Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Victoria Atkins

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

10. What steps she is taking to increase the recruitment and retention of NHS midwifery and maternity staff.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Victoria Atkins)]

We are investing an additional £165 million a year to improve maternity and neonatal care, rising to £186 million a year from April. This will increase the number of midwifery posts and improve the quality of care that mothers and babies receive. As of October last year, there were 23,100 full-time equivalent midwives working in NHS trusts and other core organisations in England, which is more than 1,000 more than a year ago and 3,500 more than in 2010.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank the Secretary of State for that response. The Royal College of Midwives estimates that there is a shortage of around 2,500 full-time midwives working in the NHS. I know that at first hand from Cossham Hospital in my constituency, which has a wonderful birth centre, but it has been closed for most of the last few years, because it simply cannot get the midwives to staff it—they have to go elsewhere where more serious cases need to be dealt with. What is she doing specifically about the retention of midwives? I know that student numbers are, thankfully, coming up, but a lot of midwives are choosing to leave the profession because there is not enough flexibility in their work.

[Victoria Atkins]

I think we all agree that a career as a midwife is just one of the most rewarding and fulfilling careers that one can hope for. That is why we have placed such priority on retention in the long-term workforce plan that we launched last year. The national retention programme for midwifery and nursing has prioritised five actions to support staff retention, including menopause guidance, because we know that that can be an issue for midwives, and valuing them and their contribution is also a key objective of NHS England’s three-year plan for maternity services.

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[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my right hon. Friend for commissioning that vital piece of work. I am giving the matter my closest attention, and I hope very much to be in a position to respond to his points in due course.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

T8. This week the Riverside unit in my constituency, which treats young people with severe eating disorders, had to close temporarily because of concerns about its ability to provide safe care. What are the Government doing to ensure that young people who, in many cases, go through mental health crises as a result of their eating disorders receive the care that they need as close to home as possible?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Victoria Atkins

Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

16. What steps his Department is taking with youth custody centres to help prevent reoffending.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Victoria Atkins)]

The number of children entering the youth justice system has fallen by 81% in the last decade and the number of children on the secure estate has fallen by about three quarters. We are, however, developing a more specialised workforce focused on rehabilitation, because we accept that that is how to help these young people to move away from a life of crime. Every prison officer on the youth estate is now funded to take up a qualification in youth justice by next year. We have also created specialist youth justice worker officers, who are trained to work with children, and we already have 284 in post.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I hope that the Minister has been talking to her colleague the Housing Minister about his plans to regulate supported housing, which were announced last week and which we very much welcome. Will she now talk to him about the need to ensure that if 16 and 17-year-olds are released from custody and it is not appropriate for them to go back to their family home, they are not placed in unregulated housing?

[Victoria Atkins]

Very much so. As I said in answer to previous questions, home is a vital part of rehabilitation and cutting reoffending. We know about some of the particular pressures that young people can face if, for example, they have been drawn into county lines gangs, and the geographical location of their home may be a pertinent element in their reoffending or their vulnerability to reoffending. I am happy to confirm that I will be speaking to the Housing Minister. I am also drawing together a cross-Whitehall group of Ministers to discuss how we can tackle youth offending at the earliest stages, not just when a child reaches the justice system.

Prisons Strategy

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Victoria Atkins

Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend is right to say that we must learn to live with covid within the prison estate, as we do outside prison walls. We are working with NHS local services to roll out the vaccine in custody, and clearly we encourage everyone to be vaccinated, not just inside but outside prison. That will be key to our consideration of further removing the national framework. Of course, we must be led by the evidence and the data.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I was a little surprised that the Minister did not mention family ties in her statement, as they are an important part of rehabilitation. Is she prepared to meet me and the charity Children Heard and Seen to discuss the retendering of prisoner, family and significant other support services so we can make sure they are children-focused services and are not just about prisoners’ wants and needs?

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) for mentioning family ties, which are critical. Family ties are in the White Paper, and we want to encourage, as appropriate, keeping those connections as best we can. I am happy to meet the hon. Lady and the charity. Through this White Paper we will be welcoming the expertise, knowledge and thoughts of charities that work with prisoners, victims and prison staff to ensure they are shared throughout our work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Victoria Atkins

Monday 14th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

What steps she is taking to tackle county lines drug trafficking and safeguard vulnerable children from exploitation.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

We are determined to tackle the harm caused by county lines exploitation. In addition to the establishment of violence reduction units, the extensive operations conducted by British Transport Police on transport networks and other targeted policing across the country, this year we have significantly increased our investment in one-to-one specialist support for county lines victims and their families to help them to leave the clutches of these criminal gangs. We are also funding the helpline Safecall run by the Missing People charity, which provides specialist advice and support to young people, parents and professionals who are worried about a young person who may be in trouble and being exploited.

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[Victoria Atkins]

I really welcome the sort of intervention that the hon. Lady describes. I am very conscious of the impact that county lines exploitation and, as she says, other types of criminal exploitation have not just on the young people themselves but on their families and their wider neighbourhoods. In terms of the organisation she mentions, I am very happy to meet her to learn more about it. I remind her of the youth endowment fund, which is a fund of £200 million that we have set out over a 10-year period in order to research programmes that work and are evaluated to have really good development and really good conclusions so that we can share that best practice with other local authorities and charities across the country.

[Kerry McCarthy]

In a recent report, the Children’s Commissioner highlighted the risk that young people in care were put in when they go into unregulated and mostly unsupported accommodation, and called for a ban on that. One of the things that they are at risk of is being preyed upon and drawn into county lines activity. Will the Minister speak to her colleagues in the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to see whether they can support my Bill which aims to outlaw this?

[Victoria Atkins]

I hope the hon. Lady would be content to know that those discussions are already taking place. I take the vulnerabilities of children living in care very seriously indeed. One of the funds, the Trusted Relationships fund, which she may be aware of, is precisely to help children who have perhaps been let down by every adult they have come across in their lives, and I have seen at first hand some of the incredible work that the youth workers are able to do with individuals through that fund. I am certainly happy to meet her and to discuss her Bill with my colleagues.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Victoria Atkins

Monday 21st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

2. What steps his Department is taking to prevent young people from becoming involved in county lines drugs operations.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

We have provided £3.6 million for a new national county lines co-ordination centre to enhance the intelligence picture and to support efforts to identify and safeguard victims. The centre launched in September last year and carried out its first week of action in October, leading to more 500 arrests and more than 300 people safeguarded.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I was pleased to see it reported recently that the Government are treating the victims of county lines as victims of modern slavery. That is a helpful approach, but I have two concerns. One is that children who have been excluded from school are particularly at risk. My second concern relates to housing. What conversations are Ministers having with their counterparts in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to make sure that children who are at risk are not housed back in the area where the people who have persecuted them live?

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the hon. Lady for her continued focus on modern slavery. She is absolutely right that this is not just about policing, although of course that is a vital part of our treatment of serious violence and county lines. It is about taking a holistic approach, which is why the Home Secretary chairs the serious violence taskforce, which brings together local government, national Government and all the relevant agencies. That can make a real difference in the lives of young people who may be vulnerable to the gangsters.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Victoria Atkins

Thursday 20th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for promoting me momentarily. She is right: sport can have an enormously positive impact on people’s lives. Obviously in the context of domestic abuse and serious violence, we are very conscious that sport can be a great way to reach out to young people and help them to make positive life choices. I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I understand, too, that there are plans for a parliamentary netball team, which I will not volunteer for—I am more of a hockey player—but I am sure that is something to look forward to in the new year.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

10. Women in the asylum system are particularly vulnerable to domestic violence if they enter into marriages that they cannot escape. Is it part of the Government strategy to look at how can protect those women?

[Victoria Atkins]

We are very conscious of the additional pressures women in the asylum system face, particularly if they are in the system through family visas, where, sadly, we know there are cases where the perpetrators of the violence are the people on whom they rely for their asylum status. UK Visas and Immigration has set up a safeguarding hub to look at whether urgent intervention is necessary in each asylum case, and that obviously includes domestic abuse. We are concentrating on this in the forthcoming package of domestic abuse measures.

Ending Exploitation in Supermarket Supply Chains

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Victoria Atkins

Thursday 18th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, and I certainly hope that the Minister will reply to it in her winding-up speech.

As I said, only 19% of the agricultural sector is abiding by the terms of the Modern Slavery Act. By contrast, the rate of compliance with the new gender pay gap reporting rules was 87% on day one of the first year of reporting.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

I am delighted to say it is now 100%.