Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy)

Debate between Fiona Mactaggart and Pauline Latham

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Pauline Latham]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point, but does she not recognise that France, Italy and Greece are safe countries? They are not Nazi Germany, where Lord Dubs came from. He escaped from being murdered. These children and families are not under threat of murder—they are in safe countries whose Governments should be respecting and dealing with them under all sorts of international rules.

Going back to the Syrian refugee camps in Jordan, every building at the Azraq camp has been provided by IKEA. Nobody gives it credit for supporting so many of these refugees. In the desert, all the solar panels that are heating and lighting the buildings have been given to the region by IKEA to help these young people. We are providing a lot of the education and health services.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

rose—

[Pauline Latham]

I will not give way again because I do not have long to speak.

We have provided the bore hole to provide safe water for the people there. They are safe. We should be saying to them, “Stay there.” Most of them do not want to come here. Why would they want to when they can speak their own language and do not need to learn English?

Why are all these people being pulled to Calais, Dunkirk and other places? They came recently. They were cleared in France, as we have heard. There was an agreement last year whereby those refugees were sorted out legitimately. More have come since then—many more—so one cannot say that there is no pull factor.

Violence against Women and Girls

Debate between Fiona Mactaggart and Pauline Latham

Thursday 12th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I want to make three main points. One is that violence against women and girls is serious. I want, secondly, to discuss better ways of preventing it and, thirdly, to raise issues about ensuring that policies and law actually work in practice.

The issue really is serious. I was looking at the statistics for Thames Valley, the police area that covers Slough, which I represent: one third of the assaults with injury, in the latest year for which figures are available, are as a result of domestic abuse—and actually not just assaults with injury are involved. If we look at the homicide figures for the Thames Valley area, we see that in the past five years there have been 86 adult homicides, of which 27 were domestic abuse-related homicides. One in three murders in the Thames Valley police area is domestic abuse-related.

This is a real problem, which is life-threatening for women and girls. We have to start from realising that and recognising that it is not just a question of bringing the perpetrators to justice. This debate has illustrated that very powerfully. It is also a question of preventing these kinds of incident in the future. That is mostly what I want to focus on—the education not just of girls but of wider society in how to protect girls and women from violence.

I held a meeting with women in my constituency about child sexual exploitation. They were concerned about the issue. They felt that policies were being developed “somewhere up there” and their experience, as anxious mums, was not part of the debate and discussion. It was striking that again and again they came back to the issue of education—education not just for their daughters, but for themselves.

One of my asks for the Minister is that every school should have not just education for girls, but PSHE education for mums and dads. That was the demand that came from the meeting in my constituency, and I think it is a brilliant demand, because lots of mums there said that they did not really know what their daughter or son was seeing on the internet. They did not realise that internet safety should mean that they keep the family computer in a room where they can see what is going on. They should not allow their sons to have access to computers in their bedrooms, because if they do, they will be looking at things that mum and dad do not want them to see.

[Pauline Latham]

I arranged an evening in a school to talk about just that. I invited two lots of parents from two very large schools to talk about what was happening. Do you know how many actually came? It was an official meeting at the school, and I had the then Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), and child protection people there. Twenty people came, and most of those were teachers. There were probably four or five parents.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I think that part of the reason for this situation is that we do this education too late. I do not know whether the hon. Lady’s school was a primary or a secondary school, but if we did it in primary schools, with which parents have a more intimate relationship, it is more likely that parents would do it. I think that we should do it in primary schools.

In Slough earlier this week, I talked about this issue at a meeting—a kind of youth question time for parliamentary candidates and their MP. A young woman came up to me and said, “Do you know what? The PSHE I got was much too late. It was when I was in year 10 or 11—something like that. Actually, it’s in year 7 that you are trying to make your first relationships with boyfriends.” I had the impression that she had been a victim of exploitation. She did not say anything that implied that she had been, but the fact that she wanted to take me into a corner and talk to me about this made me feel that she had been vulnerable and had not known what to do about her vulnerability. My anxiety about the welcome announcement from the Secretary of State is that this education will not happen young enough.

I used to teach year 6 in primary school. Some of my colleague teachers—this was a lifetime ago—were frightened of doing sex education, so I tended to be the person who did it, but I think that we have gone past that. It is really important that before girls have boyfriends and develop a sense of their own sexuality, they are able to have these conversations with trusted adults who can advise them on ways to be resilient to exploitation.

Women’s Contribution to the Economy

Debate between Fiona Mactaggart and Pauline Latham

Thursday 6th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I am delighted, Mr Robertson, to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) and the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) on securing this important debate to celebrate international women’s day. I hope to be rather more upbeat than the hon. Lady has been over the past 25 minutes.

In 2011, just 12.5% of FTSE 100 companies had directors who were women. It has been predicted that in 2015, that figure will rise to 25%, and that is undoubtedly partly a consequence of the hard work of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to get more women into senior positions. It is no mean feat to run a high-profile business, and it is clear that women are just as capable of doing that as men. The Derby-based firm DeltaRail, run by Anna Matthews, is an excellent example of a thriving business headed up by a woman, and that is particularly impressive given the male-dominated field in which she operates.

While the number of female company directors is a good indicator of women’s enhanced role in business, more should be done to emphasise the role of women in small and medium-sized enterprises, and the contribution that they make to the economy. There are far more SMEs than there are big businesses, and they employ more people. In my constituency of Mid Derbyshire, a number of enterprising women have struck out on their own and started their own businesses. Three years ago, my constituent Wendy bought a local business called Fresh Basil. She came from a farming background and had worked as a tax fraud inspector for some years before buying the shop. She wanted more freedom to do what she wanted to do.

Just three years on, Wendy is running a thriving café and delicatessen employing 20 people. Aside from providing employment for local people, she is also diligent in promoting local suppliers, using 90 of them to stock her shop and so reducing the number of food miles. The business also supports the aims of Transition Belper, which are to support local business and for people to spend £5 a week more in their area on local products, rather than going to supermarkets and big businesses. That brings far more money and disposable income into the local economy. Wendy helps budding producers to find buyers for their products. In the context of the wider local economy, she ensures that all her staff are trained ambassadors for the town of Belper, which is within the world heritage site of the Arkwright mills, where the industrial revolution began. They all can recommend local businesses to those who visit the town.

Another business headed up by one of my dynamic female constituents is Jack Rabbits. Amelia Horne started the business as a result of her passion for good, locally sourced food, and she now runs an incredibly successful grocery and café business. All the dairy products, meat and fish that the business sells are sourced from local suppliers, including from my local butcher, Barry Fitch, in my village of Little Easton. Even the wooden boards that they serve their food on come from a carpenter in Derbyshire.

Like Wendy, Amelia is keen to help the local community, and she supplies all the business leftovers to local homeless shelters. It is with reference to these two cases that I would say that increasing the number of women SME owners not only makes economic sense, in terms of the jobs created by businesses, but helps communities, and it is important that the Government support that. This, coupled with the fact that only 18% of SME owners in this country are women, makes it clear that more needs to be done to promote women in business. Sally Montague, who runs a local hairdressing organisation, opened her first salon in 1983. She now has six salons, ranging from one for students in the university of Derby, one in the city of Derby, one in Belper, one in Duffield in my constituency, and one in Ashbourne. She employs many young people—men and women—who are all local.

Of course, successful small businesses do not stay small for long, and Pennine Healthcare in Derby is a prime example. Liz Fothergill, the company’s CEO, started working at that family-run firm during her holidays when she was at university. She was the person responsible for establishing the company’s export links with Europe and the rest of the world, and now Pennine exports to 50 countries across the globe. Liz’s achievements have been widely acknowledged, and in June 2012, she was appointed His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales’s ambassador for the east midlands through his patronage of Business in the Community.

Such local examples show that women play a vital role in local economies and communities, and that should be reflected in international aid policy. Last year, there was an article in The Guardian about women’s savings and credit co-operatives, which help women in Ethiopia to set up shops that trade in local goods. In fact, the Department for International Development also helped with microfinance for women in many countries. The businesses are not always successful, but the profits earned by the women running them mean that they no longer financially depend on their husbands, and they serve to empower the whole community.

Community development projects also play an important part in getting women to engage with the local economy. I should declare an interest in a charity I work with; it is in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Free the Children creates infrastructure in communities in less developed countries through its “adopt a village” programme. The scheme consists of five pillars, one of which creates streams of income for previously impoverished areas, which means that local parents can afford to send their daughters to school. This has been particularly successful in Kenya, but it operates in India, South America, China and other countries, and it has encouraged female entrepreneurship.

Kenyan women are shown how to grow crops to give their children a much more balanced diet, and their children are taught at school about the benefits of drip irrigation and fertilisers on their crops. The women then buy goats, chickens and cows. They feel empowered and are challenging the men as the earners in their family. They feel so empowered that the men who were sitting about not wanting to take part are now saying, “Can we do some of this as well, please?” because they recognise that the money brought in benefits their children.

Free the Children is having its first “we” day in Wembley arena tomorrow, with 11,000 students from 700 schools nationwide. Most of the students will be girls, and they will hear from inspirational speakers such as Al Gore, Malala, Prince Harry and many others to encourage them to continue volunteering to help poorer people, and to help them themselves when they get to doing their GCSEs and A-levels. It has been shown that people who work with this organisation get better exam results, and many of them want to go into international development in the future.

On the number of women in Parliament, we have not set as good an example as we should. We are much better than we were. Many more women came in at the last election from the Conservative party than have ever been here before, but one or two of them are leaving. Perhaps it is time for the Conservative party to consider all-women shortlists. I have been completely against them before, but the Labour party had them, and they have cracked the system. If we do not get enough women at the next election, we may have to consider an all-women shortlist. I say that as someone who has always been against that, but we are not representative of the whole country as we should be. We would set a better example for girls coming into the world of work, and for women already there, so that they see that they can get to the top. We have had the first and only female Prime Minister in this country, and we should be proud of that, but this Parliament is not good enough yet.

I am delighted at the results of the Government’s hard work with regard to women board members. Again, there is still a good way to go to get more women involved in small business.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I welcome what the hon. Lady says about having an all-women shortlist, but on women board members, one of the problems is that too many of the additional women board members are in non-executive roles. Does she have any proposals to make more women executive board members?

[Pauline Latham]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point, but I think my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), who is sitting behind me, will address that in her speech, and I do not want to steal her thunder.

If more women were involved in small business, and if that was encouraged and supported by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and by the Department for International Development, which does a huge amount to help women and girls into employment and out of extreme poverty, we would see enriched communities not only nationally, but internationally. Everybody could unite around the fact that that is what we want for this world.

Modern-day Slavery

Debate between Fiona Mactaggart and Pauline Latham

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I do not think that I did make party political points. I welcomed the cross-party consensus on the issue, and praised the Government for their Bill. I did ask the Minister to go a bit further here and there, but I did that in common with Labour Members, and I do not think it fair to suggest that I made a party political speech.

[Pauline Latham]

Perhaps the hon. Lady feels that she did not do so, but I disagree with her on that.

As I have said, slavery takes a huge number of forms. I do not want to focus on international trafficking, although, having recently returned from Burma, I know that the Burmese fear that, following the opening of their borders, an increasing number of young girls will be taken to Thailand for trafficking. We should bear it in mind that they may end up in this country as well, and I think that the police and border agencies should look out for young girls coming here from Burma. Over the last few years, I have been made aware of slavery, trafficking, and the fact that people are groomed.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), a former Minister, spoke at an event that I organised recently in my constituency, along with Sheila Taylor, an old friend of mine from Derbyshire who set up and used to work for Safe and Sound Derby but is now a member of a committee that advises the Government, and members of CROP —Collective Response of Parents to Child Sexual Exploitation—who work with victims. I also invited the parents of children attending two secondary schools, both of which have between 1,300 and 1,500 pupils. The parents were very white and middle-class; the area that I am talking about is very much a leafy suburb. What shocked me was the small number who turned up to hear those very impressive speakers. Allowing for the fact that each of them might have had two children at one or other of the two schools, I think that there was probably a potential for 1,500 to turn up, but fewer than 20 did so. One or two teachers came along.

I think there is an attitude of, “It doesn’t happen here, does it? It happens in inner cities, it happens abroad, it happens anywhere but in leafy suburbs.” I set up this event because I had spoken to a constituent whose husband had been trafficking some children, particularly her daughter’s best friend. He had been working with these children, grooming them. He has been to prison, but is now out and is still trying to see these children. So this happens all over the world, including on our own back doorstep. I was interested to hear my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) talking about a brothel on the street where he had lived more or less all his life and my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) talking about the terrible problems he had had in his constituency.

Derby was one of the first areas to deal with this issue and it had Operation Retriever. A lot of men were grooming women and taking them off to Birmingham and other places, but these men have all been prosecuted and some have gone to prison. The men were from the inner city, but the children they were trafficking were not—again, they were often from very respectable backgrounds. There is a big problem with parents thinking, as they do about grooming and the internet, that their children are not going to be caught up in this. There is an obligation on every one of us in this House to try to make people aware of what might be happening on their back doorstep.