State Pension Age (Women)

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mhairi Black]

That is why the debate is so important, and we should call on the Government to act. However, because pensions are so complicated, it is important, not just for the benefit of some Members, or people in the Gallery, or those watching at home, to try to explain why those women have found themselves in the position that they are in.

To do that, we must go back to 1995, when the Pensions Act increased the female state pension age from 60 to 65. The purpose of that was to equalise the pension age so that women retired at the same age as men. That is fair enough; it makes sense and I do not think anybody would disagree with that principle. The Turner commission recommended that 15 years’ notice be given to individuals if their pension arrangements were to change to give them adequate time to respond appropriately. The 1995 Act technically did that. The equalisation—the changes—was not to be brought in until 2010, which technically gave women 15 years’ notice. The problem is that nobody knew about that. As late as 2008, fewer than half of women knew that they would be affected. The National Centre for Social Research stated in 2011 that only 43% of women were aware of the planned change.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady makes an important point about people not being aware. It would seem that Government Front Benchers are not aware: there is no Equalities Minister here and there is no Department for Work and Pensions Minister here. That is greatly concerning.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

I am here.

[Helen Goodman]

You are not in the DWP.

[Mr Vara]

I am.

--- Later in debate ---

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth). I should like to praise the reasonableness of the Women Against State Pension Inequality—WASPI—campaign. Several campaigners have come to my constituency office, and they have put forward their arguments in a cogent, respectful and thoughtful manner.

Since 2010, this Government have been taking the difficult decisions necessary to get Britain’s deficit under control. This has often been contentious and involved many political disagreements with the Opposition. Since the Turner report, however, the one area on which Members on both sides of the House have in no small degree agreed is pensions. For more than a decade, MPs from all parties have been working together to tackle the challenges posed by an ageing population and to ensure the long-term financial security of elderly people. This quite unusual political consensus was both necessary and heartening in dealing with a long-term issue.

It is no secret that, without change, our current state pension arrangements will simply not be financially sustainable. People are living longer than ever: a teenager today can expect to live until the age of 90. That is to be celebrated, but it also imposes serious burdens on welfare systems that were designed in another age. In the last Parliament, the Government estimated the cost of abandoning state pension age reforms at a completely unaffordable £23 billion, the equivalent of putting 7p on income tax.

Much of this debate focuses on the impact of these measures on women, so perhaps we should reflect on how much this Government have done to improve the position of women in the pensions system.

[Helen Goodman]

Before the hon. Gentleman tells us that everything is okay, would he like to hear the experience of one of my constituents? She says:

“I have worked full time since leaving school at 16. I am now 61. I have worked through 10 years of kidney failure, dialysis and finally a kidney transplant. The effects have taken their toll. I cannot afford to retire without a state pension so I have another five years of my current life to look forward to, assuming my kidney does not fail or I die of something else.”

Surely that level of hardship is unacceptable.

[Julian Knight]

I thank the hon. Lady for putting the words into my mouth that everything was okay. I remind her that she is a member of the party that was in government from 1997 to 2010, and if there is anything amiss regarding the publicising of these changes, Labour Members ought to look to themselves in that respect.

The motion regrets that the Government have

“failed to address a lifetime of low pay and inequality faced by many women”.

I really do not recognise that. Let us consider two central planks of this Government’s policy—namely, raising personal allowances and increasing the minimum wage to the living wage. Both those initiatives benefit women tremendously. In addition, the Government are looking at options to reform pensions tax relief, which was left unaltered by the Labour Government.

Police Funding Formula

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I sometimes get myself in trouble here for being too honest and too forthright, so I thank my hon. Friend very much for those comments. I cannot promise anything as we start a new process, but I will sit down with people from all the constituencies and all the forces to make sure we get the best we can with the modern formula. As I say, that will be suspended for a year.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Durham was last month ranked the highest-performing force in the country, so it is very worrying that there might be a £10 million cut. Does the delay mean that there will cuts in the autumn statement followed by further cuts in 18 months’ time?

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need to ensure that we tackle such problems, whether they involve bullying online or inciting people to take their own lives. We are working directly with ISPs and with those who have websites to ensure that there is more moderation and that there are opportunities to turn off anonymous postings. Those are the practical measures that can be put in place to help people have safer access to the internet.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Since we last met, we have seen the National Audit Office’s devastating report on the Government’s failure on broadband, which is extremely important to many people, but I am not going to ask the Government about that—[Laughter.] No, I am not, because also since we last met two children have taken their own lives following cyber-bullying; that is also a matter of extreme concern to people in this country. I have arranged to see the Latvian ambassador to discuss whether ask.fm is co-operating properly with the police. The Government did not even mention social media in their summit conclusions or their communications paper. Why does the Secretary of State not put a legal obligation on social media sites to tackle cyber-bullying?

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady needs to be very careful with what she is talking about. We are absolutely taking action on cyber-bullying. There is already guidance in place to help schools and to help children understand cyber-bullying more effectively. It is clear not just from what I am saying but from what the Prime Minister has said that it is absolutely unacceptable to have such abuse online. I am pleased to say that ask.fm has taken the problem very seriously and put in place more robust reporting mechanisms, increased moderation on the site, and given people the opportunity to turn off anonymous postings. Those are the sort of practical changes that can make websites safer for young people to use, but ultimately we must ensure that parents work with their children, too.

Protecting Children Online

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House deplores the growth in child abuse images online; deeply regrets that up to one and a half million people have seen such images; notes with alarm the lack of resources available to the police to tackle this problem; further notes the correlation between viewing such images and further child abuse; notes with concern the Government’s failure to implement the recommendations of the Bailey Review and the Independent Parliamentary Inquiry into Online Child Protection on ensuring children’s safe access to the internet; and calls on the Government to set a timetable for the introduction of safe search as a default, effective age verification and splash page warnings and to bring forward legislative proposals to ensure these changes are speedily implemented.

The motion is in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband).

The whole country was shocked and revolted by the trials of Mark Bridger and Stuart Hazell, the two men who brutally murdered April Jones and Tia Sharp. They sent a shiver of horror down the spine of every parent in the land. In both cases, they were found to have huge libraries of child abuse images on their computers. In both cases, this was the first known offence against children. Surely it is now beyond doubt that what a person sees influences how they behave.

Let us be clear: there is no such thing as child pornography. There is child abuse online. Any image depicting a sexual act with or on a child under 18 is illegal. Child abuse images are illegal under international law and in every country on the globe. The Internet Watch Foundation is the UK hotline for reporting child abuse. It has pioneered this work since 1996. It can disrupt and delete content on the web within an hour and it protects child victims by working in co-operation with the police at the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. It also aims to prevent people from stumbling across such images. We all owe an immense debt of gratitude to the IWF.

However, the surge in the scale of the problems threatens to overwhelm both the IWF and the police. The IWF’s independent survey by ComRes found that up to 1.5 million people have stumbled on child abuse images, yet last year the IWF received only 40,000 notifications and some 13,000 web pages were taken down as a result. Its latest figures show a 40% rise on last year.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

I support the hon. Lady’s opening words. I declare an interest as an IWF champion; the IWF does great work. Does she accept that her figure of 1.5 million people having seen child pornography is based on a sample of 2,000 people, of whom about 50 said that they seen such images? We do not know how much people have seen, or if they have seen anything. To extrapolate that far may be misleading.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman]

Yes; I discussed the numbers with the IWF, of course. It says that the survey on which it based that estimate was typical of surveys it has been doing over several years, so I think the problem is widespread and that we should not argue too much. It is clear that the numbers are far, far too big.

Up to 88% of the child victims appear to be 10 years old or under, and 61% of the images depicted sexual activity between adults and children, including rape and sexual torture.

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

Google is one of the biggest hosts of child sexual abuse images, albeit inadvertently, and it should therefore accept the major responsibility for proactively monitoring and removing those images. Does my hon. Friend agree that if Google spent as much money on monitoring and removing illegal child sexual abuse images as it does on paying accountants to avoid tax in the UK, it might go some way towards living up to its motto, “Don’t be evil”?

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. By a happy co-incidence I received an e-mail at 12.35 pm announcing that Google is increasing its contribution to the IWF to £1 million.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend spoke about the number of reported cases. As an Internet Watch Foundation champion, I went into every one of my primary schools, spoke to the 10 and 11-year-olds at every one of those schools, and asked those children how many of them had seen indecent images online. Every child in every class had been exposed to such material. Is that not a national disgrace?

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend is obviously doing great work in her constituency and what she says is truly shocking. It is confirmed by the statistics which the NSPCC has been collecting.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

Reference has been made to Google. I do not defend that or any other search engine other than to say that this debate is highly technical and we need to be accurate. Google does not host anything; nor does any other search engine. Google merely provides the means of finding a site, and the hosting, which is an international problem, needs to be addressed appropriately.

[Helen Goodman]

This is not an occasion for nit-picking—[Interruption.] It is important to take an international approach and I am disappointed in the Government for, among other things, not taking any international initiatives.

The police say their resources are inadequate to the task. Peter Davies, the head of CEOP, said that the police are aware of 60,000 people swapping or downloading images over peer-to-peer networks but they lack the resources to arrest them all. In any case, the IWF currently deals only with images on the web, not peer-to-peer images.

In answer to my parliamentary question last week, the Minister of State, Home Department, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne) revealed that in 2012, despite the fact that the police are aware of those 60,000 people, only 1,570 were convicted of such offences. What do Ministers intend to do about the problem? I hope that in his winding-up remarks the Home Office Minister will tell us. There is no point huffing and puffing about the problem if Ministers do not take the necessary action. It is obvious to the whole country that the current situation is totally unacceptable. It is obvious that Ministers have not got a grip. It is obvious that we need a change.

That is why our motion proposes a complete shift in approach from a reactive stance to a proactive strategy. We are calling for three things—first, safe search as the default option. The industry has already made the filters that are needed to screen out not just child abuse but pornography and adult content generally. We are saying that the filters should be the default, either on all computers and devices connected to the internet or by requiring internet service providers to install them by default. Then we can institute the second part of an effective system: robust age verification. A person seeking to cross the filter would be asked to confirm their name, age and address, all of which can be independently checked. Again, we know that this works. It is what Labour did for gambling sites in 2005. It is what mobile phone companies do when someone opens an account and gets a SIM card. It is what people do when they get a driving licence.

[Dr Huppert]

Does the hon. Lady accept that if we had safe search and such controls, young people would not be able either to access information about homophobic bullying, about how to deal with child abuse and about a range of other subjects? Indeed, such things are already filtered out by mobile phone providers, to the great detriment of many children.

[Helen Goodman]

No, I do not accept that. I shall go on to explain why that is a misconception on the part of the hon. Gentleman.

The approach that we are suggesting would cut demand for sites as well as reducing the supply of them. It would tackle child abuse online and the other major issue addressed by the Bailey review and the independent parliamentary inquiry—children accessing unsuitable material online. In recent days I have had the benefit of energetic lobbying from Google in particular, pressing its view that except for child abuse images, which are illegal, all other images should be available unfiltered on the internet. I have heard its views and come to my own conclusion.

I hope the Government’s vacillation on this point is not because they cannot put children before powerful vested interests. I say safe search filters are not a free speech issue. This is not censorship. This is about child protection and reproducing online the conditions established over a long period in the real world.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is my hon. Friend aware of the Council of Europe One in Five campaign, which is built on the fact that one in five children across Europe is likely to be a victim of sexual violence? Does she agree that the magnitude of sexual violence is enormously inflamed by the open gateway of internet child abuse?

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Once again, he emphasises the importance of the international dimension.

What we are proposing is aimed at reproducing the conditions that we have already established in the real world. The distinction between legal and illegal content is far too simplistic. For cinemas we have the highly respected independent British Board of Film Classification. It produces age ratings—12, 15 or 18. Any cinema found to be regularly flouting the age restrictions would lose its local authority licence. Furthermore, material classified as R18 can be seen only in certain cinemas, and some material deemed obscene is cut entirely. Yet on the internet it is all freely accessible to every 12-year-old. Indeed—this relates to what my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) said a moment ago—the NSPCC believes that one quarter of nine to 16-year olds have seen sexual images online. We are not talking about young women baring their breasts—that is like something from Enid Blyton compared with the Frankenstein images now available.

The dangers are clear. On average, 29% of nine to 16-year-olds have contact online with someone they have never met face to face. Of course there is a real difference between child abuse online and extreme pornography, but unfortunately in the real world people who become addicted to pornography look for more and more extreme images, and that sometimes tips into child abuse images. Addiction is the issue. Users are found to have literally millions of images on their computer, and child abuse sites are signposted on pornography sites. Both are shared peer to peer.

Therefore, an effective age verification system would mean that paedophiles would lose the anonymity behind which they currently hide, and the denial of what they are really doing would be addressed by the third proposal in the motion, which is to have splash warnings before entering filtered sites. Work by Professor Richard Wortley at University College London suggests that that might halve the numbers viewing child abuse online.

Of course, those measures would have a cost to industry. TalkTalk, which has led the way in offering filters, has spent over £20 million. Some in the industry tell us that they do not want to lose their competitive edge, and some say that they do not want to act as censors. That is why the Government should act by putting a clear timetable for those reforms into law in order to speed up change, level the playing field and support parents. We know that most parents want to do what is right by their children, because 66% of people, and 78% of women, want an automatic block, according to a YouGov poll conducted last year, but the industry is not helping them enough. At the moment, some still require people to download their own filters—a near-impossible task for many of us—some see it as a marketing device, and others want to give the option of filters only to new customers. At the current rate of turnover, it would be 2019 before that approach had any hope of reaching total coverage. It simply is not good enough. [Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) wish to intervene?

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

indicated dissent.

[Helen Goodman]

So what have the Government been doing? Before the general election, the Prime Minister promised that he would lead the most family-friendly Government ever, but so far there has been lots of talking and much less action. After three years and two Secretaries of State, the Government still seem to think that a voluntary approach will work. Do they not know when they are being strung along, or do they not care? How many more years must we wait? How many child deaths will it take to shock them into action?

Let us look at the record. First, the Prime Minister set up the Bailey review, which reported in June 2011. It recommended that after 18 months the internet industry must, as a matter of urgency, act decisively to develop and introduce effective parental controls—with Government regulation if voluntary action is not forthcoming within a reasonable time scale—and robust age verification. But here we are, fully two years on, and nothing has changed. Contrary to the answer I received from the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), who is in his place, the fact is that BT, Sky and Virgin are yet to come forward to announce their proposals on how they intend to deliver.

Then we had the independent parliamentary inquiry into child protection online, an all-party group. It recommended an accelerated implementation timetable, a formal consultation on the introduction of an opt-in content filtering system, and that the Government should seek back-stop legal powers to intervene should the ISPs fail to implement an appropriate solution. A year later, no solution has been implemented. Why did the Government not introduce a communications Bill with appropriate measures in the Queen’s Speech?

Finally, last autumn the Government undertook a consultation. It was so badly advertised that 68% of respondents were members of the Open Rights Group, an important group but a lobbying group with 1,500 members, compared with the 34% of respondents who were parents of Britain’s 11 million children. Despite that, the Government concluded that parents did not want to see parental controls turned on by default.

The Government have zig-zagged back and forth but we have seen no action in the real world. The Secretary of State has called a meeting with industry representatives next week. What will she say to them? I hope that she will not engage in yet another round of fruitless pleas and requests. There is a total lack of strategy from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

I want to make an offer to the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey): if he brings forward measures, with a speedy timetable, for the introduction of safe search as a default, robust age verification and splash warnings, we will support him. I gather that Ministers are urging their colleagues to vote against the motion. It is time that the Government stopped hoping that everything will turn out for the best and started taking responsibility. The time for talking is over. The time for action is now. We must put our children first. I hope that all hon. Members will vote for the motion in the Lobby this afternoon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

I was not planning to speak, but I found the tenor of so much of what has been said so frustrating in its lack of accuracy that I had to speak. I would exempt some speeches, particularly that of the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns), who used technical accuracy, which does matter. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), for whom I usually have great respect, but she gave it away when she complained about “the technocrats”. Technical accuracy matters if we are going to do things that work. We need to know exactly what “inviting urls to a meeting” is supposed to mean.

There is a huge danger of falling into the trap of the politician’s syllogism: we must do something; this is something; therefore we must do this. That is the danger we face. Is there a problem? Absolutely, there is a huge problem with child pornography, which is nasty, cruel and illegal. We have to stop it. The Internet Watch Foundation does an excellent job in trying to do so. Is there a problem with young people having inappropriate access? Yes. Is there a problem with online grooming? Yes. Is there a problem with online cyber-bullying? Absolutely. Is there a problem with the widespread sexualisation of young women in particular? Absolutely, and I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) for her consistent work to combat it.

The approach highlighted today, particularly by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), simply will not work. I find that frustrating, as it does not engage with the facts or reality of what is happening. The right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) was heckling earlier and said that we should not focus on the detail. If we do not focus on the detail, we will not get something that works.

What would work? I absolutely endorse the work of the Internet Watch Foundation. It does excellent work and I am delighted to see it getting more funding, as I think it should have extra support. I am pleased, too, that the Government are supporting CEOP so that when we find people carrying out illegal activities, we take the correct legal action. That is what should happen. We should never allow a situation in which the police simply do not have the money to arrest somebody who they know is doing something illegal.

The things we have heard about today will not make a difference. The people who are heavily engaged in child pornography will not be tackled. Those people are very internet savvy. They will use virtual private networks that are not listed, so nothing we have heard about today will tackle any of those problems. We have to work at the technical level to get things right rather than just try to make it look as if we are doing something.

In some ways, child pornography is easier to deal with because it is possible to define it. We know what is illegal and there are clear definitions. The IWF has a manual check for the sites. Certain sites can be blocked only when it knows that there is something wrong. That is very different from the space around legal material, or trying to come up with ways of filtering out things that are fundamentally legal and making a judgment call based on them.

[Helen Goodman]

We are making judgment calls all the time.

[Dr Huppert]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, but writing algorithms to do that on millions and millions of websites simply cannot be done correctly. I shall come back to that, although I know that the hon. Lady and the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham are not concerned about the errors that would be made.

It is absolutely right to provide tools for parents to control what is happening. They should be the ones empowered to look after their children. I would rather trust the parents to look after their children than require state-level controls. It is absolutely right to have those available for people to use and to make them easy and clear to use. I think there should be no default because I think we should encourage parents to engage with the question before they make a decision. They should be faced with a box that they have to tick, but they should be in charge. The Byron review was very clear that a false sense of security could be created if we just tell people that everything is safe.

Defamation Bill

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Garnier]

The hon. Gentleman no doubt makes a correct factual point, but I think he exaggerates it. The number of cases involving corporate claimants is small and the damages they recover, absent special damages, is low. Damages to trading reputation alone probably attract £20,000 at the top end and usually no more than £10,000, so we are not talking about hugely extravagant damages claims.

Allegations of bullying can be made against anybody who has more money than the person they are suing. Jimmy Goldsmith, now long dead, sued about 100 distributors—I was involved in the case in a junior capacity—such as WH Smith, Menzies and so forth. He issued proceedings in his dispute with Private Eye. It was suggested by those defendants that he was doing it to shut them down—to prevent them from distributing a newspaper.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

He was!

[Sir Edward Garnier]

The Court of Appeal disagreed with that and said—the case is called Sperrings, if the hon. Lady is interested—that there was no basis for suggesting that Jimmy Goldsmith was misconducting himself, albeit that a reasonable person could comment that he was using his financial wealth to bully those defendants. The same could be said of Robert Maxwell, who stole Daily Mirror employees’ money in order to run libel actions against every Tom, Dick and Harry he could lay his fingers on.

What is the difference between complaints about financial wealth or strength in the hands of individuals being used to bully defendants, compared with financial wealth in the hands of corporate claimants being used to do that? If the case is an abuse—if it does not come within the terms of the currently unamended clause 1—the court will stop it. However, what has happened is that a general case has been built up, but on the basis of about two, three or four cases—I congratulate the campaigners and those who have seduced my hon. Friend and the Opposition into believing that what they are doing is in the public interest. That is illogical, although it has been highly effective politically—you can perhaps hear from the frustration in my voice, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I recognise defeat when I see it. I am about to be defeated, because the Government have simply whipped the people who voted one way last week to vote another way this week.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that there are a number of players in the marketplace. It is fiercely competitive, not just in mobile but with Virgin in fixed-line and, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, there are many community players as well.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I am sure the Minister will join me in welcoming the National Audit Office inquiry into why the 4G auction raised £1 billion less than was forecast. In a time of austerity, it is quite wrong for the mobile phone companies to be given spectrum at prices below even what they were prepared to pay. In his letter to me, the Comptroller and Auditor General said:

“This differs from the earlier auction of 3G spectrum…where the generation of proceeds was at least one of the objectives of the auction.”

Why was the Minister so casual with taxpayers’ assets?

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

No, 2 megabits is not too much to ask, which is why we will deliver 2 megabits to the last 10%.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) said, Policy Exchange produced an important report yesterday, which I thought the Minister had welcomed. It said that the Government should stop

“pursuing speed as a proxy for progress”

and focus

“explicitly on economic and social outcomes”.

The report pointed out that 16 million people lack basic IT skills and that that is one of the major reasons that people give for not getting online. What specific action will the Minister take to help those people?

[Mr Vaizey]

I hear what the hon. Lady says. It is good to hear her endorsing the work of Policy Exchange, a distinguished centre-right think-tank. I hope that she will continue to support its policy proposals. As I said at the launch of the Policy Exchange pamphlet, Go On UK is doing extraordinarily good work to encourage people to go online. Along with all the councils that are procuring superfast broadband, we have a strategy to encourage people to take up broadband.

Transforming Rehabilitation

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I can give my hon. Friend an assurance that I will not be rewarding people for someone burgling a few houses rather than a lot of houses.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The moment at which the probation service has been commended for its effective performance is an odd one for the Secretary of State to choose to put his foot on the accelerator. What is his estimate of the number of probation officers who will be made redundant, what is the anticipated cost of that, and does he have an agreed budget for it from the Treasury?

[Chris Grayling]

I do not expect this to lead to wholesale redundancies in the probation service. It certainly means a new world for many people in the probation service in being part of the new organisations, new social enterprises and new consortia that will deliver the services. Yes, of course there will be some changes, but this does not involve, suddenly and instantly, mass redundancies in the probation service—that would not be right.

Church of England (Women Bishops)

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I begin by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) on securing the agreement of the Backbench Business Committee to holding this exceptionally important debate.

I thought it would be appropriate to wear purple in this debate. I joined the Movement for the Ordination of Women 30 years ago and I found November’s Synod decision worse than disappointing. It is totally disgraceful that the whole of my adult life has seen this endless struggle over the position of women in the Church of England. I feel deeply sorry for women clergy up and down the country. In my own constituency I think of Jane Grieve, Brenda Jones, Linda Gough—fabulous women doing fabulous work. Even if they are not called to be bishops, the decision is demeaning and demoralising. Furthermore, as other hon. Members have said, women play a huge role in most parishes among the laity. I am sure women are the majority of the laity in the Church of England.

However, my greatest concern is for the mission of the Church. This country faces many challenges where the Church’s unique voice needs to be heard—how to bind fractured communities, how to address alienation and the inexorable rise of consumerism, and how to protect the natural environment. Who will listen to a Church when it behaves as Synod behaved last month? How much more time and energy must we spend on this question?

We have all heard from many members of the public and members of the Church in recent weeks. Some of those who are opposed seem to believe that Members of Parliament are, by and large, in favour of consecrating women bishops because they see it as a justice issue, rather than a theological issue. Of course, some of the people who are opposed to women bishops think this will give the Church a new lease of life, and that is the last thing they want, but that is not, by and large, the view that we have heard.

On the concerns about theological issues, the views were very well represented by the hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox). In the light of what he said, it is clear that we need to go right back to the beginning of the argument. Genesis 1 verse 27 says:

“So God created humankind in his image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them”,

and the passage goes on to say:

“Be fruitful and multiply”.

The notes in my Bible, which is the New Revised Standard Version—an ecumenical Bible recognised for use by the Protestants, the Catholics and the eastern Orthodox—say:

“Together men and women share the task of being God’s stewards on earth.”

I would like to remind the hon. and learned Gentleman how the passage ends:

“God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.”

Now let me whizz forward 3,000 years to the New Testament. I take my understanding from the much maligned and misunderstood St Paul, who wrote in one of his letters to the Corinthians that in Christ there is neither male nor female but all are one in the spirit.

Since when, I ask those who are opposed to the consecration of women as bishops, has justice not been a theological issue? The justice tradition is the glory of the Old Testament, and in the New Testament we see it radically re-envisioned. Let us take, for example, the beatitudes, the roles given to the three Marys, the Magnificat—

“he hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden . . . scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts . . . exalted the humble and meek.”

[Lyn Brown]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend is going to get to John, chapter 4, in which Jesus reveals himself for the first time to the Samaritan woman. It is not to a man, or to one of the 12 nominated disciples, but to someone who was possibly the lowest of the low, a Samaritan and a woman to boot. For me, that speaks volumes about the equality of the New Testament message.

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend gives another excellent example from the New Testament.

The legislation in Synod foundered on the adequacy or otherwise of the guarantees offered to those opposed to change. I cannot accept their self-description as a vulnerable and oppressed minority. In modern Britain, people have a choice about whether to stay or go. They do not face being burnt at the stake. If they are excluded, it is self-exclusion. There has been so much fence-sitting in the Church to keep a minority on board that the fence is now collapsing under the weight.

I also know that many people believe that it is extremely important to maintain the historic coalition of the Elizabethan settlement. I remind the House what Richard Hooker, one of the great theologians of that era, did and said. His argument was essentially that it was not about keeping everyone happy in the short term, but about having a coherent polity and coherent Church governance. That seems to me to be absolutely relevant to the position we find ourselves in today. All these exceptions, constraints, conditions and flying bishops are making the situation excessively complex. It would be impossible to know where authority lies in the Church or to give a clear picture of our theological view of the role of men and the role of women.

Hooker also said—I think it is relevant—that because things were ordained by God does not necessarily mean that they were ordained for all time. He felt that we should use our God-given reason to tell which points of scripture had what kind of authority. When the old way, which might have been right in its own time, might be wrong now, he said there was “some new-grown occasion”. I believe that we are now in a new-grown occasion. Of course growth can be painful—we all know that from personal experience—but it is also essential.

By far the best outcome would be for the Church itself to resolve the issue quickly. I know that Bishop Justin wants to address it straightaway, and I endorse everything my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) said about his capacities. It is right that the Church should resolve the issue itself, but if it cannot, that will inevitably raise profound questions about the established Church’s relationship with the state. I will put it simply. What do we want? Women bishops. When do we want them? Now.

Leveson Inquiry

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

The Irish system has not been in place for very long and it is impossible to claim all the virtues for it that the Opposition wish to claim. It is sensible for discussions to continue on the points on which there has been widespread consensus in the House this evening, and jumping immediately into another system would be the wrong way to go about this.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Seventy years!

[Damian Green]

The hon. Lady, from a sedentary position, talks about 70 years but the Leveson report was published last Thursday. We are debating it today, a Monday, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is meeting the editors tomorrow and we will produce proposals in the coming months.

We will consider carefully the other recommendations in Lord Justice Leveson’s report and respond in due course. The Government will ensure that the central principles of Lord Justice Leveson’s report will be taken forward in cross-party talks as quickly and comprehensively as possible.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of the Leveson report into the culture, practices and ethics of the press.