Police Grant Report
Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and Jess Phillips(3 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Jess Phillips
I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker—they are definitely not your Benches. I heard groaning earlier about the black hole that was left. The shadow Minister makes a point about the uplift in pay, but in this year’s settlement nothing had been put in that budget by his Government to increase the pay of police officers. Nothing was put into the budget, because that was the way that they operated.
Jess Phillips
It isn’t utter rubbish—it’s a fact. Anyway, I shall go back to the people who are engaging with the debate. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Michael Payne) that I send a massive thanks to Chris Duffy, who sounds like an amazing officer. I imagine that he is happy in his work because he works with a dog. Maybe giving every police officer a dog is the answer—that is not Government policy, and neither is clipping people round the ear, however much we might want to.
I say to the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) —I will repeatedly say this—that I am from the West Midlands police force, and there has not been a year since I was elected to Parliament when the problems with the funding formula have not been raised with me. The west midlands is one of the areas that the issue affects deeply, so I massively hear that point. Two attempts that the previous Government made to look at the funding formula were abandoned, so we felt very much that this year we had to create a stable system. I remind hon. Members that this is our seventh month in government, but we absolutely hear the arguments about the funding formula, which was not reformed in the last 14 years. We have inherited this.
Jess Phillips
I do not disagree that that is how the budgets are given out, but the number of police stations that were closed under the last 14 years of Tory Governments is phenomenal. I believe that a Member mentioned earlier the ones closed by Boris Johnson when he was the Mayor of London. Maybe the right hon. Lady would have heard me already talking about the west midlands, had she been in the debate. I note that a previous Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), is coming into the Chamber, but for most of the time there have been no Conservative Members in here for any of this debate.
Will my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East please pass on my massive respect to Coggy? The Policing Minister wanted me to confirm to my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Pam Cox) that she met Unison last week, and she is absolutely happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the terrible and tragic losses of life in her constituency and in the wider area of Essex.
We are all looking forward to my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Oliver Ryan) reopening the Chichester custody suite, which he has now become responsible for. Many Members, including him and my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal), have talked with great passion about the importance of neighbourhood policing and the problems of antisocial behaviour in our areas. We face few things more often as Members of Parliament than complaints about failures on antisocial behaviour in our neighbourhoods. I will not do what the previous Government did, and pretend that everything is world-beating and the best it could ever be and that nothing will ever be better than anything that they could ever do. I am not going to do that.
Jess Phillips
The hon. Member says from a sedentary position that that is rubbish, but the Conservatives literally used to claim things were world-beating all the time.
Non-disclosure Agreements in the Workplace
Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and Jess Phillips(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I want to lend my voice to what has already been said by Members, especially by the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller). She and I came to the issue of NDAs together in one of the most egregious cases—the case of Zelda Perkins, who has already been mentioned and who suffered for years in silence. In that case and others that I have seen, certainly, around Oxford University colleges, I want to stress how the issue of this process being about power and control should not be undermined— this was also mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell). It is used to victimise people. It is literally the tool of an abuser.
When I met some of the whistleblowers in the Philip Green case, they told me a story about how he had said to them, “Keep on adding zeros. I will pay anything and you will go away.” That was the attitude. That is an abuser standing in front of somebody they know is weaker than they are. This is absolutely classic in all interpersonal violence relationships. They say, “I am more powerful than you. You will do as I say because I am the strong one.” Currently, the laws in our country allow that. The law in our country is written so that that it is completely acceptable for an angry, sexually abusive bully to stand in front of a member of his staff and say, “I am bigger, stronger and better than you.” Currently, we go, “He’s got a point. He is stronger. He has more zeros to add to the end of that cheque. He can shut you up.” That is the situation today. This will be happening to somebody today. Right now, as we speak, somebody who is trying to speak up about something bad happening is being told, “You’re weak. You’re pathetic.” That is a form of coercive control, and a form of violence. It is absolutely a form of victimisation, and I lend my support and voice to the amendments that the right hon. Member for Basingstoke has tabled to the Victims and Prisoners Bill.
The crux of the problem is that we, as lawmakers and policymakers, are saying, “That’s fine. That’s okay. Don’t worry because, you know, trade secrets.” That is the situation today, but let us make it so that tomorrow—
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
The hon. Lady speaks passionately, and I absolutely accept many of the comments made in the debate, but the law specifically does not allow a non-disclosure agreement to prevent somebody from going to the police about a sexual abuser. That absolutely is not the law.
Jess Phillips
I did not say that the law said that, although incidentally Zelda Perkins’s NDA did say that. I do not know what is written in all the NDAs in the country, although I have quite a lot in my inbox, so I have an idea of some of the things that people get asked for.
Of course what the Minister describes is illegal, but it is not illegal to say, “You can’t speak about this. You can’t tell the woman in the next cubicle along that the man you work for has been groping you, because you’ve been silenced.” That is what we are apparently saying is okay; we are fine with that.
Supported Housing: Benefit
Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and Jess Phillips(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Kevin Hollinrake
My hon. Friend is absolutely right.
As others want to speak, I will move on to one other point, which is the disincentive for the young people in these facilities, which do a fantastic job. Recently, on a visit to Arc Light in York, I met two young men in their 20s: one was a brickie and the other a joiner. They were perfectly capable of working, but were totally deterred from working, because they felt that if they were in work, they would have to pay the full costs of that accommodation—£250 a week—which is a huge disincentive. That may not be quite true. Lord Freud wrote to the Communities and Local Government Committee for clarification, but the Chair of the Select Committee was not quite clear on the point.
Jess Phillips
From my experience, that is a problem with the current system of housing benefit. It is much harder for people who are in employment to stay in supported accommodation, because they do not qualify for housing benefit at a higher rate. That is something that absolutely must be sorted out in any system. We are not saying that it is perfect, but that is definitely one of the problems.
Kevin Hollinrake
I am very glad that we agree on that point. The other impression that I got from these young people was that they did not seem to feel any particular urgency to get back into work. We should consider whether we are providing the right incentives and encouragement for these young people, who are perfectly capable of working, to get into work.
In conclusion, I do accept some of the points in the motion, but certainly not all of them, and for that reason, I will be voting against it in the Lobby this evening.