Domestic Abuse Bill

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Angela Crawley

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Angela Crawley]

Absolutely. Perhaps I should use this opportunity to say that should a future Government of any coalition have to carry forward this legislation, I hope their agenda will also be to deliver on this Bill should it not succeed in this parliamentary term. It would be a great loss and a great shame were we not to see it passed in this parliamentary term, and were the right hon. Member for Maidenhead not to have it as part of her legacy, because she rightly deserves such an opportunity.

In particular, it is welcome to see the measures to protect survivors in court, including the prohibition of the examination of domestic abuse victims by their perpetrators. It seems almost unimaginable that such a procedure is even possible. The inclusion of non-physical abuse in the statutory definition of domestic abuse, the inclusion of children aged 16 and 17, and the appointment of a Domestic Abuse Commissioner are truly welcome. While these measures go some way towards tackling a broad and multifaceted problem, I believe there are several areas in the Bill that could be improved in Committee.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady is making a very good case. There is another dimension, because we very often get women whose immigration status, for want of a better term, is not secure. Does she not agree that the commissioner should really have her powers strengthened to look at that?

[Angela Crawley]

I wholeheartedly agree, and I will come on to that later in my speech.

In 2017, my colleague Eilidh Whiteford’s Bill to ratify the Istanbul convention was very much about pressing the Government to do exactly what this Bill sets out to do. I know that she, although no longer in the House, would love to see this Bill passed and to see the Istanbul convention ratified as part of her legacy. Although the Government stated their intention to bring the convention’s provisions into law, two years later we are still waiting. The Bill is an opportunity for the Government to meet those intentions, but in my opinion it fails fully to meet the requirements of the Istanbul convention. I hope more work can be done in Committee to ensure that the Bill gets us to the point where we can ratify the convention.

Women with insecure immigration status find it virtually impossible to seek protection when experiencing domestic abuse. As the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) indicated, for many such women their visa status is tied to their partner or their partner has control of the necessary documents and evidence, so they are unable to escape. That goes against the crystal clear language of the Istanbul convention, which states that protection must be afforded to survivors regardless of their immigration status. I am worried that, should the Bill fail adequately to promote equality, including for those with insecure immigration status, it would risk violating our existing human rights obligations under the European convention on human rights, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women—CEDAW, as we all know it. In essence, we must ensure that we get this legislation right.

I am conscious that many people want to speak, so I am doing my best to wind up as fast as I can. In taking forward the Bill, we must consider the needs of people whose insecure immigration status means they have no access to public funds or housing support. Such people are routinely denied refuge spaces, safe accommodation and welfare, and therefore are stuck between becoming destitute and homeless and returning to their abuser. Every MP in the House will have a constituent, or will have supported a woman, who has had to seek refuge in temporary accommodation. That may have been their first interaction with a Government office, be it the Department for Work and Pensions or the Home Office. They need our support, so we must do better.

Frankly, the Government’s approach to welfare only compounds problems for survivors of domestic violence. Universal credit provisions, include mandatory waiting periods and payments to heads of households, create an environment that allows economic abuse and control. The SNP has repeatedly argued for universal credit payments to be processed and paid in advance rather than in arrears, and be made to more than one householder, in the form of split payments. If the Government do not make those adjustments, victims of abuse will continue to be unable to access the resources they need to leave harmful relationships.

As the SNP spokesperson for women and equalities, it is an honour to work with colleagues across the House, including the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) and many others, as a member of the Women and Equalities Committee. The Bill relates specifically to England and Wales, but some of its provisions will have an impact on the lives of women in Scotland. The picture painted by the Minister only highlights that we have so much further to go. Let us not get another 25 years down the line and be having the same conversation.

I am proud of my honourable friend Christina McKelvie, who, as Equalities Minister in the Scottish Government, is delivering this policy in Scotland. We can do better. We must do better. Too many women and their families are relying on this Government to protect them, whether through policing or justice measures or through this legislation in and of itself. I hope this Prime Minister and this Government get this right so we can deliver for women across the UK.

Automatic Enrolment: Lower Earnings Limit

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Angela Crawley

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) on securing this debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) for his contribution.

I am a firm believer in workers’ rights, but with Brexit on the horizon, it feels like even the most basic rights are no longer guaranteed or a priority. It speaks volumes that we are having this debate in this Chamber while the Brexit debate takes place in the main Chamber. It is important to recognise where the Government are taking positive action. Although it is not perfect, the attempt at auto-enrolment was one way for the Government to recognise the huge issues with the current pensions system. It has meant that eligible workers are automatically enrolled on a pension scheme, with the employer obliged to pay towards their employee’s pension.

In reality, however, it will allow pensions contributions to be paid at set limits and with set criteria, which the Government have set out in a phased timeline. The Government have made no firm commitments on when exactly the conclusion of that timeline will be, and in reality, it does not quite meet the mark of what is required for people to truly be able to plan for financial retirement.

If the Government were to scrap the lower earnings limit, as my hon. Friend outlined, that would allow pension contributions to be paid from the first pound of every worker’s salary. Currently, employers do not have to include the first £6,032 that an employee earns when calculating pension contributions, so if the Government removed the lower earnings limit, that would mean a significant increase to the employee’s pension pot.

As was outlined earlier, that would account for an extra £2.6 billion a year going into workers’ pensions, including £1 billion more from employers, according to the Government’s own figures. The Government released detailed plans to scrap the lower earnings limit in 2017, but have given only a vague commitment to take action on it in the mid-2020s. When does the Minister envisage that that will happen? 2023? 2024? 2025? 2027? Rather than the vague timescale that the Minister has set out previously, can he give a concrete guarantee about exactly when the lower earnings limit will be scrapped? To put that into perspective, research by the TUC outlines that a six-year delay could cut a saver’s pension pot by £12,000—based on the 2022 figure rather than the 2028 figure—which would make a sizeable difference to the affected individuals.

I will address some of the key flaws and primary concerns of the issue. The lower earnings limit trigger provides eligibility for the auto-enrolment programme. When it was introduced, it was set at £5,035 a year, and then increased to £7,457, which resulted in the exclusion of 600,000 workers, of whom 78% were women. After increases over the years, the earnings trigger was frozen at £10,000 in 2015-16 up to the current period of 2018-19. That resulted in the exclusion of an additional 40,000 workers, of whom 30,000 were women, notwithstanding the fact that increasing the lower earnings limit to £10,000 excluded 170,000 workers, of whom 120,000—69%—were women. I hope that that illustrates to the Minister, who I am sure already knows this, my key concerns—as spokesperson for women and equalities—about the problems this poses for women.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

A whole raft of evidence, relating particularly to young or middle-aged women, shows that the Government are not hitting the mark on these matters. The WASPI women issue has run for many years and, if we consider the last economic crisis, women took the brunt of it: £14 billion was taken from women, through various tax measures, to deal with the crisis. Does the hon. Lady agree that it is about time that something was done about that?

[Angela Crawley]

I wholeheartedly agree. The Government have been remiss in their responsibilities to address those epidemic concerns that have increased during their stewardship in government.

I will turn to the concerns that I have outlined, including those of women, low-paid workers and the WASPI women, on whom the Government have a shambolic record. Low-paid workers, including those who have multiple jobs that do not meet that threshold, are more often than not below the earnings threshold and do not therefore meet the criteria for auto-enrolment. There is no mechanism for auto-enrolment for the self-employed.

Another group of individuals has also been completely forgotten in this programme. There is a duty to enrol for those aged between 22 and the state pension age. Those in the six-year gap between the ages of 16 and 22 will therefore be adversely impacted by that decision. The Government acknowledged that problem, but addressed it by saying that many people in that age group tend to move jobs a lot, so it is not administratively worthwhile to account for them in the programme.

What do the Government say, however, to a young person who goes into a full-time permanent job at 16? Are they not entitled to pension contributions? The UK Government have said that they will lower the age to 18 by the mid-2020s. Can the Minister tell us exactly when that will happen?

The contribution is currently set at £6,032, going up to a threshold of £46,350. That has been on a phased increase since 2012. In reality, the minimum recommendation that is currently estimated for pension savings is 15% to 18%. If the Government were to remove the lower earnings limit, it would add £2.6 billion to the annual pensions pot. That would still account for only 8% of the estimated required pension savings. That means a shortfall of 12%, on average, for each individual of working age in the UK. The Government have to address that.

The Minister himself, however, has admitted that 8% is not a sufficient contribution for a long-term retirement, and the Government’s own figures suggest that approximately 12 million people are under-saving for retirement. I hate to take words out of the Minister’s mouth, but he will probably point to the pensions dashboard to support better planning for retirement. However, for women, low-paid workers, those in multiple low-paid jobs, those aged from 16 to 22 who are in full-time permanent employment, the self-employed, and those on zero-hours contracts who fall below that threshold, can the Government say that they are serving them? For society as a whole, does the existing lower earnings limit sufficiently

“support better planning for retirement”,

to use the Government’s own words? The Government record on WASPI women alone proves that, more often than not, the evidence is that in most instances the most vulnerable in society are an afterthought.

Mental Health: Assessment

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Angela Crawley

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Angela Crawley]

I would like to make some progress first.

I am grateful to everyone who contacted me and took the time to comment, both on Facebook and through email, especially those who were brave enough to come forward and share their story. It is vital, given the needs of people with mental health issues, that the Government take time to listen to them.

Over the past few years there have been a great many public understanding and national awareness campaigns on mental health. Where mental health was once kept a secret from family, friends and colleagues, more and more people feel able to come forward and openly discuss their experiences of mental illness and get the necessary help. That recognition is largely due to the tireless work of national campaigns such as the Scottish Association for Mental Health, Mind and many others.

On 10 October last year, the Prime Minister held a reception to celebrate World Mental Health Day and to make a policy announcement, which included the creation of a Minister for suicide prevention. The Prime Minister said,

“we are not looking after our health if we are not looking after our mental health...we need that true parity between physical and mental health, not just in our health systems but elsewhere as well—in our classrooms, our workplaces, in our communities too.”

I agree with all of those points, but I would add that one of the biggest and most positive changes would be parity of esteem between mental and physical health in Government Departments themselves. That would be the place to start.

The highest number of people who seek my support are those who have been denied access or assistance by the Department for Work and Pensions. A common theme of the complaints I hear is that the constituent’s mental health needs have been ignored during work capability assessments for universal credit, employment support allowance and the personal independence payment. Most of those people have a genuine claim and have been incorrectly assessed. That is because the majority of decisions brought to me are ultimately overturned at the mandatory reconsideration and appeals stage.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. On Friday night I met a number of people with mental health problems. Their issue is that the doctor says that they are not fit to work, but the benefits assessor says that they are, which leaves them in limbo. It is also a problem that employers do not always recognise mental illness. Does the hon. Lady agree that the Minister should do something about that?

[Angela Crawley]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I am sorry that I did not take it earlier. Each and every day, our constituency offices deal with situations where there has been an issue with the Department for Work and Pensions. It is our staff who work day in, day out to get those decisions overturned. If we have to do that, and if decisions are being repeatedly overturned, there is obviously a flaw in the system.