Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Fiona Mactaggart and Elizabeth Truss

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Ministers have praised the Corston report on women in the criminal justice system and yet are currently planning, I hear, to open specialist units for women as adjuncts to men’s prisons, going in the opposite direction to the Corston report. Can they reassure me that I am wrong?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I can reassure the right hon. Lady that she is wrong and we are not doing that. In fact, I will be giving a speech this afternoon on the 10th anniversary of the Corston report, and she is very welcome to come along.

HMP Birmingham

Debate between Fiona Mactaggart and Elizabeth Truss

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. If he looks at the way we review prisons, he will find that the performance of the private and public sectors is relatively equivalent. There is not a significant difference between performance in the private and public sector. We set the levels of staff that the private sector has to employ. We are moving towards a 1:6 ratio in both the public and private sectors. All our evidence suggests that that will be enough to make sure that we keep prisons safe and, importantly, to reform prisoners to reduce the cost of reoffending.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State said in her statement that these matters had been developing over a number of years, but is it not the case that between 1997 and 2010 there were no cat A escapes and no riots like the ones we have seen? Since that time, there have been two category A and many other escapes, record numbers of suicides and record numbers of homicides in our prisons. Why should we trust the right hon. Lady’s party to run the Prison Service?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I have said absolutely that we have seen significant rises in violence over recent years. That is why we launched the prison safety and reform plan. The first thing I did when I became Secretary of State was to make sure that we dealt with those issues. We have faced new challenges such as psychoactive drugs and mobile phones, which were not an issue before. I say to the right hon. Lady that since the inception of prisons we have not seriously impacted the reoffending rate, which is a challenge we face as a country. It is costing us £15 billion a year. It is important that we make our prisons safe, but also make them places of reform where we can reduce reoffending. Prisons need to follow both purposes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Fiona Mactaggart and Elizabeth Truss

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I commend my hon. Friend for his work as a Minister in the Department to promote legal links with India; I am pleased to say that those are being taken forward. The Prime Minister will visit India this month to pave the way for UK lawyers to practise there, helping to improve our international business and trade. English law is a massive asset that we can leverage for wider business negotiation.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

How many of the inquest reports on self-inflicted deaths in custody has the Minister read, and what actions has he taken as a result of the recommendations of inquests that have caused real distress to families?

Child Care

Debate between Fiona Mactaggart and Elizabeth Truss

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The Minister referred to the child care survey on increasing costs and pointed out that between 2002 and 2010 there had been an increase of 46% in a period when wages were rising. The same survey shows that the present increase from the baseline is 77%, at a time when wages have fallen. Should she not take some responsibility for taking a bigger bite out of the family budget?

[Elizabeth Truss]

That 77% starts in 2003, and I believe that the Labour party was in government then.

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central claims that we are not supporting school-based child care. On the contrary, the most recent data show a 5% increase in the number of after-school clubs. The difference between our view and his is that we think that school-based child care actually takes place in a school. The Labour party alleges that more than 90% of schools were offering an extended day in 2010, but I do not think that any parents with schoolchildren at that time would recognise that number. A school did not have to provide child care onsite, but could fulfil the requirement by linking to a child care provider on its website. That is what the Labour party meant by “extended day”.

It turns out that the Opposition’s new offer is no different. The shadow child care Minister, the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), wrote recently that

“if a school chooses not to stay open longer hours because they do not need to offer this provision on site – they will not be forced to stay open. Schools can…facilitate out of hours childcare elsewhere for pupils”.

The shadow Secretary of State has a vision of children playing sport after school, but this after-school provision would not have to be on the school site and would be paid for by parents. How is that different from the current situation, where people pay a childminder after school? I am not sure how Labour’s so-called primary school guarantee, which need not take place in school, which schools would simply facilitate and which parents would pay for, would be any different from the current situation. It is a child care mirage: the closer one walks to it, the less certain it seems.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Fiona Mactaggart and Elizabeth Truss

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I, too, commend the work done by pupils and teachers at Sandbach high school, and I thank my hon. Friend for bringing it to my attention. I would be interested to hear more from her about how that school carries out best practice. She rightly highlights that PSHE plays a role in ensuring how pupils learn about, recognise and spot the signs of abuse and grooming, helping them to stay safe and to make informed choices.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Are not too many teachers anxious about raising such subjects in the classroom? We know of the real risks that young girls face—most brutally revealed at the Old Bailey last week by the cases of young children in Oxford? What can the Minister do to help teachers in the classroom to have the tools they need to protect these girls?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that we need teachers to be aware of, and well trained in, these issues. I would like to learn from the case raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and to share it as best practice, so that we can ensure that those important issues are taught in our schools.

International Women’s Day

Debate between Fiona Mactaggart and Elizabeth Truss

Thursday 8th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I am old enough to remember the invention of child benefit. It ended a child tax allowance system that advantaged the richest more. The great thing about child benefit is that it says that all of us are responsible for children. It ought to be universal. It is, in effect, a tax allowance for children. It is quite wrong to suggest that it is a benefit from which richer people should be exempted. Everyone who has children should be responsible for them.

[Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I want to give everyone the opportunity to get in. Although I am happy to take interventions, I think that I should resist so that more Members have a chance to—

[Elizabeth Truss]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I have just explained why I am not giving way.

We are told that the proposed universal benefit will make work pay, but for whom? It will end the tradition, built up in the Labour years, of paying family benefits to the main carer in the household, who is usually a woman. Men will be the default recipient. As a result, women and children will get less.