Health, Social Care and Security

Ian C. Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I will give way in a moment. I just want to address the clear points that the right hon. Lady made about resources.

Let us talk about the police. Since 2015, we have protected the police budget in cash terms. In order to maintain that, it is correct that chief officers have to maximise their access through the precept. To be able to say that we protect it in real terms, I have to draw attention to the police transformation fund. One of the differences between the Conservatives and Labour is that we know that we have to focus on outcomes. That means continuing the business of police reform and continuing to fund it through the police transformation fund. We are most concerned with outcomes—on how to get the best results for victims and communities.

[Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is of course right to talk about police reform, which is extremely important, but it misrepresents the Labour party to say that we are not interested in police reform. We introduced police community support officers when we were in government, and there was a constant period of reform then. The real point is that the Conservative party have cut budgets not since 2015, but since 2010. There has been a massive cut to the police budget, which is affecting my constituents in Wrexham.

[Amber Rudd]

I am delighted to have the hon. Gentleman’s support on police reform, which will continue. He is right that there were cuts between 2010 and 2015 but, as always, we must look at the outcomes. Crime fell by a third during that period.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amber Rudd]

The Prime Minister made her statement about the EU nationals earlier this week. I urge the hon. Lady to reassure her constituents who fall into that cohort that they maintain these rights until at least when we leave the EU in 2019, and then after that they will have two years in which to apply. I cannot give her any more detail than that in terms of the other rights, elements of which are subject to the discussions with the EU at the moment. However, I would say to her, and to other Members here, that the Prime Minister was absolutely clear that those 3.2 million or 3.4 million people are going to be allowed to stay. We are yet to have additional discussions with the EU about elements of these rights. I hope that Members here will take that message back to any concerned EU citizens in their constituencies.

[Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

Will the Home Secretary clarify whether it is her intention that after Brexit a different set of rules will apply to EU nationals and nationals from outside the EU who are visiting the United Kingdom?

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) and to take part in this very interesting debate. There has been a very strong message from this Chamber on public sector pay. One great advantage of general elections is that the voters tell us what they want to talk about. The Prime Minister may have wanted to have an election on Brexit, but on the doorstep public sector pay was a huge issue in my constituency, and, I suspect, in constituencies up and down the country.

The strong message from the campaign was that the country has had enough of inequality. I am a member of the Nationwide building society. Its chief executive receives £3.5 million per annum, on top of all the additional support he receives. That is a building society, not a bank, and a mutual organisation that I support and am a member of. I do not have a bank account, because I do not like banks very much at all, but the chief executive of my building society receives £3.5 million a year. We have been talking about hourly rates of £9 and £10 an hour for midwives who save people’s lives. The message for Government Members, regardless of which way they vote this evening, is that this is coming: this argument has been won. I urge the Government to reconsider their position and do what those of us on the Labour Benches want them to do, because they will have to make up their mind and do the right thing in due course.

In the short time available, I would like to focus on criminal justice. This was another massive issue in my constituency during the election. The message from my constituents is that they recognise that community policing, which the Labour Government carried forward magnificently when in office, introducing police community support officers and funding police officers in every ward of my constituency, has been undermined since 2010 by the huge cuts to police budgets that were introduced first by the coalition Government. I listened with some hilarity to some of the observations made by Liberal Democrat Members about the dreadful police cuts. They had Cabinet Ministers in the Government that implemented them, so I listen to their arguments with some incredulity. I want to see the re-establishment of proper community policing, not only in Wrexham but up and down the country.

There is one area that I want to highlight for the Home Secretary in the short time available. She referred to the legislation on legal highs that was introduced in 2015 and which has already been amended once. I have a message for the Home Secretary: it is simply not working, and there is a crisis with legal highs in many town centres up and down the country. We need to look at that in the Queen’s Speech as a matter of urgency, because unless the legislation is amended huge amounts of public money will be spent on trying to enforce legislation that is simply incapable of doing the job for which we drafted it. Will the Government therefore please go away, look at the issue of legal highs and the legislation that has already been passed, redraft it, consult, reach out, recognise that they do not have an overall majority, speak to the people who want to try to solve the problem and work with the Opposition to resolve this important issue?