Oral Answers to Questions
Karin Smyth Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)
The Cass review is a robust report backed by clinicians and firmly grounded in evidence. The Government and NHS England will be implementing Dr Cass’s recommendations in full, so that children and young people get the safe, holistic care and support they need.
Mr Holden
Dr Cass’s review was an important moment for services for young people in this country. Will the Minister restate the Government’s commitment to ensuring that all the review’s findings, which are based on evidence ahead of ideology, are implemented? Does the Minister also reject calls from various vested interest groups to pause implementation, and press ahead as quickly as possible to protect vulnerable young people in our country?
Karin Smyth
As I said in my original answer, the Government are absolutely committed to implementing all of Dr Cass’s evidence-based review in full.
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for her response and the robust response from this Labour Government to support the Cass review. Will she confirm that she is having robust conversations with devolved Governments about its implementation across the United Kingdom?
Karin Smyth
The Secretary of State has met the leaders of all the devolved Administrations to discuss our intention to work with them very closely across all issues that come under our sphere, including the Cass recommendations.
Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)
I thank the Minister for taking up the recommendations of the Cass review. Children struggling with their gender identity deserve our protection and a holistic, understanding approach via our new NHS centres, rather than irreversible medical and surgical intervention. Will the Minister confirm that the British Medical Association’s original position that the Cass review contained unsubstantiated recommendations will not delay that protection being put in place for vulnerable children?
Karin Smyth
I cannot reiterate any more strongly than I have that this Government are absolutely committed to implementing the Cass review’s evidence-based recommendations in full.
Becky Gittins (Clwyd East) (Lab)
Oral Answers to Questions
Karin Smyth Excerpts(9 months ago)
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Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Chris Heaton-Harris)
I start by welcoming the return of the devolved institutions to Northern Ireland, following the publication of the “Safeguarding the Union” Command Paper earlier this month and the Windsor framework, which was agreed exactly a year ago yesterday. Let me also take this opportunity to mention that the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland will celebrate their 25th anniversaries on Friday.
The Government are doing all that we can to support the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery in delivering effectively for victims and families. Significant progress has been made since the ICRIR was established in December last year, and I expect the commission’s doors to open on 1 May.
Karin Smyth
It is deeply concerning that the Government’s own imposed 1 May deadline means that inquests will be unable to conclude as they otherwise would. We have heard reports that there was only one specialist in the Ministry of Defence dealing with these inquiries, and that possibly MOD delays in providing material have caused additional hold-ups. We really need to understand what the Government are doing to ensure that inquests can conclude by the Government’s self-imposed deadline.
Chris Heaton-Harris
I humbly remind the hon. Lady that the original deadline, before we tabled amendments to the Act, then a Bill, in the House of Lords, was 1 May 2023, so there has been an extra year. The Government continue to assist the Northern Ireland courts in good faith on legacy matters. There is no question of the Government deliberately seeking to frustrate inquests. The Act allows a coroner to request a review of a death by the independent commission, led by chief commissioner Sir Declan Morgan, if the inquest has not been concluded via the coronial process by 1 May 2024.
Oral Answers to Questions
Karin Smyth Excerpts(10 months ago)
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John Lamont
The hon. Member is simply not correct: £2.9 billion has been invested by this Government into communities the length and breadth of Scotland. I know that SNP Members have fought tooth and nail to stop that investment being delivered to those local communities, but this Conservative Government will continue to invest directly into Scotland.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (John Lamont)
Funding policies for those studying in Scotland, including nursing students, is a matter for the Scottish Government. The UK Government support collaboration between our nations to share best practice and provide better healthcare services. We would be open to future discussions with the Scottish Government about this matter.
Karin Smyth
My constituent has been denied additional funding for her nursing degree because she is domiciled in England but studying in Scotland, whereas those studying in England can access the funding regardless of where they are domiciled. What advice can the Government give me to help my constituent?
John Lamont
Nursing bursaries for those wishing to study in Scotland are a matter for the Scottish Government. Unfortunately, the Scottish Government only provide bursary support for Scottish-domiciled nursing students, and only if they are enrolled in a course that leads to a diploma in Scotland. In contrast, the UK Government ensure that the learning support fund is available to all UK students studying at English universities, regardless of where they are domiciled. I will be happy, on behalf of the hon. Lady, to set up a meeting with my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care to see how we might be able to pursue the matter further.
Extreme Weather Events: Resilience
Karin Smyth Excerpts(10 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Alex Burghart
I am very happy to join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the Appleby Emergency Response Group. So often, it is local community organisations, with their connections and awareness of and intelligence about what is taking place on the ground, that make a response possible, so I am very happy to join him in that. I am glad to hear that although his constituency was hit hard by the storms, it has managed to move on quickly.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) asked why the Government had neglected local resilience forums and, indeed, the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, which they bypassed during covid. May I ask that question again? What lessons have the Government learned from covid and such issues in order to give greater sustainability to the local resilience forums that need to protect us?
Alex Burghart
We obviously learned a great many lessons from covid. As the hon. Lady will be aware from the documentation that the Government have published over the past couple of years, there has been a great deal of activity to improve our resilience and response to emergencies. My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister gave a statement to that effect in this House in December.
The Cabinet Office assigns ownership of acute national risks to lead Government Departments, across risk identification, risk assessment, prevention, resilience, preparation and emergency response and recovery. The lead Government Departments may change between the phases as the impact changes and different competencies are required. None the less, the UK has adopted a bottom-up approach to managing emergencies, as most emergencies affect local areas. We have local responders such as the police, fire and ambulance services, which manage emergencies without direct involvement from the Government. The response to larger-scale emergencies is then led by lead Government Departments. It is only in the most serious cases that the response is escalated to Cabinet Office briefing rooms—known as Cobra—and senior Ministers from across Government are brought in. As the hon. Lady will have heard me say, this is very much about a partnership between centre and locality, and we are starting to see the benefits of that approach.
Tributes to Sir Tony Lloyd
Karin Smyth Excerpts(10 months ago)
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Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
I met Tony when we became corridor neighbours after his 2017 election, but I knew of his reputation and was somewhat in awe of it. When I worked with him, my Irish-Mancunian Aunt Margaret messaged me to say, “You’re working with our Tony!” She was so proud and told everyone in Middleton about my great rise.
Although 2018 was a difficult time in the Labour party, in our country and in Northern Ireland, Tony assumed the role of shadow Secretary of State with his usual calm, professionalism and guiding political principles. Knowing my interest in Northern Ireland, he brought me into the team. It is still a mystery to me that when I became a shadow Northern Ireland Minister there was no announcement, there were certainly no tweets, and I am not even sure that the Office of the Leader of the House knew that the number of people in that team had risen from two to three. Along with the aforementioned Steve Pound, I became part of a trio. What a time that was—again, perhaps there will be stories later.
Tony was not going to allow a bit of procedure, or indeed convention, get in the way of pragmatism and what he thought was needed at the time. He wanted to have a woman in his team—he was a great supporter of women’s equality. It was such a great pleasure to work with him at that time. Wherever we went, whoever we met and whatever difficult discussions we had—and there were many—with all political parties it was exactly the same. We met the political parties, we met those victims of the terrible violence in Northern Ireland, for which people are still struggling to get justice, we met campaigners for a new and different Northern Ireland, we met the Irish Government, and we met Tory Ministers, with whom we had difficult but always respectful conversations. Tony was exactly the same at all those meetings: calm, informed, respectful and, ultimately, very wise.
Sadly, there are not always enough people in this place who are interested in the affairs of Northern Ireland, so we often had a lot of down time between debates. We were often here quite late when everyone else had gone on to do other things. We also spent a lot of time travelling, and I learnt so much. I have not met most of Tony’s family, but I feel that I know about them, and we shared the great love that we both felt for our families.
I remember waxing lyrical—as I am sometimes wont to do, but will not do now—when asking his advice about how best to be a good MP, and how best to use Parliament. Should MPs stay on the Back Benches, should they take a position on the Front Bench, should they join Select Committees, should they try to introduce private Members’ Bills? He stopped, raised his hand, took a sip of his pint and asked me, “Can you do joined-up writing?” [Laughter.] And I can, Mr Speaker. When I said that I could, Tony said, “There is always a job to be done in this place by people who can do joined-up writing.” What he meant was that MPs should have a clear focus on their constituents—there is a job to be done there, which he did really well—but after that they should do what they feel is right for them, where they think they can make the most difference. But he also meant, “Enjoy the great privilege that you have.”
I will miss Tony for that sense of fun, for that mischievousness, and for his great wisdom and friendship, particularly over the last couple of years when he was ill. We all seem to have spoken to him and received texts in the last two months, so that phone bill must be very high. Tony had no intention of dying when he spoke to us in those last conversations, but I know from the work that he did with me on assisted dying and the right of people to choose their moment of leaving that that choice to be at home with the love of his family would have been a very important one. Our main thoughts are with his family and close friends. I thank everyone for sharing them, and may he rest in peace.
Oral Answers to Questions
Karin Smyth Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Oliver Dowden
I assure the right hon. Gentleman that we take these threats seriously. The point about critical national infrastructure is that we designate it in relation to things that are important to the safe and secure day-to-day running of the United Kingdom—literally keeping the lights on. That does not mean that we do not take very seriously the threats he outlines. It is something that I am raising with the Department of Health and Social Care, which is the lead Department for genomics.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
This Government are supporting small and medium-sized enterprises in a variety of ways, from transparently publishing contract pipelines to simplifying bidding procedures. The Procurement Bill, which is making its way through Parliament and will be on Report soon, will create a simpler and more transparent procurement regime that will further open up public procurement to SMEs. The Bill includes a new duty on contracting authorities to have regard to the particular barriers facing SMEs.
Karin Smyth
I am pleased to hear about the Procurement Bill, because small and medium-sized businesses are fundamental to the economy of Bristol South and for jobs. What steps will the Minister be taking to address gaps in the Procurement Bill to enforce payment deadlines and to make sure that filters down through the supply chain to help small businesses in my constituency?
Alex Burghart
I am glad to hear the hon. Lady refer to that, because the principles behind the Procurement Bill for SMEs were given to us by SMEs. We want transparency, simplicity and fairness. On that third point, we are keen to see people pay their bills promptly, so that SMEs throughout the supply chain can get their money when they need it.
List of Ministers’ Interests and Ministerial Code
Karin Smyth Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Alex Burghart
Absolutely. A blind trust must be a blind trust. On my hon. Friend’s point about the integrity of official advice to Ministers, absolutely, our system requires officials to be able to give advice candidly and freely, safe in the knowledge that it will not routinely be disclosed.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
In our Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee report into the Greensill affair, we suggested:
“The Government should outline the range of sanctions and indicative examples of breaches to which they might apply. Without this, the suspicion is that the only determinant of the level of sanction will be political expediency.”
In the discussions with the Deputy Prime Minister last week, was he offered a range of sanctions with regard to the breach of the ministerial code before he resigned?
Alex Burghart
I was not party to those discussions, so I am unable to say.
Northern Ireland Protocol
Karin Smyth Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I am sure that the Bill did create the conditions for us to have the negotiation that we did, but, as the Government were clear about and said at the time, our preference was always a negotiated outcome if one was available. Today, we have achieved a negotiated outcome that provides the certainty and stability that we need, and resolves the issues we set out to resolve. It safeguards Northern Ireland’s sovereignty, protects its place in the Union, and guarantees and provides for the free flow of trade around the UK internal market. It is because we now have the Windsor framework, this new agreement, that we no longer need the Bill and we will no longer proceed with it. This agreement can start bringing benefit to the people of Northern Ireland as quickly as possible.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
As chair of the all-party group on Ireland and the Irish in Britain, I believe that, over the past few years, the state of the relationship between London and Dublin has been of great concern to many of us and to the hundreds of workers in this place who are Irish or of Irish origin. We need to look to the future and to learn from what we see. The Prime Minister talks about the Good Friday agreement in all its dimensions. That includes strands 2 and 3, which, if fully implemented, offer us great potential to embed some of this agreement and to look to the future. Will he now commit his party—other Members here can join in—to making sure that the operations of strands 2 and 3 and our co-operation with the Irish Government go forward in a much better way?
The Prime Minister
The Government are committed to all strands of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. I have talked a lot about balance and about making sure that we get that balance right. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), for the incredible job that they have done not just with the agreement, but, in particular, in addressing the issue that the hon. Lady has just raised. I also wish to put on record my thanks to the Irish Government for the role they have played and the support they have provided us throughout this process. We look forward to continued, positive and constructive dialogue with them. That is what my colleagues and I will do as we make sure that we capitalise on all strands of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement.
Ministerial Appointments: Vetting and Managing Conflicts of Interest
Karin Smyth Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Jeremy Quin
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Opposition Members have been calling for an independent adviser for months. When one is appointed, it is not good enough; then they say that the Government should take all decisions by themselves, without all the facts. It is useful to have an independent adviser to deal with these issues when appropriate. I reassure my hon. Friend that my understanding is that the independent adviser plans to issue a publication on ministerial interests before his report in May.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, is ready to help, and looks forward to meeting the new ethics adviser. The Prime Minister has said that there are questions to be answered. The Minister has been very careful to say that declaring interests under the ministerial code is up to the individual, which is correct. Did the Prime Minister know that the right hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) was due to be investigated?
Jeremy Quin
The usual appointment process was undertaken, so the Prime Minister will have had the benefit of full disclosure of the interests that my right hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon declared when the Prime Minister appointed him chair of the Conservative party.
Independent Adviser on Ministerial Interests
Karin Smyth Excerpts(1 year, 12 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Alex Burghart
The hon. Gentleman will have heard me say several times, in reference to whether an independent adviser can initiate proceedings, that Lord Geidt was happy with the proposals made in May; he said that it would be a workable scheme.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
This is a really serious issue that undermines confidence in the ethics of this place and the Government. Lord Geidt gave evidence to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, and resigned two days later, following our questioning. That needs to be taken seriously. We are still very concerned about this issue, the appointment process—Lord Geidt was alighted upon—and the remit. If the Minister does not want to discuss the process in public, will he commit to meeting the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee in private, if there is no movement on this issue in the next couple of weeks?
Alex Burghart
I am confident that an independent adviser will be appointed very soon, so I am not sure that there will be a need for such a meeting.