Financial Implications for the Next Generation

Debate between Lyn Brown and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

The new finish time for the debate is 6.22 pm.

[Lyn Brown]

Let us face it: schools are faring badly. The Chancellor’s gift of £400 million in the Budget for some “little extras” was frankly insulting in the context of billions of pounds of cuts. If the Institute for Fiscal Studies is right, capital spending on schools has fallen by £3.5 billion—a 41% real-terms cut. I can see it in my constituency every time I visit a school. They are struggling, and they are also struggling to keep their students safe from grooming and crime at a time when young people’s services are disappearing, again due to cuts. Violent crime is rising and destroying the futures of increasing numbers of young people in my constituency, but the Treasury’s only response is to announce £170 million for our neighbourhood police services. That sum would cover less than 40% of the police pensions black hole, so it is unlikely to stop the fall in the number of officers on our streets. Reports suggest that half of that £170 million will have to come from elsewhere in the massively overstretched Home Office budget, so what will be cut to make up for it? Will it be firefighters? Will it be Border Force?

The next generation will not thank us if we leave them more vulnerable to fire, crime and terrorism. The cuts to councils have ensured that children’s services are under threat. Sure Starts and libraries are closing. We are charging for sporting activities in communities that help keep children healthy. There is not enough money to employ the youth workers that we need to teach my children resilience against the groomers.

Since 2010, the Government have claimed that austerity is working to bring down the debt and make spending sustainable, but that is simply wrong. They have missed every deficit target they have set themselves. They said they would eliminate the deficit by 2015, but now the Office for Budget Responsibility says that even eliminating it by 2025 will be challenging with the current approach. To the extent that the central Government deficit has reduced, much of that has been done by passing debt and problems to the future, where they will require more spending to fix. The Government are passing problems into the lap of our underfunded schools, hospitals, local councils and police forces. That does not make the next generation more secure or our public debt more sustainable.

Future generations are not being protected by austerity; they are being harmed by it. We need public investment to repair the safety net, to improve the public services that underpin the life chances of the many and to drive growth that benefits the whole country. In fact, we need a Labour Government to rebuild Britain.

Face Coverings (Prohibition) Bill

Debate between Lyn Brown and Philip Hollobone

Friday 28th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hollobone]

The hon. Lady will not be surprised that I disagree with those remarks. She will know, because I informed her at the time, that a couple of years ago I visited her constituency as part of a TV programme. We did our best to speak with veiled women in her high street and I have to say that it was not an easy thing to do. It further drew my attention to the difficulties that veiled women have in undertaking normal everyday human interaction with people who are not veiled, because part of the traditional British way of life is that when somebody passes somebody else in the street whom they recognise, or half-recognise, they smile, perhaps wave and say hello; it is called neighbourliness. It is difficult for somebody to do that if their face is covered and it is also difficult for somebody else to do it to them, because there is no reaction.

Frankly, I do not want to live in a country where people—whether they are men or women—are increasingly going around with their faces covered, because it will lead to a deterioration in the quality of life. It also means that those ethnic minority women, largely from Muslim backgrounds, who do not speak English will find it much more difficult to learn to speak English, and they will remain at a disadvantage when it comes to accessing public services and interacting with the normal way of life if they cannot speak English properly.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way on that point. Does he not think that the introduction of his Bill might lead to more women feeling that they are unable to leave their homes? If they are unable to leave their homes, they will be unable to attend English classes; if they are unable to attend English classes, they are less likely to integrate in the way he describes.

[Mr Hollobone]

That is an interesting intervention and one that I am, of course, happy to take seriously, but it disturbs me greatly, because if we are talking about women from communities who, if they are not allowed to wear a veil are not allowed to go out, I have to question the ethics of the cultural background that would deny women the ability to go out into a normal British high street without having their faces covered. Has it come to the point that we are saying to women, “You can’t go out of doors, because of your cultural background, unless your face is veiled”? That is abhorrent in 21st century Britain.