentions advertisements in newspapers. Will he praise Newsquest, the newspaper publishing organisation, which has just banned such advertisements?

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I know that Members will forgive me if I do not respond or refer to every contribution, but what is striking about this debate—a debate that I am rather proud to have provoked from the Back Benches, and which I am now responding to from the Front Bench—is the extent of concern and the shared views across those on all Benches. Ten months after he introduced his Bill—now the Anti-Slavery Day Act 2010—I think that Anthony Steen would be proud that we are about to celebrate anti-slavery day. That must be some kind of record for implementing a policy.

I want to focus on an issue that Members on both sides of the House have raised, which is the EU directive. The Minister has said that the Government’s position on the matter will be reviewed, and I am grateful for that. I hope that he will forgive me for being boring about this subject—for continuing to persist with it—because he will recall that his party did exactly the same in opposition. Indeed, I recall the Prime Minister—then the Leader of the Opposition—claiming credit in March 2007 for the Government’s signing of the convention, when he asked a question about it across this Dispatch Box and the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said, as I recall, “We’re doing it on Friday.” The argument that he made at that time still holds: this is an international problem, and we need the best possible international collaboration between the countries that create movements of people across borders and those that receive them. I hope that the review will be concluded speedily, and that we will opt into the directive. Members have made the need for that clear today. My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) also explained in very human terms why we cannot possibly opt out of providing guardians for children.

My next concern is about policing. There is a risk that centres of expertise, such as the one that the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) has just mentioned, could become diluted by being merged with other institutions. I recall the words of the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), when he was the Opposition spokesman, in the debate on Anthony Steen’s Bill. He said:

“The existence of one central point of information on trafficking has clearly been valuable to police forces, the Crown Prosecution Service and other agencies.”—[Official Report, 5 February 2010; Vol. 505, c. 555.]

He was talking about the UK Human Trafficking Centre, and told the House how such centres of excellence improved the quality of policing. I am worried that we now risk losing some of that specialist focus. We began to sense that risk when the UKHTC was merged with the Serious Organised Crime Agency, and further mergers into the proposed national crime agency and a move to elsewhere in the country will mean that it will continue to exist. The widely respected director of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, Jim Gamble, told the Home Affairs Committee recently that he believed he would be “fighting for airtime” in a national crime agency.

We need to focus on how we can improve the policing of human trafficking. It is not enough to depend on a specialist border force, because many trafficked people are unaware that they are being trafficked when they cross the border. At that point, the trafficking experience has not kicked in. We need all-through expertise in order to police the issue properly. I am deeply concerned that we are about to see a cut in the number of police officers, and, without these centres of expertise, we might find ourselves policing the problem much less effectively.

I urge the Minister to make another commitment, which involves one of the requirements of the EU directive. We need to lead the training of police officers in the policing of this issue. We know that, in the best forces, where there is effective collaboration between the police and social services, we can make a real difference on this issue. If there were a proper cascading of policy and information, so that every police organisation could be at the level of the best, we could make better progress on this matter. I hope that the Minister will tell us that that is going to happen.

The hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) told the House that the national referral mechanism was overloaded. I heard from Kalayaan just two days ago how often it has to hesitate before referring someone to the national referral mechanism because to do so would be too burdensome, because its client would not be guaranteed advocacy, or because the bureaucracy involved would add to the stress being experienced by an already-stressed person. We need to ensure that the UK Border Agency’s domination of the processes is squeezed out, as the hon. Gentleman rightly suggested, and that we use the voices of the voluntary sector and of those people who have advocated on behalf of trafficked women and children. Of course, it is overwhelmingly women and children—people who are already vulnerable—who are the victims of this vile trade. We should therefore use this expertise to protect women and children.

I hope that the Minister will also be able to assure us about prosecution policy—that there will be more prosecutions for trafficking crime, that they will be effectively conducted and that specialist prosecutors who understand the experience of the vulnerable people who have been trafficked will be used. I would like the Minister to inform us whether the offence of paying for sex with someone who has been subject to exploitation is being effectively prosecuted, as I am anxious that it is not. Will he also tell us how many prosecutions are happening, as they provide an important mechanism to prevent trafficking by reducing the demand for it?

After all, Anthony Steen passed his Bill and we are marking anti-slavery day because we want slavery and trafficking to come to an end. We have talked about ways of prosecuting those engaged in this vile trade and we have talked about ways of protecting the victims, but what we really need to do is to prevent it. To achieve that, we need effective international collaboration and effective international policing, and we need to ensure that the people who have been trafficked are not trafficked again.

One of the most horrific things about the victims is how vulnerable they are to being re-trafficked. Many trafficked people, after they have been rescued, are re-trafficked. We know, for example, that trafficked children brought into this country to work in cannabis farms—we have heard something about that experience today—who are taken into local authority care usually, and I mean usually, disappear within weeks or months into the hands of their traffickers. If they are rescued again, they disappear again. It is unacceptable—and I believe every Member of this House believes it is unacceptable—for that to continue to occur.

I believe that the European directive provides a quite powerful mechanism that can be used to help in those circumstances by providing each child with a guardian. I want the Minister to sign up to the directive and I hope that he is going to tell us that he is taking steps to do so. If he does not sign up to it, however, the least he can do is to ensure that he really does what I am sure the Prime Minister believed we were really doing, which is doing everything in that directive.

I have been a Home Office Minister and, frankly, I know that Home Office officials have form in telling Ministers, “We are already doing that, Minister.” I believe that this Minister might have the guts to say to those officials, “Actually, show me how. Here is the provision in the directive; show me precisely how it works. If you cannot show me precisely how, let us implement a policy to do it.” I am scared that, with the cuts in policing and other expenditure cuts, even the protection that we are currently able to offer women and children will be watered down. I hope, however, that this Minister will not let that happen.

Public Expenditure Reductions (Women)

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. No integrity was being impugned, but the Library itself notes that its research paper is not a detailed assessment based on individual tax and benefit data and, therefore, remains a rough and ready approximation.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Has the hon. Lady commissioned the kind of detailed assessment, based on tax and benefit information, that she is uniquely placed to do? If she has, will she tell the House what it concluded about the emergency Budget?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I shall certainly come to that in the course of my speech.

Any analysis of tax and welfare changes by gender must make assumptions about how resources are shared within the household, and the Library’s research makes an extreme assumption that no income is shared. It is not robust, and it is based on outdated assumptions about family structures. On the issue of cuts to welfare hitting the poorest hardest, the Government have been clear that the burden of deficit reduction will have to be shared. The reforms that the Government are undertaking do protect the most vulnerable, including children and pensioners, and I shall go into detail about that in a moment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lynne Featherstone]

No, not at the moment.

Fairness is at the heart of all our decisions, so that the most in need are protected. Lord knows, the coalition Government have made extreme efforts to address the issue of protecting the vulnerable. We have spent more than £5 billion to try to equalise. That is why we are refocusing Sure Start, which the hon. Lady mentioned. We are ring-fencing its budget for this year and introducing 4,000 health visitors dedicated to helping the most disadvantaged families. That is why, as was mentioned, we are determined to make work pay by raising the tax threshold, lifting 880,000 of the lowest paid workers out of tax. The majority of them are women, who will come out of income tax each year progressively until the threshold has risen to £10,000. That will aid the lowest paid workers.

That is why we are determined to reform welfare to get people into work, creating a new Work programme to give the unemployed tailored support. It is why, as I said, we are protecting the lowest-paid public sector workers. It is why we are increasing child tax credits for the poorest families, protecting against rises in child poverty. Child poverty rose in the past few years under the Labour Government. [Interruption.] No, the whole point of tax credits for the poorest families is to protect against rises in child poverty. It is precisely why we are getting to grips with the deficit—so that we do not have to keep spending more and more on debt interest, leaving less to deliver the crucial public services that women need and depend on.

We are absolutely committed to a fairer future for women and their families, but the Government are not just about supporting women and their families through the tough times. I forgot to mention the index linking of pensions. I remind the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington that it was the Labour Government who made the derisory 75p pension offer, and who abolished the 10p tax band. I did not hear Labour Members cause uproar about either of those measures—well, the hon. Lady may have mentioned them, but in general terms, those were Labour policies that affected the poorest and most vulnerable, and they definitely hit women hardest.

We want to give people better prospects for a brighter future. We want to create the kind of cultural change that will enable people to escape the vicious cycle of inequality and poverty, so that they can improve the quality of their life and the lives of their family. The hon. Lady should know as well as I do—our constituencies are not dissimilar—that more than 2 million children live in poor housing, in crowded rooms and in squalid conditions. One in five children lives in poverty. I see for myself in my constituency the consequences of that vicious cycle, which people could never get away from because there were no pathways out. That is totally unacceptable. She and I both know about the pressures on housing in areas such as Hackney and Haringey.

We are putting bold new measures in place that will tear down the discriminatory and cultural barriers holding people back. The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have set up a childhood and families taskforce to tackle the barriers that prevent a successful family life and happy childhood. One of the main issues that the taskforce will consider is how we can help parents to balance their work and life. The hon. Lady raised the issue of single parents; nine out of 10 single parents who are out of work do not want to live off the state. They want a paid job. They want their independence. The problem is that there are not the flexible jobs out there that could fit with family life.

Many couples and individuals find it enormously difficult to strike the right balance between work and home. Traditional arrangements, in which mothers take the lion’s share of leave, simply do not suit everyone’s needs in the modern world. I totally refute the hon. Lady’s suggestion that the coalition Government are in any way old-fashioned. Our commitment is to moving the agenda forward. That is why we have already committed to looking at a system of shared parental leave and at extending the right to request flexible working to all. The latter, in particular, will tackle the old-fashioned notion that women ought to perform the bulk of caring—

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The hon. Lady promised earlier that she would tell the House her assessment of the equality impact assessment.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think that that was an intervention.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I was slightly taken aback by the hon. Lady’s “Oh, we’re going to look at the research before we do this”, given that, up until now, it seems there has been a failure to talk to those tasked with implementing the policy. Has she or any of her colleagues spoken to the Association of Chief Police Officers lead on rape about the policy, and what has his response been?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I have not spoken to the ACPO lead on the issue, but I will refer that question to the Secretary of State for Justice, who may well have done so.