Business of the House
Debate between Lyn Brown and Penny Mordaunt(6 months, 1 week ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
I am sure that the House is very keen to hear the story behind this, but I am afraid that what the hon. Gentleman has said is not true. I have done no such thing.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I have recently been contacted by constituents about the imminent closure of the Hall, a small community space in East Village, Stratford—one of very few in the area. As we know, such spaces are absolutely invaluable. Ours hosts loads of events, including meetings of the Brownies and the Girl Guides. I am making representations to Get Living, the developer responsible for that decision. It has, frankly, been responsible for a whole bunch of questionable decisions over recent years, including during the cladding scandal and on exorbitant service changes. Can we have a debate in Government time on how the actions of developers have undermined the Olympic legacy and failed local residents?
Penny Mordaunt
I am very sorry to hear of the situation in the hon. Lady’s constituency. She will know how to apply for a debate on the issue, which I think is an excellent topic for discussion. I will also ensure that the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has heard her concerns. Clearly, a huge amount of work has been done to enable community asset transfers, and funding is available to facilitate that. I will ask one of the Secretary of State’s officials to contact her office with any advice that they can furnish.
Business of the House
Debate between Lyn Brown and Penny Mordaunt(7 months, 1 week ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on all the work she has done on this matter, particularly securing the £6.5 million redevelopment of the urgent and emergency care unit in her local hospital. I think that the timeline she outlined is correct, and the work will certainly have a massive impact on improving patient waiting times and reducing ambulance handover times by creating additional capacity. She will know that she can air questions to the Secretary of State on this matter on 23 April, which is next week.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I am absolutely delighted to tell the House that 81 students from the Bobby Moore Academy in West Ham will be welcomed to the Royal Opera House today to watch a performance of “Swan Lake”. I hope that they absolutely love it and that it inspires a lifetime of getting joy from the arts. I am sure the Leader of the House will agree with me and my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition that every child should have the opportunity to fall in love with the arts. Can we have a debate in Government time where we can explore ways that we can give working-class communities like mine greater access to the arts?
Penny Mordaunt
I hope that all students from the Bobby Moore Academy have a wonderful time watching “Swan Lake” today. The hon. Lady knows that we are absolutely committed to ensuring that every child can experience high-quality performances. The funding that we have distributed has been across the whole of the UK, which is very important. She has just missed the opportunity to raise this issue with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, so I shall make sure that she has heard what the hon. Lady has said today.
Business of the House
Debate between Lyn Brown and Penny Mordaunt(10 months ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
I thank my hon. Friend for again diligently raising this important issue; I understand that the forums in which he can do so are limited, which is why he brings it to the Floor of the House each week. He has put those points on the record, as well as his thanks to those survivors for their important intervention. As the Secretary of State will not take questions until 4 March, I will again ensure that he has heard what my hon. Friend has said.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
Stratford market village in my constituency has provided space for more than 60 much-loved independent local businesses to ply their trade since about 1974. They are the kinds of businesses that reflect the entrepreneurship, drive and diversity in Newham, but on 10 January, with no warning at all, the traders received an email telling them that the market village was closed with immediate effect. The company that owns it is going into administration, leaving viable, much-loved businesses in limbo, out of pocket and without a home. I thank our Assembly Member Unmesh Desai and Newham Council for their work on the matter so far, and I hope that it bears fruit, but I know that many similar communities have faced similar problems. May we have a debate in Government time on whether our councils have the resources and powers they need to effectively step in and save much-loved local spaces and businesses when this kind of thing happens?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank the hon. Lady for her helpful suggestion of a debate. I am sorry to hear about the situation in her constituency. Such markets are often a stepping stone for many businesses to getting additional premises of their own. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and its high streets team have been collecting good practice about where other people have faced such situations. There are some good examples of what local authorities and other groups can do to ensure that continuity. As the next question time is a little way off, I will ask officials in the Department to contact the hon. Lady to see what more can be done to assist.
Business of the House
Debate between Lyn Brown and Penny Mordaunt(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this matter. He is right that, in Labour-run Birmingham, the council blamed everyone else rather than taking responsibility for the situation. It blamed the IT system, the Government and women expecting equal pay. It really must stop passing the buck and take responsibility for its own mess. This comes as a stark warning to Labour-run Warrington Council, which I understand is in debt to the tune of nearly £2 billion and has just approved a £145 million loan to another council, despite that terrible financial situation. I know that my hon. Friend has raised this many times and that the Secretary of State has also asked for an independent review. With regard to other councils that are managing their budgets well, we know that there are still tough times ahead. There are many demands on their services, which is why we have confirmed an almost £60 billion package for local authorities this financial year.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
Women continue to contact me with graphic descriptions of their horrifying experiences of NHS hysteroscopies, enduring appalling and unnecessary pain as the medical establishment appears not to believe that any kind of anaesthesia is necessary. I have raised this issue 10 times in the House. I know that the Women and Equalities Committee is currently conducting a very valuable inquiry into women’s health and I hope that it might consider this issue. Will the Leader of the House have a word with her colleague, the Minister responsible for women’s health, to ensure that her response to that inquiry is as good as it can be and perhaps to push this issue up her to-do list. It is simply not good enough that women are continuing to experience this dreadful trauma.
Penny Mordaunt
I thank the hon. Lady for raising this very important matter, which will be of concern to many women across the country. I also thank the Women and Equalities Committee for the work it is doing in its inquiry. I will write on the hon. Lady’s behalf to raise this specific issue with the Minister and ask that she contact her office to give her some assurance.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lyn Brown and Penny Mordaunt
Penny Mordaunt
My hon. Friend is correct; since the statutory instrument was laid, a firefighter can no longer be dismissed simply for losing fitness. They must also have quality fitness support and six months of remedial training if they lose fitness but do not qualify for ill-health retirement. In addition, if fire authorities comply with the national framework, no firefighter will find themselves with no job and no pension. If a fire authority does not comply, the Secretary of State will intervene. Employers are now working on guidance to show how they will implement the new principles in the framework, and that will include the process with the firefighter and the principles on which an unreduced pension would be offered. That does give a guarantee, and it is a considerable improvement on what went before.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
Woeful!
The Minister promised to negotiate with firefighters on pensions, but then she just laid the regulations regardless. She promised national fitness standards, but that has not happened either. She guaranteed either redeployment or a full pension to those who cannot retain their fitness, but fire and rescue authorities across the country are clear that that is a promise they legally cannot deliver. Broken promises, lack of action and lack of leadership: what a miserable record. Is she ashamed? If not, why not?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lyn Brown and Penny Mordaunt
Penny Mordaunt
Clearly, we can change the law. If fire and rescue authorities decide that they will not follow the law, we will spot that because we have also undertaken to audit this process and their adoption of new fitness principles. The Secretary of State also has powers to intervene. I have no indication that fire and rescue authorities will not adhere to the national service framework. If hon. Members know differently, they should let me know.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
On 15 December, the Minister said that if someone fails a fitness test
“through no fault of their own”—
and they do not qualify for an ill-health retirement, they will get
“an alternative role or an unreduced pension.”—[Official Report, 15 December 2014; Vol. 589, c. 1153.]
The Minister further confirmed that that would be put on a statutory footing in the national framework. Will she confirm that the national framework does not guarantee a full pension or redeployed role? It merely requests fire authorities to consider options for redeployment or a full pension. It is a sham guarantee—it is no guarantee. How does the Minister square what she told the House with the ministerial code?
Penny Mordaunt
This is about protecting the firefighters whom the hon. Lady—who was in the Department when the changes were made in 2006—is asking to work until the age of 60. This is an improvement on the previous situation. There are two reasons why we have introduced the new measures: first, those older workers should have those protections; secondly, we recognise that the fear of being in that situation may have an impact on recruitment and retention. This scaremongering by the Opposition is shameful, and I would ask them to put the well-being of firefighters ahead of pandering to the militant wing of the Fire Brigades Union.
Local Government (Religious etc. Observances) Bill
Debate between Lyn Brown and Penny Mordaunt(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
Each time I have risen in support of this Bill, I have sought to emphasise my reason for doing so, and it is that this Bill seeks to protect a freedom of choice, and indeed a freedom of local choice. This Bill makes it clear that the choice of including prayers, or not, is for the local authority alone. Equally, I do not believe that it is right to go further than that. To go further would undermine our trust in local authorities to take account of the views and traditions of their communities and to make the right decisions.
I speak from my own experience in local government, in an area of many and diverse faiths and of strong communities, religious and non-religious, where the inclusion of prayer was something that united those communities rather than divided them. In our council, prayer and reflection was an opportunity to bring people together. So many of our prayers, which were led each year by the chaplain to the mayor—of whatever faith—contained universal messages that underlined shared values, a sense of unity and community that reflected our diversity. I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), as I am minded not to support his proposed new clause today should he push it to a vote. It seems to me that we would be stepping beyond the important line and risk fettering the discretion that we want to give to public bodies to make their own localised decision.
I say to the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot)—he is indeed a gentleman and I shall certainly miss him when he leaves this House—that I agree with the sentiment and intentions behind amendment 4. But I am confident that local authorities and public bodies, all of which are already subject to the public sector equality duty, will exercise their choice with the utmost sensitivity to their communities. We should trust their judgment and believe that they will make the right choices and not the wrong ones.
It is important that we maintain that trust in anticipation that local authorities will be sensitive to local communities and their responsibilities within the law. I remain hopeful that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his new clause.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Penny Mordaunt)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) on his work on the Bill, the aims of which are wholly supported by the Government. There was a useful discussion about the Bill in Committee where support for it was clear. There was recognition that the Bill is really about freedom rather than compulsion: the freedom to pray or not to pray; the freedom for a local authority collectively to make a decision to hold prayers as part of official business, or not; and the freedom of individual councillors to attend the meeting during that item of business, or not—there would be no requirement to sit through it, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) said.
In Committee, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) described the Bill’s provisions on giving local authorities the freedom to hold prayers as part of official business as a measure so gentle that someone would have to work very hard to find a way of taking any sort of umbrage or insult from it. That is an excellent way of describing the provisions and intent of the Bill; they are indeed gentle. It is worth reminding ourselves why the Bill is necessary at all. The Bill gives councils that statutory power and gives them the freedom to pray.
I will not be supporting the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). It is not consistent with the spirit of the Bill, which is about trusting local people to make local decisions. We should trust them to do that. It would be wrong to single out any one particular faith or to identify any one particular tradition. The Bill as drafted is absolutely correct to celebrate our multi-faith society and because it gives local authorities freedom rather than compelling them to take certain actions, it is not necessary to require them to be mindful of their obligations not to discriminate against those with religious beliefs and those without religious beliefs. There is no requirement for anyone who does not wish to attend town hall prayers to do so, so this provision is not necessary.
With those reassurances, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire will not press the new clause and the amendment.
Lyn Brown
I was agreeing with the hon. Gentleman. I am sorry: I know it is not normal, but Fridays are unusual, and we just have to ride with it.
Frankly, if we insisted on a referendum, unlike the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) I do not think that everybody would necessarily turn out to vote. If we enabled local councils seeking the power to hold prayers at meetings to hold referendums, I fear that the turnout would not justify the cost. To introduce referendums on the subject would provide a clear disincentive for councils to consider the inclusion of prayers at all. I therefore cannot support the amendments tabled by the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire. We need to provide local councils with the freedom to choose to hold prayers or reflections, without fettering that discretion or imposing new financial and administrative burdens on public bodies.
On the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), I am sure that it will not come as a surprise to him that, although he read out my favourite part of morning prayers, I cannot support any suggestion of making prayer compulsory. I would not support the amendment if he pressed it to a vote.
Penny Mordaunt
The Government have worked hard to get rid of burdens on local authorities and empower the public to hold local authorities to account, and we therefore believe that the amendments are unnecessary. However well intentioned, I am concerned that they could be a burden on local authorities and hence the taxpayer, and they could obstruct rather than enable the intention of the Bill, which is to allow local authorities to hold town hall prayers as part of official business if they wish. There is no need for an amendment to require a two-thirds majority to enable the local authority to hold town hall prayers. Such a measure would mean that a minority might vote against prayers but still stop the council holding them as part of official business, and a minority stopping a majority from taking part in an item of business that nobody is compelled to take part in is what the Bill intends to put to an end.
In addition to provisions on town hall prayers, the Bill will ensure that local authorities are able to support, facilitate, and be represented at events with a religious element. It is, sadly, not too much of a stretch to imagine that individuals or organisations with an axe to grind might also choose to attack the proper role that local authorities play, for example by organising a Remembrance Sunday event by closing a road. That should never happen, and the Bill will help to ensure that any such challenge will, quite rightly, be a non-starter.
An amendment to make the provision subject to a vote has the same possibility of a perverse outcome, with minority opinion resulting in the council being unable to exercise functions that it may already be exercising, as well as preventing it from taking part in activities that the majority wish to participate in. The Bill intentionally does not define what “prayer” or “observance” is, and the amendment that seeks to limit the time that the council may spend on an item of business—in this case, town hall prayers or an observance connected with religious or philosophical belief—to three minutes, is indeed odd. I presume it is to ensure that town hall prayers do not take up too much valuable time, but I question whether it is necessary. Protracted sermons may be a stock feature of some comedy novels featuring the clergy, but I question whether such an issue would arise in the council chamber, especially as that chamber is open to the scrutiny of the public who can film, tweet, blog or otherwise report the goings on of the local authority. We should trust local authorities and councillors to serve the interests of the public to whom they are accountable, without the need for a steer on how long they should take over this or that item of business.
Continuing the theme of scrutiny, trust and accountability, I am concerned about the amendment that would make any local authority decision in the Bill first subject to a local referendum. That seems unnecessary gold plating, and an unnecessary expense for the taxpayer. There are also technical issues to be considered, such as how the referendums would work with those local authorities exercising the general power of competence. The Bill is to enable smaller parish and town councils, and other local authorities such as single-purpose authorities, to hold town hall prayers as part of their business if they wish, but those local authorities are not mentioned in the amendments.
Amendment 12 is perhaps my greatest concern. The freedom not to hold town hall prayers is the choice of the local authority, and just as important as the freedom to hold them. Compelling a local authority to hold town hall prayers, or an observance connected with a religious or philosophical belief, is against the spirit of the Bill, and it would no longer be the gentle and inclusive measure that celebrates all faiths that is intended. I hope that the message is clear that we should trust our local councillors and the public with the measures in the Bill, and that the amendments will not be pressed.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lyn Brown and Penny Mordaunt
Penny Mordaunt
Yes. In addition to the protections that we are consulting on, we are the only nation that has set up a working group to ensure that there is best practice for fire authorities to follow so that their firefighters can maintain fitness.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
In negotiations with the FBU, the hon. Lady said that some firefighters might not be able to maintain operational fitness standards until the age of 60. She promised regulations to protect those firefighters, she promised to address the specific concerns of women firefighters, and she asked the FBU for detailed proposals. Now, she has torn up every promise, stopped negotiations, imposed her own regulations, and plunged the fire service into the longest and most avoidable strike in 36 years. Firefighters risk their lives on a daily basis. Do they not deserve better?
Penny Mordaunt
I have outlined in several previous answers the reason that we cannot use the regulation: we have more than one fire authority in England—we have 46. We must go through the national framework, but it will be on a statutory footing. I caution the hon. Lady on this: we want older firefighters and women to stay in the fire service, and she is not helping by spreading myths about the existing scheme.