Currency in Scotland after 2014

Debate between Guy Opperman and Mel Stride

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Guy Opperman]

The arguments on fiscal regulation might appear dry and unexciting, particularly when addressed in the press, but they are utterly key to the future prosperity not only of the whole existing United Kingdom, but especially of Scotland if it were to become independent. Such aspects of fiscal regulation as my hon. Friend mentioned—how a bank would function; how a currency would be managed; what sort of interest rates would be managed; who is in charge of such matters—are totally unaddressed by the SNP. Frankly, they must be addressed if anyone is to have any faith in the SNP’s fiscal approach to the argument.

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does he agree that full currency union could have a devastating impact on the financial services sector in Scotland as banks migrate south to get the protection of the Bank of England as the lender of last resort?

[Guy Opperman]

I have no doubt that that would be the case.

I am mindful of your instructions, Mrs Riordan, so I must finish. If keeping the pound would not be possible as part of a formal sterling currency union; if the SNP no longer wishes to join the euro, which one can see; and if there is no prospect of an independent country with border control—my constituents are somewhat concerned that there might be a rerun of Hadrian’s wall—where are we? We will have a new Scottish currency. The expression that is used is “sterlingisation.” In its briefing on an independent Scottish currency, not part of a fiscal union, the House of Commons Library—I can assure the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) that it certainly is independent—states that such a

“policy is often used by countries which have a poor economic record.”

I could not have put it better myself. It is the currency situation in Greece, Panama, El Salvador and Montenegro; it is not what we should be pursing.

Citizenship (Armed Forces) Bill

Debate between Guy Opperman and Mel Stride

Friday 13th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

I endorse entirely my hon. Friend’s comments, but I would go one step further. Although there may be an unwritten contract between the public and the armed forces, the Government have brought in the armed forces covenant and will provide updated reports on its progress and changes to it. Not only do the public have the unwritten contract but we, the public and the state now have the covenant between ourselves and our armed forces.

[Mel Stride]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that extremely important point. We have the annual report on the armed forces covenant. The Bill proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Woking addresses one key omission in the last annual report, namely the qualification or otherwise for naturalisation based on where a person happens to be five years prior to making their application.

Some have argued that that is a relatively narrow and small point, but it is a large and significant one, particularly now that it has gained huge public notice as a consequence of my hon. Friend’s Bill. Many of the military charities, including the Royal British Legion, have demonstrably shown support for it. It is therefore important that we give the Bill every possible support as it passes through both Houses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

The Bill is about two of the most important issues that we in the House of Commons debate—namely, the armed forces and immigration. Most of all, however, it is about justice and fairness, and that is surely what the armed forces covenant is all about. The covenant is not just a piece of paper; it is a priority for the Government. It is about fair treatment for our forces and about having an impact on the lives of the military personnel who serve in our communities. Its remit goes wider than that, however; it is about justice. The armed forces covenant is about an obligation on the whole of society. It involves voluntary, charitable and other bodies, as well as private organisations and it is about how all of us as individuals treat those who put their lives on the line for us. We all need to recognise that fact and to engage with it, so that we can implement the crucial elements of the covenant.

I urge those who are in any doubt about the process that the Government have entered into to study the covenant itself and to work their way through its history. The covenant was established in May 2011, and it was based on the principles of removing disadvantage from serving personnel in relation to access to public and commercial services, and of allowing special provision in some circumstances for the injured and the bereaved. The Government committed to rebuilding the covenant and established an armed forces covenant taskforce in July 2010. The taskforce reported to the Government, and many of its recommendations have subsequently been implemented. It produced two reports. The size of the second report—the “Armed forces covenant annual report 2012”, which runs to almost 100 pages—is testimony to the seriousness with which the Government are addressing these issues. It contains details of the specific measures that we are taking.

Significant achievements are to be found in many discrete areas of the covenant. Health care, for example, is a matter of prime importance for service personnel. Investment has been made in areas such as medical equipment in theatre and mental health care provision. Many of us have spoken in the House about the importance of providing support for our servicemen and women after they have been discharged from the Army, or when they are merely returning home on leave. I urge Members to visit Headley Court, the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre, which was opened with £17 million of assistance from the Government. A further £5 million is going towards wards and accommodation. Thanks to the armed forces covenant, there have also been developments in housing. Members of the armed forces are now being placed at the top of the priority list on the Government’s First Buy scheme.

The armed forces covenant is why we are here today. The anomaly that the Bill seeks to address is that a serviceman or woman who serves overseas for a considerable length of time does not satisfy the requirements for naturalisation in the way that others are able to do.

This has great relevance to my own constituency because I have the privilege of having Albemarle barracks in my Northumberland constituency. For many years, the troops based there have been the 39th Regiment the Royal Artillery. By reason of the basing review, they are moving down to Wiltshire. We shall therefore be welcoming in the near future the 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery. Let me explain the relevance of this to the Bill.

The 3rd Regiment RHA has been based at Caen barracks in Hohne, Germany. Many soldiers have spent a considerable period of time there—overseas. I do not know the exact number of individuals, but if that regiment has overseas servicemen working there who, by reason of the British Nationality Act 1981, do not qualify for citizenship, they would be exactly the sort of individuals who would benefit from the fact that this Government are addressing this particular anomaly.

I speak as a fifth generation immigrant—one with a lot more “Saxon” than “Anglo” in my name. It is certainly the case that anyone coming from 3rd Regiment RHA should be able to benefit when, as we all hope, the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord), who has done great job bringing it before us, becomes law. I endorse entirely the support that various charities and Army organisations have expressed for the Bill and I welcome the fact that the Government have consulted them and got them involved. Like many others, I am a huge supporter of the Royal British Legion. I have raised funds for my local branch and it does a fantastic job. In addition, I welcome the fact that organisations such as Veterans Aid and the Army Families Federation have got involved and strongly supported my hon. Friend’s Bill.

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful case for the Bill. Is it not just as significant that, as far as we are aware, no organisations are hostile to the Bill, just as all the military charities are in favour of it?

[Guy Opperman]

That is the case. We need to recognise that there is a rich tradition of this country working with overseas soldiers in pursuit of the aims and objectives of the Queen and this country. One needs to think only of the battle of Britain. The Spitfire was not manned to the greatest degree by Anglo-Saxon men and women, as there were 145 pilots from Poland, 135 from New Zealand, 112 from Canada and 88 from Czechoslovakia; 41 were Irish and there were 32 Australians, 28 Belgians, 25 South Africans, 13 French, 11 Americans and one each from Sri Lanka, Jamaica and Zimbabwe. An interesting point that dovetails with our consideration of this Bill is that Jamaica will be particularly affected because its citizens continue to support and serve in our armed services to this day.

We appreciate the fact that the Bill is amending just one small part of the armed forces covenant, but it is certainly something that we should all support. As I reflect on the fact that there appears to be no opposition to the Bill and full support for it from a whole range of organisations, it makes me glad to be participating in private Members’ Bill proceedings for what I believe is the third time—I have a rich history over three years and three months with the Mobile Homes Bill and the Antarctic Bill, both of which I am pleased to say became law. I am very pleased to support my hon. Friend the Member for Woking on his Bill; he has done a fantastic job.

Support for Prisoners’ Families

Debate between Guy Opperman and Mel Stride

Friday 12th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to raise the important issue of prisoners’ families. I thank my hon. Friend the prisons Minister for agreeing to answer on behalf of the Government and for his help and the time he has given me on this issue over a long period, including meeting my constituent, Mary Stephenson, and the String of Pearls project some weeks ago.

There are around 3.7 million recorded crimes in this country every year. For each of those crimes there is at least one direct victim, and in many cases many direct victims. However, that should not mean that we overlook what many refer to as the hidden victims: prisoners’ families. Approximately 160,000 children in this country currently have one or both parents inside prison. That is approximately twice the number of children in care and more than the number who suffer as a consequence of the divorce of their parents in any one year. Those children are three times as likely to suffer from mental health problems as other children in society. More than 60% of young boys who have one parent incarcerated are likely to go on to offend and go into prison later in their lives as a consequence.

Families on the outside often suffer the social stigma of the communities in which they live. It is often assumed that families have brought these problems on themselves. Children at school might suffer bullying and many of these families might find more solace in the local criminal fraternity than they do among their neighbours and the communities in which they live. Many families suffer emotional problems, stresses and financial problems, particularly where the individual in prison has previously been the breadwinner. Families also suffer problems in visiting their loved ones in prisons, especially when many of the prisons are a long way from home. The Minister may be able to provide some more recent information in a few moments, but I know that in 2003 some 11,000 prisoners were incarcerated at a distance greater than 100 miles from where their family lived.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my book, which covers some of the issues on this subject, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he recall that in 2007 a large number of charities, led by the Prison Reform Trust, reported to the inter-ministerial group on reducing reoffending, and that the findings were that

“prisoners who received visits from their family were twice as likely to gain employment on release and three times as likely to have accommodation arranged as those who did not receive any visits”?

Is not the heart of the point that it underlines the lack of reoffending, which is what we also seek?

[Mel Stride]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and congratulate him on the deep and detailed research he carried out for the production of his book. I very much take his point: it is essential that families are connected to prisoners for, among other reasons, the reason he has just elaborated. It is not just the ability of families to connect with their loved ones in prisons that matters, as the quality of the experience when they do is also important, as I shall explain in a few moments.

The issue is not just about the suffering of families, because it is the value of the families in the rehabilitation process that really matters. It is a fact that where a prisoner comes out of prison into a family environment—gaining the support identified by my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman)—they are 40% less likely to reoffend than if there were no family there to support them. The economic costs to our criminal justice system of reoffending are, of course, absolutely immense, running in excess of £10 billion a year. The beneficial effects are felt not only by those being released but by their children, and we can see demonstrable reductions in inter-generational crime resulting from the presence of families and their support for prisoners on release.

The support from families comes while the prisoners are inside prison, and I think one of the most important aspects of prison visits and connections between families and prisoners is that they are there to remind those inside what is happening outside so that when prisoners leave they will have very real personal responsibilities and it will be for them to tackle them. It is also known that where family visits and contacts with prisoners are facilitated, the likelihood of self-harming among prisoners is reduced, as indeed is the likelihood of suicide.

Outside prison, family contact helps, as my hon. Friend indicated, in the provision of jobs and appropriate housing. It also leads to what some describe as prisoners having “a stake in conformity”, meaning that they have social pressure from the family network to ensure that they do not reoffend, that they go straight and avoid lapsing back into drug use or the misuse of alcohol.

I am very heartened by the direction of travel that Ministers have mapped out for us on the criminal justice side. I believe that payment by results, when it comes to involving voluntary or private organisations, is a good way to help ensure rehabilitation, leading to an unleashing of innovation, of entrepreneurial spirit, of creativity and to solutions being suggested that are appropriate to local circumstances. I also believe it is important that the Government have announced 70 resettlement prisons. Prisoners in the final three months of their sentence will be closer to their families than would otherwise be the case, with all the benefits I have identified.

As a general point, it is extremely important that we ensure that the level of contact I am describing exists throughout the criminal justice process, from as close as possible to the point of arrest and charge and certainly right the way through to prison and post-release. The nature of that contact should be weighted towards mentoring for families by individuals who have gone through the difficulties associated with having a loved one in prison and who can therefore share their experience, compassion and insight.

I have a series of points and questions for the Minister, on which I ask for his comments. The first question is how he and his colleagues see the Government encouraging organisations that are involved in the rehabilitation process, particularly the smaller and perhaps more innovative ones. I think particularly of String of Pearls, the project that Mary Stephenson and her colleagues have been operating in HMP Channings Wood. We need to ensure that such projects are not crowded out by the likes of G4S and Serco, about which we have heard less than flattering news recently.

[Guy Opperman]

I pay tribute to the organisations that my hon. Friend cites in support of his argument. Does he agree that there is potential in the years to come for one of those organisations, or a group of them together, to take over a resettlement prison, so that instead of having a state-run or privately run prison, we have a community or charity-run prison that will work for the benefit of the community?

[Mel Stride]

I thank my hon. Friend for that interesting idea. That is the exciting part of the Government’s direction of travel—all sorts of innovation, partnership arrangements and possibilities may occur in the future, because we are not being too prescriptive from the centre. We are allowing best practice to thrive in a pluralistic market, allowing competition to drive up standards and so on.

Might the Minister consider additional funding for some small providers, such as String of Pearls, so that they are not crowded out by the bigger players and so that, further down the line, we can have a more pluralistic marketplace of providers and encourage the innovation and nimble-footedness that we associate with smaller organisations in particular?

I also ask the Minister how we can ensure that prisoners’ families are a major focus of rehabilitation organisations. I wonder whether the fee mechanism might be a way of achieving that. I know that there are three strands to the way in which providers will be paid. There is payment by results, but there is also the fee-for-service strand, which I understand is for providers meeting certain set criteria. I wonder whether we may have a sharp focus in those criteria on the involvement of families, so that organisations that are strong in that respect are rewarded for it. As I understand it, the third strand of the payment structure will be penalties for failure. I would like providers who ignore the importance of families to be penalised in some form.

The other thought I would like to share with the Minister is that the justice data lab, which we have set up to allow rehabilitation providers to benchmark their performance against other providers and against the norm, is also there to share best practice. I would like to see a strong focus on family involvement as an element of best practice in that data lab.

I wish to ask the Minister about prison visits. As I suggested, I think they are extremely important, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham shares that view. How can we increase the frequency of visits? At present only about 50% of prisoners receive their full statutory entitlement of visits, and I would like us to consider how we might increase that.

[Guy Opperman]

The evidence overwhelmingly supports my hon. Friend’s argument that prisons are at their most peaceful shortly before visits. That is because the anticipation of those visits serves to calm the whole prison down.