International Women’s Day

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

I do rather worry that today has been a missed opportunity to strike a more bipartisan note. I myself shall not be tribal, although some previous contributors have been.

I shall make three practical suggestions, loosely linked by the idea of asking awkward questions, which I like to think we are all quite good at. My first theme, which Members will not be surprised about, is female genital mutilation, and I thank many Members in the House today and others for their support over the past year, because a lot has happened since I spoke about FGM in last year’s international women’s day debate. I feel that we have a sense of momentum, and I thank Members for that.

I want to ask for something practical, because we have to keep the issue high on the agenda. The all-party group on genital mutilation has drafted a template letter, which Members can send to health and wellbeing boards or to other commissioning groups, and it asks lots of practical questions about the strategies that have been put in place on safeguarding, commissioning and dealing with women and girls who might be threatened with, or have suffered, FGM. May I urge hon. Members to send that template letter, or their variation on it, to their local groups and boards?

Even in London, I am amazed at the number of times that people look at me blankly when I raise the issue. Sometimes they do not even know what I am talking about, despite being senior health professionals and so on, so we have to keep pushing; we cannot assume that it is on everyone’s agenda.

My second practical point is a bit of leap, but one thing that I worry about when I look at the Arab spring, which other hon. Members have touched on, is how women’s rights are not on an upward trajectory but are potentially going in the other direction. There is evidence of that in Egypt, with many clerical groups pushing for the further institutionalisation of FGM there.

I therefore have a very practical suggestion, which I put into practice when I attended a briefing with one of our ambassadors recently—slightly I suspect to his surprise. We should tell all our ambassadors and high commissioners—wherever they are but particularly those in key countries—to ask why they are not seeing delegations of men and women. If they are seeing only delegations of men, they should politely and nicely—diplomats are very good at being polite and nice—ask why; and if they are not seeing women they should seek out the authentic voice of women. If they see only male delegations and talk only to male politicians, they will not hear the views of the people; they will hear the views of men in those countries. So it is important that the Foreign Office asks those questions of its diplomats.

My final point is about the way in which we do politics here in the UK, because we can take a lead. We should agree cross-party, and begin a discussion before the next general election, on how we do our politics and with whom we interact, because too often we see community leaders who say that they speak for their community but speak only for men. We female politicians, in particular, should demand to hear the authentic voice of male and female community leaders. There is no point demanding equality in the boardroom if we accept inequality in our community centres.

Extradition

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Raab]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks. I want to be careful about what I say about the Babar Ahmad case. We must bear in mind the fact that, whatever the nature of the allegations—some of the individuals in the cases that I have mentioned are plainly and demonstrably innocent—we are dealing with that basic principle of British justice that a person is innocent until proven guilty. We are losing sight of that in this country. Irrespective of the nature of the allegations against Babar Ahmad, and I do not deny for one second that they are grave, the period of pre-trial detention is unacceptably high and should be looked at carefully within the scope of the UK-US treaty in relation to both the “most appropriate forum” safeguard and the other safeguards that might be available.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. I wonder whether it is helpful to intervene on behalf of the Backbench Business Committee. As there is such enormous interest in this debate and in the issue of Babar Ahmad, we are more than happy to take further representations from other Back-Bench Members for time in the Chamber to return to this subject in the event that all Members do not get the chance fully to explore the issue today.

[Mr Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.

Border Checks Summer 2011

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Goggins]

No longer in her place. She will know from the exchanges that she and I have had both inside and outside the Chamber in the 18 months that she has held office that my starting point, as a former Home Office Minister and Northern Ireland security Minister, has been to trust the Home Secretary, as, indeed, I trusted all her predecessors. We heard on Monday from my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), who described the job as the “ministerial graveyard”. We heard my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) talk earlier this afternoon about the serious responsibilities that the job has for public safety and our borders. It is my strong belief that we should not seek to second-guess difficult decisions that Home Secretaries have to take, often with advice, of course, that the rest of us do not have.

Having said that, in the interests of protecting her own reputation and, crucially, that of her office, the Home Secretary needs urgently to clarify a number of issues. I have three specific questions. She and the Minister will remember from my question on her statement on Monday that Manchester airport is in my constituency. Indeed, when I asked her whether the pilot included that airport, she gave me three answers for the price of one: “No”, “Yes” and “Maybe”. Well, I need to know whether the pilot did in fact operate at Manchester airport, and if so how frequently checks were relaxed and how many people passed through the airport without biometric checks. I appreciate that the Minister replying today will have many other things to respond to, so a letter on those issues and questions would be very welcome.

My second question, which has not been discussed as extensively as it needs to be, is where did the pressure for this pilot come from? I find it difficult to believe that all the pressure came from within the UK Border Agency. After all, procedures were in place for health and safety and public order emergencies, and Brodie Clark himself has confirmed that, even this summer, when the pilot was operating and there were three-hour queues at Heathrow airport, checks were still not relaxed.

However, delays at airports damage the reputation of airports themselves and of airlines. I would therefore like the Minister to tell us whether any pressure has been applied, either on the Home Secretary or the Transport Secretary, by BAA or other airport operators—or indeed by any airline companies—to speed up passport control. Has there been any correspondence with the Home Secretary and the Transport Secretary on that, or any meetings or discussions with Ministers? If there has, we should have copies of those letters and minutes.

My third question goes to the very heart of how Ministers operate within this Government. How hands-on were the Home Secretary and her Ministers in establishing, monitoring and evaluating this pilot? The right hon. Lady must have been aware of the political risk she was taking in establishing the pilot. She must have been aware that the public would take some convincing that a more effective and targeted approach would include the relaxation of biometric checks. If she wants now to convince us that she is on top of the situation and has been throughout, she needs to publish all the submissions and all the other documents that relate to the pilot, including the information that was gathered during the pilot.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman spoke about the public reaction, but would he not admit that one of the things that we most commonly hear from members of the public is about using intelligence-led checks at our borders? Everyone I speak to—lots of constituents—constantly asks why we do not use a more intelligence-led approach, rather than frisking schoolchildren and so on. The right hon. Gentleman is wrong. The public would have every sympathy with an intelligence-led approach.

[Paul Goggins]

Of course the public want an intelligence-led approach, but the idea that that includes disregarding the biometric content of any passport is preposterous. I hope the hon. Lady accepts that.

To return to my point, surely Ministers were receiving weekly updates on the pilot. Surely they were convening regular stocktakes in relation to what is, after all, a highly controversial pilot. I would be particularly interested to hear from the Minister how many times decisions to implement measures beyond the routine procedures that were allowed within the pilot were escalated to the border force duty director, in line with the instructions to which we heard reference earlier.

There was some speculation on the radio this morning that in the end both Mr Clark and the Home Secretary will be proved right. I believe that that would be the worst of all outcomes. It would show a complete disconnection between policy and operations, with claims that officials were over-interpreting what Ministers had approved, and Ministers so hands-off that they simply blame officials when things go wrong. I find it astonishing that the first the Home Secretary knew about the issue was when she was informed by the permanent secretary that disciplinary action had been instigated against Brodie Clark. If she had taken even a basic interest in the pilot, she would have known well before that that something had gone wrong. For the sake of her reputation, but more particularly for the reputation of her office, she should be as open as possible and publish all the documents that she has.

Female Genital Mutilation

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this important issue again in the House. Female genital mutilation—FGM—affects millions of girls and women around the world, including here in the UK. My remarks this evening are focused on FGM in the UK, and what we can do to prevent it.

FGM is a gross violation of girls’ human rights, and is nearly always carried out on minors. In the UK, the girls most at risk are usually aged between eight and 12, but are often much younger. We should therefore be clear from the outset that FGM is a form of child abuse. FGM is defined by the World Health Organisation as the full or partial removal of, or injury to, the external female genitalia for non-medical reasons. Although it occurs in countries across the world, it is particularly prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa. There are no benefits to FGM. Indeed, quite the opposite is true. The girl’s health is damaged for ever.

There are various types of FGM, but the most extreme, which is the most common in larger FGM-practising communities settled in this country, is type 3. That is total removal of the victim’s external genitalia. The girl is then infibulated—effectively sewn up. I am sure that hon. Members can imagine the dreadful impact of that on the quality of life and the health of those girls in childhood, and the long-term damage to their sexual and mental well-being.

It is a source of great frustration to those who campaigned against FGM for many years that the UK has in place everything that might reasonably be expected to be needed to end FGM in this country, yet it continues and is apparently a growing problem. The necessary legislation is already on the statute book. FGM has been illegal in the UK for more than a quarter of a century under the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985, which was strengthened in the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 by making it illegal to take a girl abroad for cutting, as FGM is often referred to colloquially. Indeed, new guidelines for prosecuting the perpetrators of FGM were published here only this autumn.

As well as having the right legislation, the UK has a solid child protection framework in place which, on the whole, does a good job of protecting vulnerable children from other forms of abuse. The Government have recently published fresh multi-agency guidelines to aid professionals —for example, teachers, social workers and health workers—to identify children at risk and what steps must be taken to assist them. Despite that, all the anecdotal and medical evidence suggests that FGM is a growing, not a diminishing problem here. Why is it proving so difficult to right this wrong?

First, to meet the challenge, we need to know its scale. As part of the Mayor of London’s strategy to tackle all forms of violence against girls and women, the Greater London authority will shortly publish a policy document on addressing harmful practices in London. It will focus on, among other things, FGM. That report and others identify the fact that the lack of up-to-date figures is a significant stumbling block in efforts to tackle the problem.

Most of the FGM data for the UK that inform most parliamentary speeches, media articles and reports, including that from the Greater London authority, comes from a respected 2007 study by the charity FORWARD—the Foundation for Women’s Health, Research and Development. This report extrapolated data from the 2001 UK census, and its finding were startling, even then. Over 174,000 women residents in the UK had been born in an FGM-practising country. The estimated number of maternities in England and Wales in women with FGM stood at just over 6,000 in 2001 and had increased by 44% to just over 9,000 in 2004. FORWARD estimated that by 2009, that figure would be around 7,000 in London alone. Those are astonishing figures. That study is sound, but it is based on decade-old data.

As the Minister will know, with the trends in migration to this country over the last decade, especially from countries with a high prevalence of FGM, such as Somalia and Ethiopia, one can only conclude that those figures dramatically understate the extent of female genital mutilation in the UK today. We urgently need to update the evidence base.

Another reason the evidence base needs to be updated is that FGM is adding to existing health inequalities for these girls and women. How many women are not attending routine cervical smear testing because they do not want to alert the authorities to what has happened to them? How many parents do not take their children to the local GP when they are unwell because they fear that an examination will reveal that the girls have been cut? If, as the evidence suggests, FGM is a growing problem in the UK, the burden that it puts on the NHS in the long run will grow to match it.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Lady for bringing this debate to the Chamber. It is an extremely important subject, and she should be congratulated on the stance she has taken nationally and internationally. She is right when she points to the effects on the NHS. A midwife has shown me a video of the effects that FGM will have and what she needs to do when the women and young girls who have, in effect, been abused have to be cut again in order for them to give birth. It is having a huge effect, not only physically but on their mental state.

[Jane Ellison]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. She is doing marvellous work to highlight this problem as well, and I know that she has seen recent evidence that was quite shocking and brought the problem into stark relief. I ask the Minister to consider, perhaps on a cross-departmental basis, supporting research to update the evidence base better to inform public policy in health, which the hon. Lady mentions, and in other areas. I understand that the FORWARD study cost about £30,000 to put together and that a more in-depth and qualitative report would cost in the region of £120,000.

Another area of major concern is that some professionals, especially teachers, are not confident enough of their role in protecting and supporting girls who are at risk. Although the multi-agency guidelines are excellent and we have a robust child protection framework in place, FGM remains under-reported. Recent feedback from a focus group with young women who had been affected suggested that not all professionals who deal with at-risk girls are clear about what they should do. Perhaps they do not feel that they can rely on the support of senior colleagues or that they have the political cover to step into what they perceive to be a cultural minefield. I very much welcome the current inquiry by the Select Committee on Education into how the child protection framework might be improved. I am pleased that the Committee identified FGM as a particular problem, and I have submitted evidence to its inquiry.

Since I have been speaking about this subject in the media over the past year—including on Radio 4’s “Woman’s Hour” in August—I have received a steady stream of letters and e-mails from around the country, many of them from retired teachers, telling me of their frustrations in reporting their suspicions about a girl who was at risk or had already suffered this abuse, but then finding that their information was not taken any further. This is child abuse, as the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) says, and our professionals must feel that they can, and indeed must, speak up when they see the signs, and that once reported this information will be followed up swiftly by the relevant authorities.

Members will perhaps be astonished, as I was, to learn that one child who asked her teacher for help, saying that she was frightened that she was to be taken on holiday to be cut, was advised by her teacher to write a letter to an FGM charity. Perhaps some professionals feel that they cannot speak out because they fear that an accusation of racism would damage their career; I think that we, as politicians, can understand that fear. However, my argument is that by not protecting girls at risk of FGM, we are treating these girls less equally. If this abhorrent practice were happening routinely to little white, middle-class girls from long-settled parts of the community, would there not be a greater outcry among professionals, politicians and the media? There would be headlines every week.

While reflecting on the leadership role that we as politicians have, it is incumbent on all of us, as Members, to ask the difficult questions of our contacts in all communities and not to allow issues to be swept under the carpet, because some community leaders have issues that they do not want to talk about. I hope that when the Minister responds she will comment on whether information from front-line workers is being gathered and reviewed centrally to build up a clearer picture of patterns of behaviour—for example, recording school absences of at-risk girls.

On the subject of gathering evidence, I understand that the Crown Prosecution Service is in the process of collecting data on the FGM cases considered for charge. Everyone campaigning on this issue recognises the deterrent impact that just one successful prosecution would have. It remains a source of astonishment that there has not been one prosecution in the UK in the past 25 years, even though, throughout that time, a growing number of African and other European countries have secured convictions.

If we accept that FGM is child abuse, why do we not treat it as such? In other cases of child abuse, arrests are made, people are charged and convictions are secured. It is very difficult territory, but elsewhere, even when witnesses are very young or unwilling to testify, convictions have been secured and vulnerable siblings have been identified and registered as being at risk. Are we really doing enough to protect girls from abuse? Does it make a difference to the police that those girls are overwhelmingly from immigrant communities? In France, compulsory physical checks make the job of the prosecutors easier. That is not part of our tradition here in the UK, but is that hampering the police? Should we at least be challenging and discussing that received wisdom?

Will the Minister tell us more about the work that the Crown Prosecution Service is doing, and whether she feels that a prosecution under FGM legislation is becoming more likely? What does she feel are the main sticking points for the police when it comes to pursuing cases?

Of course, for the girls involved prevention is much better than prosecution, so as well as considering the action that we can take in this country, we have to take more effective action to prevent families from taking girls overseas to be cut. I have learned a lot about FGM over the past year or so from one of the world’s leading experts, Efua Dorkenoo, who is advocacy director on FGM for the charity Equality Now. She has been looking around the world for ideas that work. The Dutch and French Governments use what they call a “health passport” for girls who are at risk. That simple document, carried with them overseas, states clearly that FGM is a criminal offence in the country of residence and a form of child abuse. It details the appropriate criminal penalties, and in the case of Dutch residents, explains that if convicted of having their daughters cut, parents could lose the right to remain in the country if they are not citizens. The parents are then asked to sign the document before they travel to show that they have understood, and accept, their responsibilities.

I believe that such a document could be a powerful tool here. It would send a strong message to families that FGM is not to be tolerated and would empower girls to assert their own human rights. It may also empower parents who have their doubts about FGM. There is some evidence that some parents, perhaps those who have grown up in this country, are having doubts about whether they want it to happen to their daughters. They could show such a document to relatives from the extended family who were putting pressure on them to have a girl cut, and say, “Look, we can’t do it, we’ll be prosecuted.”

[Valerie Vaz]

Another problem is that the cutters abroad see such things as a loss of their income, so one solution could be that any aid sent out to relevant countries could be linked to retraining the cutters for a somewhat more useful job.

[Jane Ellison]

That is a very powerful intervention. That is a Department for International Development responsibility, as the hon. Lady knows, and DFID is being urged to do more on the matter. It is doing things, and astonishing grass-roots movements are growing up all over sub-Saharan Africa, with women in the lead. They are going from village to village urging people to stop the practice, and re-educating the cutters to do something else. She is absolutely right to highlight that as one way in which we can help. There is an extraordinary link on this issue between communities in the UK and the diaspora communities around the world.

Does the Minister think the health passport could help prevent FGM from happening to British girls when they are taken overseas? Should we consider whether it could work here?

I do not believe there is any argument about the fact that female genital mutilation is a terrible thing, yet for too long the issue has been talked about at the margins of public life, if at all. If we are to send a clear signal to the girls affected by this abhorrent practice that they are not at the margins of our national life, we in this Parliament must take every opportunity to address the issue. I am grateful for the opportunity to do so this evening, and I thank colleagues for their support and pay tribute to those campaigning outside the House. I very much look forward to hearing from the Minister, who I know has been very supportive of us and feels very strongly about the issue. We must aim to stop FGM in this generation and break the cycle of abuse that blights the lives of so many girls and women in the UK.

[The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison) and congratulate her on securing this debate on an incredibly important topic for women and girls both in the United Kingdom and internationally. We have to protect girls from this abuse, and we have to ensure that all those living with the consequences of female genital mutilation are given the care and support they deserve.

I want to answer my hon. Friend’s specific points first, so that if time runs out I do not miss answering them. On updating the statistical and quantitative evidence base, she made a powerful point about the fact that the records are outdated. We shall certainly look at what the Greater London authority comes up with. Although £120,000 is small in governmental terms, it is not easy to come by, but we can commit to considering it. I am happy to give her that commitment.

My hon. Friend also mentioned health inequalities, the tackling of which is a Government priority, as part of our wider focus on fairness and social justice. In the Health and Social Care Bill we are proposing the first ever duties, on the Secretary of State, the NHS commissioning board and clinical commissioning groups, to have regard to the need to reduce health inequalities—and of course, victims and survivors of female genital mutilation would fall into that category. We expect there to be action, therefore, under that banner.

My hon. Friend raised the important point that everyone works with the best of intentions, but that perhaps teachers are uncomfortable or do not use the multi-agency guidelines that the Government have published, and she asked what feedback the Government are receiving centrally. Currently, we are not receiving or collating feedback resulting from those guidelines, but there will be a review of the use and effectiveness of the guidelines in February 2012, and we will evaluate their success by examining how extensively they have been used. Depending on the review’s findings, we will consider how we might improve or adapt the guidelines. If front-line workers are not using them properly, there must be another barrier that we have not recognised in dealing with victims of FGM.

My hon. Friend raised the possibility of health passports for at-risk girls. I can undertake to explore and investigate the feasibility of such a measure. I do not know enough about the Dutch system to make a commitment, but I can commit to considering the idea.

The Government have recognised the need for a joined-up approach, co-ordinated by several Departments, to tackle FGM. We are trying to raise awareness of that barbaric practice. We have made progress, but I want to make it clear that the long-term and systemic eradication of FGM in the UK also requires communities affected by the practice to abandon it themselves. I cannot emphasise that point too strongly. We all work hard and are committed, but the pace is slow.

Our key focus is on prevention, and we have undertaken considerable work in the past year, across nine Departments, to take forward our efforts to prevent and tackle FGM. In February, I was pleased to launch the multi-agency practice guidelines for front-line professionals at the Manor Gardens centre, with which my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), who has also contributed to the debate, will be familiar. Both are committed to that agenda. I spoke there to committed and dedicated community practitioners, and I want to commend and thank them publicly for their work.

As I said, the guidelines aim to raise awareness of FGM, highlight the risks of the practice and set out clearly the steps that should be taken to safeguard women and children from this abuse. I remember reading the guidelines myself. We talk about guidelines, and I sometimes wonder whether people know what they are like. I shall give an example for a teacher: if a girl spends half an hour going to the toilet, which is an inordinately long time, the teacher, if it happens more than once, should be alert, because it might be a signal that the girl has been cut, and so signpost and refer it on. The guidance focuses in particular on ensuring a co-ordinated response from all agencies, which is key to ensuring that professionals are able and confident to intervene to protect girls at risk. That is the objective. In addition, we continue to distribute leaflets and posters about FGM, which are key to bringing the issue to more people’s attention. More than 40,000 leaflets and posters have been circulated to schools, health services, charities and community groups around the country. In July, the Metropolitan Police Service’s Project Azure worked alongside Kids Taskforce to produce a film for secondary schools to raise awareness of FGM, which is now available for download on the Kids Taskforce website. Last summer the project also worked at Heathrow airport, talking to families with young girls going to countries where FGM is practised.

[Jane Ellison]

I watched the film, and I was astonished to see the young teenagers who made it say towards the end, “We want girls to have an informed choice about this.” No one can have an informed choice about a crime that is committed against them. However, those involved in campaigning on the issue are often forced to make such compromises in their language, essentially because of concerns about how they will be dealt with in their communities, which goes exactly to what the Minister said about changing attitudes in communities.

[Lynne Featherstone]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Some of the attitudes and sensitivities—or perhaps over-sensitivities—associated with this issue have sometimes meant that what needs to be said is not said as directly as it should be.

The Government are frustrated by the lack of prosecutions in the 25 years since the practice became a criminal offence. Indeed, as a Minister, I am intensely frustrated by that, as I stand at the Dispatch Box at Question Time and am asked why there have been no prosecutions under Labour, Conservative or coalition Governments. We have worked to strengthen the current legislation and we keep trying to encourage prosecutions. As my hon. Friend said, in September the Crown Prosecution Service launched FGM legal guidance so that prosecutors can better understand the background of FGM-affected communities and identify evidential challenges, so that they do not work in a vacuum, but understand the issue.

Research suggests that the most likely barrier to prosecution is pressure from the family or wider community, which makes it difficult for girls and women to come forward and notify police about what has happened to them. Victims may be too young, vulnerable or afraid at the time of mutilation to report offences to the police or give evidence in court. There could be other evidential difficulties if cases are reported many years after the event. I had not heard about the compulsory examinations that take place in France, which my hon. Friend mentioned. That is not the way we do things here, but one does sometimes think, “What other way is there to know whether a girl has been cut?”

The aim of the legal guidance is to provide prosecutors with advice on building stronger cases to bring to court. Prosecutors will now work closely with the police to investigate cases and consider evidence from social services, schools or local authorities, which may have crucial information to help build a case. The guidance has not been launched in isolation, but is part of a concerted approach to building prosecutions. The CPS will be monitoring and reviewing every case referred to it by the police for 12 months. That will allow the CPS to identify why cases are failing to proceed to court and what issues need to be addressed in building a successful case. That reflects the CPS’s commitment to taking positive action to address the problem.

I want to talk about abandonment. I recently met representatives from the Orchid project, who introduced me to Tostan, a non-governmental organisation whose mission is to empower African communities to bring about sustainable development and positive social transformation based on respect for human rights. It takes a respectful approach that allows villagers to make their own conclusions about FGM and to lead their own movements for change. By helping to foster collective abandonment, Tostan’s programme allows community members to share the knowledge. Through this process, entire villages and communities—men and women—have decided together to end FGM. This is incredible work, and I am looking into it. I do not know whether it is directly transferrable, because, geographically, such villages are quite different from the communities here, in the midlands or wherever. There must, however, be something to be said for a community making a decision about the value being put on women being cut. If the whole community accedes to that decision, it will be something that has been done collectively.

A couple of months ago, at the conference on FGM at Manor Gardens, religious leaders met for a forum on female cutting. They represented all the religions, although the Jewish representatives could not come, but did send a message of support. What was so amazing was that all the speakers made it clear that religion played no part in FGM. Afterwards, 80% of the people who had attended said that that was beginning to break the link. Somewhere in all this, there is something that we need to look at that is more than all the things that we have been trying to do for so long.

Women (Government Policies)

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Barbara Keeley]

It hardly matters, I think. We are talking about three or four years of cuts and this year’s cuts will be followed by similar cuts next year and the year after. I am surprised that Government Members can look with such equanimity at something such as the 2,000 job cuts that are happening in Manchester.

The hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) talked about protecting the NHS, but in reality hundreds of jobs are being lost in the NHS, as they are in local councils. Jobs are being lost through the abolition of our primary care trust in Salford and that change is also causing turmoil to local services and decision making. At Salford Royal hospital, 720 jobs are being cut, including those of 146 nurses. The Christie, our regional county hospital, is to reduce its staffing by 213—one in 10 of the current work force—including 40 nurse-grade jobs and 50 health care support or assistant jobs. I am sure that none of us would look with equanimity at that level of job loss.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady not accept that her own party did not campaign on the basis of ring-fencing or protecting the health budget? Does she not accept that it is highly likely that the situation would be far worse had her party been elected?

[Barbara Keeley]

No, I do not accept that. The turmoil that has been caused by the unnecessary top-down reorganisation, as well as the £3 billion cost of that reorganisation, is not helping.

Finally, and close to home in my constituency, Royal Bolton hospital is losing 60 posts, including 32 nurses, with 92 jobs going next year and 95 the year after. At Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh hospital, 533 jobs are going—a 13% reduction. These are the jobs and careers of my constituents, and women’s jobs are disproportionately affected because all those organisations employ significantly more women than men.

In recent months, there has been quite a focus on women’s jobs that are being lost, but the cuts also mean the loss of services that women use more than men. Women, as we know, are more likely to use libraries and health services and they need support from social care for family members and themselves as carers. Women will carry a disproportionate burden of the spending cuts that are affecting social care services as 58% of carers are women, and of those carers who combine caring with part-time work, 89% are women.

Next week is carers’ week, which has great support across the House, and the theme will be the true face of carers. Carers are being asked to talk about the reality of their lives as carers—how hard they can find it to be a carer and what could really make a difference to their lives. A report by the Care and Support Alliance in March showed that levels of unmet need were increasing even before the cuts to local council budgets. That is a great cause for concern. In the alliance’s survey of 1,000 people, nearly seven out of 10 respondents felt that they needed more support, more than two in 10 said that services had been cut back even though needs might have been increasing, and more than two in 10 said that the person cared for needed support but was not receiving any services.

That is not surprising, given that councils have been cutting their eligibility criteria for social care for some time, increasing charges for services and removing caps on charges. I am proud of the fact that, despite the swingeing 27% cuts to council budgets at Labour-run Salford city council, it has managed to retain eligibility criteria for social care at a level to help people with moderate needs as well as those with substantial or critical needs. Salford is now one of only 15% of councils that provide that level of care. That is in great contrast to councils such as coalition-run Birmingham city council, which recently tried to set its eligibility criteria to a new level of “personal critical”. More than 10,000 people would have seen their care packages downgraded and more than 4,000 people would have had no care services or support whatever.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) reported the distress of constituents who came to him for assistance: people who were extremely vulnerable themselves or caring for someone who was elderly, ill or disabled. Women carers were disproportionately included. The Care and Support Alliance survey revealed that changes to services that happened even before the cuts had led to

“a negative impact to the person with care and support needs.”

The report quotes one female carer talking about the impact on her life. She said:

“I am unable to go out with my husband because one of us needs to remain at home with my mother. Unable to go out with my sister (also disabled) because if I go out she needs to stay home to support my husband in caring for our mother. Unable to visit friends, have a weekend away or take a holiday. Feel abandoned by the state—Carer’s Allowance withdrawn when I reached 60 last year, Carer’s grant reduced by Local Authority from £400 pa to £100 pa this year, top-up fees now payable for the 3 hour respite per week, no extra help available.”

Of course, such extra stresses also put further pressure on the health of many women who care. Another female carer is quoted in the Care and Support Alliance report as saying:

“I care for two and I am disabled myself. Although they have increased the care for my father, he still needs extra care from me. I get no help with my husband, who is also becoming more demanding and no help for myself. So my life gets harder and harder and my health is deteriorating as a consequence.”

Women who are carers are also worried about the Government’s plans to cut £1 billion from disability living allowance over five years by reducing the number of people who are eligible. Tightening the eligibility criteria for DLA will mean that many carers will not be eligible for carer’s allowance, which will be available only for those who look after someone who is in receipt of the middle or higher level of DLA. As three quarters of the recipients of carer’s allowance are women, that is yet another area in which women will bear the brunt of the cuts.

Carers UK has estimated that seven out of 10 women will be carers in their lifetime. We know that social care services for older people are underfunded and that the number of over-80s is increasing, so the pressure on family carers, who are mainly women, is bound to increase. Once again, women will be disproportionately affected.

Women are more reliant on the services that the public sector provides and therefore stand to lose more from cuts to services and from the loss of jobs that I have talked about. That affects my constituents and women who are carers. I have campaigned since I have been in the House to improve services and support for carers, six out 10 of whom are women. More could always be done, but Labour gave primary care trusts extra budgets to fund respite care, introduced the carers grant and provided £770 million in new funding for disabled children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

This has been a lively and welcome debate, and a rare occasion on which women have outnumbered men in the Chamber. That said, it was a privilege to be here for the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jon Ashworth). He will be a tremendous asset to the House, and he is one of my longest-standing friends in politics. I congratulate him on his election, and also on the birth of his daughter. It will be a busy time ahead for him.

My hon. Friend feared that he would be the token male in today’s debate, and overall the debate has been sisterly, although when my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) was referred to by the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) as simply the shadow Chancellor’s wife, that was language that one would perhaps have expected more from the Justice Secretary. [Interruption.] Members are saying that that is cheap, but I think it was the hon. Lady’s comment that was cheap rather than mine.

One thing is clear: whether by ignorance or design, the Government are disproportionately hitting women with their cuts, their pensions policy and what is happening in the jobs market. Until now, every generation of women have enjoyed greater opportunity than their mothers or grandmothers. My great-grandmother was a cockle picker on the south coast of Wales, my grandmother worked in shoe factories and my mother is a primary school teacher. However, that expectation that women of the next generation will do better than those of the one before is now threatened, largely by the choices that the Government are making. They risk turning back the clock on women’s equality.

I wish to address some of the specific points that have been made today. My hon. Friends the Members for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), for Newport East (Jessica Morden), for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds), for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) and for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) all mentioned the state pension age for women, as did the hon. Members for Solihull (Lorely Burt), for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) and for Belfast East (Naomi Long). Earlier today, the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) and my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes (Lindsay Roy) challenged the Prime Minister about it.

The changes that the Government plan will mean that women have to wait up to two years longer for their state pension, whereas no man will have to wait more than a year longer. They will mean a loss of income of up to £15,000 for up to 33,000 women, yet the coalition agreement states that the parties agree to

“hold a review to set the date at which the state pension age starts to rise to 66, although it will not be sooner than…2020 for women.”

Yet under plans in the Pensions Bill, the state pension age for women will start to rise to 66 in 2018.

As the hon. Member for Belfast East said, MPs of all parties can show that they understand the fierce concerns and aspirations of women by opposing the Government’s proposals to increase the state pension age at such a pace. A petition with more than 10,000 signatures has been presented to the Prime Minister, and Age UK and Saga are calling on the Government to think again. I welcome the chance to hear what the Minister for Equalities has to say about that, and I welcome the fact that the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), is also in his place. I hope that they will listen to the concerns that women are raising.

As for incomes, either by accident or by design the Government’s policies on tax and welfare changes will, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth mentioned, have twice as much of an impact on women as on men. All incomes are being squeezed during these difficult economic times, but some are being squeezed more than others. That is particularly the case for women and children. Does the Minister for Women and Equalities really believe that it is fair that women are paying the highest price for budget deficit reduction? If not, will she look again at some of the Government’s policies?

My hon. Friends the Members for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) and for Worsley and Eccles South spoke passionately about Sure Start and its tremendous work in all our communities. Many mothers and children rely on the services that Sure Start and our children’s centres offer, and although the hon. Member for Corby (Mrs Mensch) thinks they are failing families, the women and children I talk to in Leeds West and across the country believe that they are making a massive difference. The Government say that that money is protected, but in reality, particularly in northern cities where there are cuts of up to 27% of total spending, it is not possible to ring-fence that money. I ask the Government to look again at ensuring that vital services such as children’s centres and the Sure Start offer are protected.

The latest job figures show that jobseeker’s allowance among women is at its highest level since 1996. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston said, 474,000 women are now claiming it. Those problems are only likely to get worse. Sixty-five per cent. of public sector workers are women, as are 75% of those working in local government. If the Office for Budget Responsibility’s predictions of 310,000 job losses in the public sector in this Parliament are correct, we can expect a large proportion of those to be among women, meaning that the highest unemployment among women since 1996 will get worse, not better, in the years ahead.

[Jane Ellison]

Given that the deficit is in the public finances, and given what the hon. Lady said about the proportion of women who work in the public sector, how would the Labour plan, which we have yet to hear, address that problem?

[Rachel Reeves]

There are three issues. First, the speed at which we cut the budget deficit; secondly, the timing of the cuts; and thirdly—this is critical to today’s debate—whether the cuts are made fairly. I do not believe that it is fair that two thirds of the cuts fall on women. All Members of the House believe that that is unfair. That is the key point.

The cuts to women’s pensions, Sure Start, child benefit and local services are not inevitable; they are choices that the Government have made. As hon. Members have reminded us this afternoon, they are unfair choices—they penalise women pensioners, mothers, women students, women carers and women in the labour market. By choosing to cut too far and too fast, the Government have embarked on a slash-and-burn approach to the services, protections and benefits that provide the most support—in good and bad times—to women up and down the country.

The Minister will have a chance to respond shortly, but surely the question is this: where was she when the Chancellor decided to slash child benefit? Where was she when the Secretary of State for Education decided to cut Sure Start?

Oral Answers to Questions

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

1. What progress has been made on the Government’s action plan for ending violence against women and girls; and if she will make a statement.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

4. What progress has been made on the Government’s action plan for ending violence against women and girls; and if she will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Lynne Featherstone)]

The action plan on tackling violence against women and girls was published on 8 March this year, and we have already delivered in several areas. We have provided more than £28 million of stable Home Office funding until 2015 for local specialist services, £900,000 of which has been made available until 2015 to support national helplines, and we have implemented legislation on multi-agency domestic homicide reviews after every domestic murder.

[Lynne Featherstone]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of women’s refuges. The Home Office has sent out a loud and clear message to local authorities by ring-fencing stable funding of £28 million and by saying to them, “You should do the same. These are not soft targets.” It would be a great shame if Northampton council chose to ignore that message.

[Jane Ellison]

Further to the Minister’s reply, will she respond specifically on female genital mutilation, which is a significant problem in this country as well as in the developing world? The Metropolitan police are taking it very seriously, but hundreds of women in London alone present every year with appalling complications associated with pregnancy and childbirth. Can we make this matter a priority, and work with all the agencies and charities to eliminate this abominable practice?

Oral Answers to Questions

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend points up one of the many problems with the immigration system. I point him particularly to student visas issued at below-degree level. We often think of student visas as being about the brightest and the best from around the world coming to our universities. Everyone in the House will welcome that, and they will want it to continue and our university sector to flourish. The problems have often come at sub-degree level with bogus students who do not have the appropriate qualifications, or with bogus colleges. Both of those routes need to be stamped out, which is why, along with proposing a limit on work routes, we are working hard to bring forward proposals on the student route, precisely to stamp out the abuse that my hon. Friend is rightly worried about.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

The Home Office continues to prioritise the counter-terrorism elements of policing. The national security strategy and the strategic defence and security review published two weeks ago will deliver a step change in Britain’s ability to protect its security and advance its interests in the world. To meet the real and growing threat identified from cyber-attack, £650 million of new funding has been allocated to a cross-Government programme to enhance Britain’s cyber-security. While I speak about the Department’s responsibilities, I should perhaps explain for the avoidance of doubt that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), who has responsibility for equalities and criminal information, has not been able to answer a question today because she has lost her voice.

[Jane Ellison]

Another real and growing threat for many of us, especially those with urban constituencies, is the use and abuse of dogs as weapons. That is a real problem, which is often associated with gang activity. It is clearly an animal welfare issue, and Battersea dogs and cats home in my constituency has long been a voice on policy on the issue. However, it is also a crime and policing challenge. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on how Home Office Ministers are working with colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs following that Department’s recent consultation on dangerous dogs?

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising an important issue. It is particularly important for her constituency, for obvious reasons, as she said. The Home Office is reviewing the issue of antisocial behaviour and the tools and powers that need to be made available to deal with it. It is also dealing with Departments across Whitehall, including DEFRA. DEFRA will respond to the previous Government’s consultation on dangerous dogs, looking at issues such as dog licensing and wider issues such as breed-specific bans, once the Home Office has published our proposals on antisocial behaviour.

Youth Violence (London)

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

Hear, hear. I agree with my hon. Friend—Leap does fantastic work in London. Such community and voluntary organisations are literally saving lives. They have a role, and the family has a big role, but so do Government. I have several deep concerns, which I hope the Minister will address, about the Government’s future role.

Some youth services in my area are delivered directly by the local authority, but it also commissions local community groups to provide many services. Of course, the authority gets much of its funding from central Government. That pattern is repeated throughout London. We are essentially drinking from the same trough and have been receiving moneys from the same central Government funds.

Let me start with Lambeth’s youth offending team—there are many youth offending teams across London. It works with young people in the community to prevent them from offending and getting involved in serious crime. It is funded by the Youth Justice Board and does hugely important work. On 20 August, during the recess, Community Care reported that the Youth Justice Board was to be abolished in the name of efficiency. Is that correct? If so, where will the youth offending teams in London get their funding? Will they be funded by the same amount?

The previous Government put in place the youth crime action plan, which was doing many positive things in my constituency, including getting former gang members to engage with young people and establishing youth worker street teams. That helped to prevent disorder and crime, and we were also looking to expand youth centre provision. My borough received £350,000 for this year and another £350,000 for next year. No doubt other boroughs received those funds too. Will the Government continue to fund the implementation of the plan when the money runs out next year? Will the level of funding be maintained?

We also received funding from the working neighbourhoods fund this year, and we have moneys for 2011 from the Department for Communities and Local Government, which we used to address worklessness in our area. We have a disproportionately high youth unemployment rate in Lambeth. The Government announced the abolition of the fund in June. What will they replace it with?

As part of Lambeth’s area-based grant, it receives £9 million for a range of preventive services, from Connexions to school grants. The cuts that have been demanded of Lambeth this year mean that we have to make cuts of around £2.5 million to the grants. I do not understand how our youth provision will not be affected by that. Does the Minister have any idea of the effect that that will have on youth provision in my community? What will the Government do about it?

Again, the list of funds and support is not exhaustive, but it is substantial. It is crucial that we have the moneys so that we can channel the energy of our youth in a positive direction, away from the activities that lead to violence and, tragically, sometimes to the loss of young lives.

Policing is another big issue. While we must properly fund youth provision, we also need effective, visible policing to help deal with problems when they flare up. I pay tribute to the work of the many police in my borough, who do a fantastic job of keeping our streets safe.

Last Friday, the Police Federation chair said that a touch of ideology and bad advice to Government from think-tanks had left the police service facing cuts that could leave up to 40,000 officers out of a job. Yesterday, as the Minister will know, the Home Secretary responded at the Superintendents Association conference. She said:

“The front line is the last place police should look to make savings—not the first.”

I spoke with some members of a safer neighbourhood team in my constituency on Saturday. We have eight safer neighbourhood teams which do sterling work and are very much supported by the community. They made it clear to me that they have already made savings by systematically attacking overheads throughout the force, not least at headquarters, in the way that the Home Secretary has demanded. They are already cut to the bone. What guarantees can the Minister give my community, and London in general, that police numbers will not be reduced?

Many of these funding cuts have been implemented in the name of deficit reduction.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

I have great empathy with everything that the hon. Gentleman says as we have the same issues in my neighbouring constituency. However, in his original list, he did not touch on family as one of the elements involved. Chaotic family situations need to be addressed over the next generation, and it would be a shame if he concluded his remarks without acknowledging that.

[Mr Umunna]

I did mention the role of the family, when I referred to community groups. However, I agree with the hon. Lady and I thank her for bringing the matter up. In fact, I have just been discussing that very issue at length with the young people who are watching us in the Gallery. The importance of the family, and support for it, is a big issue. In our borough—the hon. Lady will know this as a neighbour—one problem is with children having children, as we have quite a high rate of teenage pregnancy. We have fantastic groups such as the St Michael’s Fellowship which works with young mums and dads to teach them and support them in becoming fantastic parents. However, that also requires funding. I do not think that funding is the only answer, but if we are to have more youth workers and people who can sit down with young parents and teach them what it is to be a parent, the money will have to come from somewhere. In the current economic climate, corporate social responsibility funds from the private sector and charitable foundations are not what they were five or six years ago. That is why the role of the Government is so important—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) shakes his head, but that role is important.

If we invest in prevention—in occupying our young people with decent things to do that can expand their horizons and increase their opportunities—it reduces the chances of them entering the criminal justice system. We know how much it costs to put a young person through that system. In the long term, therefore, it would actually cost us more as a community not to spend money addressing this issue than it would to invest the money now.

The youth activities and services that are being funded in London are helping not only to provide the future opportunities that I have mentioned, and to ensure that our young people can achieve their full potential, but to divert them away from violence. It is worth emphasising again that the people working in this arena are saving lives. We cannot put a price on reducing youth violence on London’s streets. We have to do everything that we can to reduce that. What my constituents want to know is what the new Government will do about this. Will they cut off the support that we have and need, or will they live up to their duty to our young people?

Limits on Non-EU Economic Migration

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Yes, perhaps when the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) has just got up. He suggests that what we are doing is a natural progression from the direction of his Front-Bench colleagues, but they were not proposing to have an annual limit. In fact, they have consistently derided the concept of an annual limit. It is this coalition Government who are taking the steps necessary.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement. In my short time as a Member of Parliament I have met people who are in this country as economic migrants and working for large, established employers who should be establishing training schemes, taking people on and equipping them with the relevant skills. Does she agree that those employers should put their efforts into setting up apprenticeships rather than recruiting low-skilled workers from abroad?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point about the need for employers to see what they can do to ensure that unemployed people in this country can take up job opportunities. The policies that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is bringing forward will ensure that we give the support necessary to help people get into the workplace.