Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kevin Foster and Will Quince

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

12. What steps his Department is taking to reduce homelessness.

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

17. What steps his Department is taking to reduce homelessness.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Mrs Heather Wheeler)]

I thank my hon. Friends for their questions. We are spending more than £1.2 billion through to 2020, and we have implemented the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, published our £100 million rough sleeping strategy and taken immediate action to begin to reduce the number of people on the streets.

Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Bill

Debate between Kevin Foster and Will Quince

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 11th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

The amendments would widen the scope a bit. An employee aged 61, 62 or 63 might lose a relative in their early 40s but, yes, by the point children are in their 50s or 60s, their parent is almost certain to have retired, or at the very least will only be in part-time employment. Monica Bulman, a nurse who recently retired in Torbay, did nearly 60 years in the NHS, which is remarkable. She was in her 80s when she retired.

For me, it is about the principle and about how the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton think employers should reasonably act in circumstances where, for everyone else, an adult has passed away but for the employee it is their child. The employee will remember their child as a baby, and that will have an emotional impact. I am concerned that we do not create a cliff edge at 18.

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. I do not usually disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), but the amendments would change the remit quite significantly. They would increase the number of potential recipients fivefold. At the moment, as we know, there is an element of fragility in getting private Members’ Bills through the House. We have the support of the Treasury Bench, which is based on financial calculations on the existing number of potential recipients. If we were to increase that fivefold, I fear we would lose Government support because they would have to go back, redo the calculations and get Treasury support again. However well meaning, I encourage him to think about the implications of these amendments.

[Kevin Foster]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I take on board what he says. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton will cover this in his speech, but it will be interesting to hear how we would expect employers to react in this circumstance. I am particularly thinking of people aged over 18 who have particularly special needs because of, say, Down’s syndrome. In the past, those with Down’s syndrome sadly lived relatively short lives. We now have examples of those with Down’s syndrome reaching retirement age with very elderly carer parents. That presents its own challenge to local authorities in how to provide care to a parent who is absolutely devoted to caring for their child who is now perhaps in their 30s or 40s. As the parent develops their own care needs in their 70s and 80s it can be difficult to manage them without breaking the special bond the family have had for many decades.

Hearing what my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester says, I may be minded not to press the amendments if they might prevent the Bill from progressing. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister what thoughts the Government have on such cases and how we might expect employers to react. I do not want a situation in which the Bill applies if a person loses a child aged 17 years and 364 days but does not apply if they lose a child aged 18 years and one day. We must ensure there is no such cliff edge, which I do not think is the intention of the Bill.

[Will Quince]

I totally agree with the points that my hon. Friend is making. The key thing is getting the Bill on to the statute book; once that has happened, we can consider secondary legislation and amendments, but this is about our getting there. We discussed all these things in Committee. There are other issues, covering spouses and other relationships, that people would understandably wish to be included in the Bill. Unfortunately, we cannot do that; we are unlikely to get it through if we do. Everyone in this House would like us to look at the legislation in the future, with a view to amending it, but we have to get the Bill on the statute book as a starting point.

[Kevin Foster]

I take the points my hon. Friend is making. As I said at the outset, I fully support the Bill—I have no intention of giving a five-hour speech as an attempt to talk it out. When it comes to the key moment, I will not seek a decision on these amendments if that would endanger the Bill. However, it is right that we have this discussion today so that Ministers can listen to the opinions of the House. Sadly, tribunals and courts will be called on to interpret the Bill, but our discussion means they will be able to see clearly that Parliament was not setting a maximum and saying that the provision should stop there, but deciding where the floor—the minimum—should be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Foster]

I take on board my hon. Friend’s point, but legislating is not just about sending a signal—we can do that by tabling a motion, making a speech or putting a question to a Minister. This is about setting down a piece of law that is not signalling what employers should do, but telling them what they must do. He is right to say that the Bill will not make much difference at all to 90% of employers. The small business that works as a team and the larger employer that values its staff will be able to sit back and think, “This is pretty much what we do already,” with the exception that the Bill provides for statutory parental bereavement leave and for the taxpayer to make certain payments. The Bill is about dealing with that 10%.

[Will Quince]

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) makes a good point. The Bill enshrines in law the minimums—it is about a floor, not a ceiling. The House should make it clear that on pay and time off, we are providing for statutory minimums. We know that most employers will want to offer more time—the time that their employees need. Likewise, although we are talking about amounts for statutory paternity and maternity pay, I would like to think that most employers will recompense their staff at full pay. I hope that the Government, as a good, compassionate and sensitive employer, will consider ensuring that civil servants are paid at full pay, because that would send a clear signal that the Bill sets out a minimum and there is an expectation that the provision will be greater.

[Kevin Foster]

I thank my hon. Friend for making the point that this is about the minimum rather than the maximum. I take on board what he and my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton have said. I certainly do not want to endanger these provisions, but I will be interested to hear what the Minister says when he responds to the debate. It would be useful to hear his views about the policy that will be adopted in the civil service. If he wishes to intervene now, I would be happy to let him, but he might find it easier to cover that when makes his speech.

This is an appropriate point for me to move on to amendment 7, which relates to the pay level. It would make it clear in the schedule that the minimum pay level will be statutory parental bereavement pay, rather than contractual pay. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, I hope that most employers will be flexible, but the amendment would make it clearer in the Bill that the minimum is the statutory pay. Of course, if employers wish to pay more—if they wish to treat the period as normal paid leave—they can, but the Bill will set out the minimum.

Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Bill

Debate between Kevin Foster and Will Quince

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 3rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed), who is not in his place, on introducing the Bill and on the emotive and heartbreaking story that he shared with the House.

The Bill is an important part of a wider issue. We need to improve our approach to mental health. Without question, mental ill health carries a stigma and a taboo, and Members from both sides have played a huge role in tackling that. One of my passions is campaigning on baby loss, which has a similar stigma and taboo attached to it. We do not talk enough about it, and that has led many people to stay silent. If we are to tackle the stigma and taboo, we have to raise these issues as much as possible and ensure that people feel able to talk about them openly. There is no greater place to do so than on the Floor of the House of Commons Chamber.

The Mental Health Act has remained unchanged since it was first published in 1983, and many consider it to be no longer fit for purpose. As a comparison, when the legislation was introduced, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is known as the DSM, existed in its third edition. Since then, it has undergone multiple revisions, and it is now in its fifth edition. The research into mental health conditions and our understanding of them have developed, particularly over the last three and a half decades, but our legislation has not changed. That is not good enough.

The Bill is one important step among many towards ensuring that people with mental health conditions are treated appropriately. I want to make it clear that there will be circumstances in which restraint is required in mental health units. That is, sadly, inevitable. Staff in such units have an incredibly challenging job. We would all agree, however, that restraint should be the last resort, not the first. I pay tribute to Mind, which launched its campaign in 2011 to reduce the use of restraint in healthcare settings. It has made fantastic progress so far.

In 2014, the coalition Government published guidance in this area following investigations into abuses at Winterbourne View hospital and a report published by Mind, which found that restrictive interventions were not being used as a last resort. The guidance made it clear that staff must use such actions only if they represent the least restrictive option for meeting the immediate need. The guidance also made it clear that staff must not deliberately restrict people in such a way as to impact on their airway, breathing or circulation. That includes face-down restraint on any surface, not just on the floor.

I continue in the spirit of the coalition Government by paying tribute, as my friend the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) has done—she is currently looking at her phone on the other side of the Chamber, and I cannot attract her attention—to the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) for the work that he did as a Minister. I know that this is an issue that he cares deeply about. I know that the right hon. Gentleman is not in the Chamber at the moment, but I certainly want to put that on the record—the hon. Lady still has not realised that I am complimenting her colleague—because he did a huge amount of work in this area.

Later in 2015, the Mental Health Act 1983 code of practice was revised, and NICE updated its guidance on violence and aggression, both of which put the emphasis on prevention and advised against the use of prone restraints. What all this recognised is that the solution is not to blame the staff, but to give them the skills and confidence to deal with some incredibly challenging situations.

In September, I visited the Lakes mental health unit in Colchester to see at first hand what a mental health unit is like. I initially had a brief meeting with senior managers, including Sally Morris, the chief executive of the Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust—the names of NHS trusts always seem to be a bit of a mouthful—which manages the Lakes unit in my constituency. I was then given a tour of Ardleigh ward and Gosfield ward, and we discussed many issues. Restraint was not one of the issues we discussed, but following the debate on this extremely important Bill—the hon. Member for Croydon North, who introduced it, is now in his place—I will definitely be asking questions about the use of restraint in that unit.

I support what the Bill is seeking to achieve on training, especially as set out in clause 5(1). In many ways, it strikes me as remarkable that frontline staff would not already be given such programmes, but this is a good way of ensuring that staff, particularly new staff, are aware of best practice and guidance on the use of force. I suggest, however, that the Committee looks at whether the provision should be wider than just induction, so that existing members of staff are also given this training. In any workplace environment, it is incredibly important for people to be given refreshers to ensure that training remains fresh and at the front of their mind.

Another area I want to touch on is the mandating of body cameras for any police officer who attends a mental health unit. A number of colleagues have already raised this issue, but I want to focus on one particular area. It is important to mention from the outset that the use of body-worn cameras is ultimately a decision for local police and crime commissioners. Police forces are at different stages in this process: some are just investing now; and others are looking at new equipment, because they have used body-worn cameras for some time and are now in the second phase of procurement.

I suggest—I mentioned this in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey)—that clause 13(2)(a) is perhaps a little too eager in expecting officers to turn on their cameras. It states:

“The police officer must ensure that his or her body camera is recording…from as soon as reasonably practicable after the officer receives the request to attend the mental health unit”.

That might be looked at in Committee, because the focus should perhaps be on ensuring that there is a recording of their attending the mental health unit, rather than from the point at which they get such a request.

[Kevin Foster]

My hon. Friend is making some very interesting points. Does he agree that the presumption is that an officer who is on duty and using a body-worn camera should have it switched on? Only when an officer has a specific reason to turn it off—for example, when dealing with a vulnerable witness who is uncomfortable talking while the camera is on—should it be switched off.

[Will Quince]

My hon. Friend raises a very good point. I come back to what I said earlier about body-worn cameras, which is that police forces are at different stages in the evolution of these pieces of kit. Their cameras have different battery lives and different download capabilities—some recordings take several hours to download, but more modern functionality means that that can be done quite quickly—so it depends where police forces are with their procurement and how long they have had the equipment. I totally agree with him, however, that the presumption is that this piece of equipment should be on, and that is and should certainly be standard practice for newer cameras.