Lammy Review

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)]

Following on from the previous question, the review talks about building trust between the police and young people. What consideration has my hon. Friend given to assigning a police officer to a year group in each school who could then build relationships with that year group throughout their school career?

[Alex Chalk]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. I think that it is a proposal that has found favour in other jurisdictions—maybe even in the United States. I cannot speak for the Department for Education, but it strikes me as an extremely interesting idea, which I invite my hon. Friend to raise with DFE colleagues.

Oral Answers to Questions

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

We were very happy to receive the right hon. Member’s review in 2017 on ethnic minority individuals in the criminal justice system and have acted on many of its recommendations. We recently published an update on progress across the Lammy recommendations, which demonstrates a range of work. I am very happy to meet him. I do not make that offer on behalf of the Secretary of State—[Interruption.] I hear that the Secretary of State is also happy to meet him to discuss the very important work on this area.

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)]

4. What plans he has to help reduce prisoner reoffending.

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

7. What plans he has to reduce prisoner reoffending.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Robert Buckland)]

There will be a renewed and ambitious cross-Government effort to reduce reoffending. It will build on the existing established partnerships with a range of other Government Departments. We will focus on addressing the health of offenders, educational attainment, rebuilding or reinforcing family relationships, and housing and employment issues.

[Mrs Drummond]

Many of those in prison have low educational attainment and lack skills, which makes it difficult for them to integrate on release. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that education and training in prisons give offenders the skills they need to have successful crime-free lives when they are released?

[Robert Buckland]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. She can be reassured that in April 2019 we implemented new prison education contracts which deliver services designed by prison governors and staff to best meet the specific needs of their prisoners and local labour markets. Indeed, we will be developing a new prison education service that will build on further commissioning, improving the range of training available to prisoners that is directly linked to real jobs on their release.

Oral Answers to Questions

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

In prisons in England and Wales, 80% of our staff have been with us for more than five years. However, I want us to retain and train up those experienced members of staff. We are creating 2,000 new grade 4 posts at a salary of £30,000 to make sure that we retain those experienced prison officers who are so vital to running our prisons well.

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State clarify whether there are any plans to increase the numbers of staff providing education and training to prisoners, because that will help prisoners’ employment prospects and stop them reoffending?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We are making sure that governors decide how education will work in their prisons. We will set standards. We will see how fast prisoners progress in English and maths and whether they are getting the vocational work skills they need to get a job. I was recently in HMP Onley and saw the fantastic work being done by Halfords, getting those people into employment. Ultimately, the governor will have control of the education budget. Governors can decide how best to spend it and how to get the best results.

Emergency Services: Closer Working

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship yet again, Mr Bone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) on securing this debate. It is a great pleasure to praise the example that we have in Hampshire of how the emergency services and the local authority—Hampshire County Council—can work together. We already have some of the finest services in the county, with Hampshire constabulary leading the way in efficiency and focusing on the priorities of policing. I was sad to hear of the departure of Chief Constable Andy Marsh, and I know other Hampshire MPs will want to join me in paying tribute to him. His successor will inherit a strong and effective force, which I will be pleased to support in Parliament.

However, I must sound a note of concern about the plan that the police and crime commissioner has unveiled to close police stations in Portsmouth. I am going to be parochial for a couple of minutes to illustrate a point. The city faces unusual challenges of geography. We have only three main roads on to Portsea Island, and they lead into the most densely populated space outside London. It is unthinkable that we should be left without a fully supported police station and I hope that Mr Hayes will reconsider his options. The first that any of us heard about this plan was through our local newspaper, which is no way to manage a service that we all depend on for public safety. In the light of the proposals for the police and crime commissioners to take on greater responsibility, it is a real cause for concern. I know from my postbag that the closure plan is alarming to constituents, and I will continue to oppose it.

However, to get back to positives, in the fire service we have had the recent consultation on its future as a service in Hampshire, and how it can adapt to a changing physical environment and capitalise on a steady improvement in fire safety. We know that over the past 10 years, the number of call-outs to domestic incidents has halved. Call-outs overall are down by almost a third, and Hampshire fire and rescue is in the best-performing quartile in the country for response times.

As has been mentioned, in Hampshire we already have a highly evolved co-operation between the emergency services. It is called H3: Hampshire fire and rescue, Hampshire County Council and Hampshire constabulary. The sharing of facilities between Hampshire fire and rescue service and the police has been achieved without radical surgery to governance; it is all about common sense. The fire service works with the South Central ambulance service as a co-responder, and they share buildings in parts of the county, too. There is a genuine willingness to co-operate in Hampshire, which is perhaps at a more advanced stage than that assumed by the proposals to legislate. So I hope that any legislation does not impose unwieldy structures where there is flexibility at present. I know from the Hampshire fire and rescue service consultation response that that is of concern. It also makes the excellent point that there is the potential for co-operation nationally in bringing ambulance services into the mix. That is a very powerful argument from a service that already knows so much about collaboration.

Indeed, it is important that the differing roles and competences of our emergency services are respected when it comes to matters such as accountability for complaints and personnel. There are plenty of areas for potential integration, such as communications and service planning, and in outreach and safety issues of all kinds. Let us make sure we focus on what is practical first and keep that flexibility for our emergency services to design the best services for their particular region.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [Lords]

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)]

I know that time is limited so I shall be very quick. I am absolutely delighted with this Bill. I have worked for a long time, before being elected to this place, with a number of families who have suffered terribly from the effects of these dangerous chemicals. I have heard at first hand their stories at meetings of organisations such as Rebound, ANA and other charities I have worked with.

I was extremely grateful for the support of the previous Justice Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), who came down to Portsmouth to meet the victims. He was horrified to be taken around the five head shops there. I took him to one where drugs are sold over the counter. Mr Speaker, you will be horrified to know that there is a head shop selling these chemicals just over the road from a primary school in Portsmouth, and there is another one opposite a secondary school. I am pleased that my local paper, The News, has been backing this campaign. Hampshire police have had their own initiative against “lethal highs,” as they accurately call them. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) will join me in applauding the excellent work they have done in this field.

Whatever we call these new psychoactive drugs—legal highs, club drugs or a number of innocent-sounding brand names for specific compounds—the sellers and producers deliberately hide the dangers they pose from the people who consume them. The drugs look glitzy, as if they belong in a sweet shop, but they are extremely dangerous. Some of the compounds often mixed in legal highs are already controlled substances, such as ketamine and mephedrone, but there is also a wide range of uncontrolled chemicals. I am really pleased that they will now all be brought under control as a result of this Bill. I urge all local authorities, including my own in Portsmouth, to start planning now for how they will deal with head shops and tackle this menace generally.

As always, we have to balance punishment and criminalisation against rehabilitation and support. Many of the people who take these substances are vulnerable and need support as well as deterrence, and that includes many people in the criminal justice system. Many of those who dabble in these substances are children, and they are especially vulnerable, as the substances hide behind deceptively childish names and presentation. Having seen at first hand the effect on families, I believe that we need to take action now. I am absolutely thrilled that the Bill is going to be passed through this House tonight.

Women and the Economy

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

I will come on to that a little later in my speech, but I join the right hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to Jo Swinson, my predecessor in this role, who did an excellent job.

This commitment to gender equality informs the difficult decisions that we have had to make to return the country to surplus and ensure that we no longer depend on debt. We must not forget, despite the mass amnesia that seems to have broken out on the Opposition side of the House, that we are in this position because of Labour’s financial mismanagement, which meant that we have had to take very difficult and unpleasant decisions to balance the books and live within our means. We know that women still earn less, own less and retire with less than their male counterparts.

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)]

rose—

[Alison McGovern]

rose—

[Caroline Dinenage]

Where do I start with the motion before us? I will have a little sit down while I think about it.

[Mrs Drummond]

Is the Minister appalled, as I am, by the fact that the number of women claimants for jobseeker’s allowance went up by 740,000 during the last two years of the Labour Government, between 2008 and 2010? That nearly doubled the previous number of claimants, but the number has now been reduced by 746,000 under our Government.

[Caroline Dinenage]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We will not take any lessons about female employment from the Labour party.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)]

As we near the end of the debate, I will be a bit more positive about the role of women. Last week, we celebrated Small Business Saturday and I met up with several women running businesses in Portsmouth. In Portsmouth, we have a really strong entrepreneurial culture and women are playing a full part in it. We know that nationally one of the areas where women are still catching up with men in the world of business is in self-employment and running our own businesses, so Portsmouth’s women are leading the way.

We know from figures supplied by Barclays bank that 40% of small businesses in Portsmouth South have been set up in the past three years. This is a reflection of a recovering and growing economy, and greater confidence. We also know from the same data that small businesses in Portsmouth are more likely to survive and grow beyond that crucial three-year start-up period.

[Mrs Miller]

Like my hon. Friend, I was out on Small Business Saturday and I met local business people in Basingstoke. I would just like to commend Mitch Lloyd at the Viables craft centre for the excellent business she runs, leading the way in that area for women in business.

[Mrs Drummond]

I would love to mention all the great women in Portsmouth setting up businesses. I do not have the time, however, as I have to move on to quite a few subjects. I always support our business community, and if someone wants to start a business, that community will support them.

Nationally, we had a steady growth in self-employment among women even during the most difficult phases of recovery from the recession. Self-employment among women has grown by over 300,000 nationally since 2008. Overall, the level of women in employment has already overtaken the level it stood at pre-recession, with 69% of women of working age now in work—the highest level since records began.

Almost 12% of our families in Portsmouth are single-parent families—a higher than average figure—so the economic wellbeing of women is vitally important to the welfare of our families. I am pleased that we are committed to expanding free childcare for two, three, and four-year-olds with an extra £1 billion. It is important when we look at the figures for these services that we do not just assume that “more” of anything automatically means “better”. I am thus pleased to report that in Portsmouth we have a higher than average percentage—85%—of childcare providers deemed “good or better” by Ofsted. Improved childcare will play a big part in closing the productivity and earnings gap between men and women.

The wage gap for women under 40 is narrowing—something we would expect to see as inequality is wiped out through generational changes in attitudes and education. Women aged between 22 and 39 in full-time work actually enjoy a pay gap over men, while women over 40 still face a big gap in full-time earnings—typically over 10%. I am therefore delighted that the Committee on Women and Equalities will inquire into the problem of the wage gap for women over 40. I shall enjoy contributing to that Committee alongside my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller). I hope to set up an all-party parliamentary group on women and work, and hope that some Opposition Members will play a big part in it, too.

The motion mentions violence against women, which is naturally a topic that is important to all of us. The Government are committed to reviewing safeguards against stalking and harassment, and to bringing in a unified strategy on fighting violence against women and girls. It is an area in which local authorities play a major role, too, and I am pleased to learn from Portsmouth City Council that it is protecting domestic violence services in next year’s city budget. The council is doing more than that—it is looking at how to move on local authority involvement from being just a funder of services to being a facilitator and an educator. I welcome that initiative, led by councillors across the parties, which is going out into the community and aims to help victims and witnesses of domestic violence to challenge this behaviour. The processes of social change that fight racism, sexism and other behavioural problems are never driven purely by spending Government money.

The situation of women in prison is relevant to domestic violence. We know that a huge contributory factor to the number of women in prison is abuse and violence earlier in their lives. Often the misery and disruption brought on by violence is a factor that drives women directly into the criminal justice process. Just as it is important that we prevent violence in the home, so it is important that we do not perpetuate the cycle in our prisons or condemn women and their families to a life scarred by their involvement with the criminal justice system. The plans to close Holloway prison, which were announced as part of the comprehensive spending review, are very welcome, and I am sure that the future shape of women’s prisons will be informed by the reformist and positive language we heard from the Prime Minister at the Conservative party conference and from the Secretary of State for Justice. If more can be done through the use of non-custodial sentences, it will have a big effect on the welfare of families and children.

We know that the strongest positive agent of change in social policy is the growing affluence that a strong economy supports. It drives greater cohesion in our communities, improves public health outcomes, reduces crime and does much to level out inequalities and challenge discriminatory attitudes in our society. There will always be more that the Government can do to encourage businesses and individuals towards positive attitudes and outcomes, but it is clear that the best thing they can do—for men and women—is enable the strong economic growth outlined in the comprehensive spending review.