Legal Rights to Access Abortion

Debate between Maria Miller and Ian Paisley

Monday 28th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Ian Paisley]

I think the hon. Member maybe misheard me, because I was not challenging the right to have the debate. I was challenging the misinformation on social media that encouraged people to falsely sign the petition. If the debate is so positive, there should be no negativity behind encouraging people to sign it. The word “ethos” is very interesting; its Greek origins show that it should actually be about an ethic. It should be something that has character to it, not something that is denuded of character and strength. I think the hon. Member misheard what I was getting at and the point I was making.

This lays bare how wrong it is—and the falsehood and naivety involved—to bring a debate to this House and try to shape our laws based on experiences of the American legal constitutional system. If we juxtapose them, it just does not work. We have a parliamentary democracy and statute law, versus the written constitution of the United States of America and all the issues that flow from that.

There is then another layer set upon that juxtaposition in saying that this is about fear because of what happened with Roe v. Wade—a completely separate issue again. It is naive to say that we should try to change our whole system to embrace and address that issue because of what has happened in the United States of America. It would be far better having a much more open and honest debate, rather than one that is based on fear of something that might happen.

[Dame Maria Miller]

The hon. Gentleman is making an important point about not having misinformation. Would he agree with me that we have to be very careful not to conflate deregulation with decriminalisation? I think that happened in a couple of the earlier contributions. The hon. Gentleman will know from Northern Ireland that although we have introduced decriminalisation, that has not deregulated the controls that are there for abortion. That is a really important point.

[Ian Paisley]

That is an important point that I will come to later when I touch on the matter of decriminalisation.

There were 214,869 abortions in 2021. I looked that up. That is about 40,000 people short of the population of Walthamstow. Just think of the number, if we were to line them up. Do you know what that says to me, Sir Charles? It speaks to the utter, abysmal failure of abortion regulations. Why so many? Why, after so many years—decades and decades of this regulation—is that necessary? There were 214,869 women who felt it was necessary to have an abortion.

Water Companies: Sewage Discharge

Debate between Maria Miller and Ian Paisley

Monday 15th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Paisley, and to have the opportunity to debate this important issue. I must start by saying that the Government’s new Environment Act 2021 goes further than ever to help to reduce water pollution in our rivers and seas, now and in the future. In many ways, it directly addresses a number of points that the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) has raised in today’s debate.

However, an orchestrated campaign on social media left many thousands of our constituents—people who really care about the quality of our water and river pollution—being bombarded with misinformation. The hon. Member has been very constructive in her contribution to this debate, as I am sure other Members will be, but I hope that the debate will ensure that the true facts are on the record—facts, not fiction.

The fact is that there is nothing new in this Environment Act that creates a right for water companies to dump raw sewage in our water courses. For the first time, the Act creates a statutory duty at the most accountable level of all—the top of Government—to better monitor water quality upstream and downstream of our sewage works, to reduce discharges from storm overflows, and to have clear plans on how to eliminate storm overflows completely in England, and those plans must be in place not at some distant date but in a year’s time. Those are real improvements.

The Act also establishes a new duty for the Environment Agency to publish storm overflow data annually, and water companies will have a duty to publish real-time storm overflow information too. That is quite different from what we saw in the social media disinformation campaign, which created such heightened concern and probably led to today’s debate.

Those are real improvements that matter in my constituency, because we are home to a rare north-flowing salmonid chalk stream, of which there are only 200 in the world. The Loddon springs out of the ground in Buckskin, in the centre of Basingstoke, in my own village of Mapledurwell, and in the surrounding fields. By the time it reaches the sewage works in Chineham, where discharges occur, only two or three miles away, it is still little more than a stream.

In 2006, a water cycle study was undertaken by the local authority to model the impact of large-scale house building, of which Basingstoke has undertaken a great deal in the last two decades, on the River Loddon. Since for more than a decade, I have been working with the Environment Agency and Thames Water to ensure that there are improvements and protections for the quality of our river and that the right measures are in place at our sewage works in Chineham. Indeed, it has one of the toughest consent levels in the country for phosphates. In 2015, some successful lobbying meant that new technology was trialled at the Basingstoke plant rather than it happening somewhere else.

We have been doing a great deal, but we welcome the extra measures in the Act to go further. Some aspects of the river have improved, but others have not. The Minister can help with some of those things, but others she simply cannot. For example, there has been a significant increase in the local crayfish population in the Loddon, which has tipped the river into poor status not because there has been an increase in pollution, but because the crayfish eat the eggs of the course fish. That kind of detail is often lost in social media campaigns, which can misrepresent the information that the Environment Agency gathers. I am interested to know what work the Minister will do to educate local councillors and schools on such information.

The new Act also provides the opportunity to tackle storm water discharges, which is incredibly welcome. Let us be clear: if those discharges did not happen, the storm water would simply flood homes and businesses, which would be completely unacceptable. The measures in the new Act mean that plans must be developed to reduce storm water and, eventually, eliminate it.

That is important for me locally, because in April 2020 an almost unprecedented amount of rainfall led the Loddon to experience 40 overflow events. There was insufficient space to store the quantity of storm water, so it had to be released into the river. The situation is unpredictable—there have been only two such events this year—but we need to ensure that future problems with increased rainfall can be dealt with.

A significant contributory cause of the problem is that house builders have an automatic right to connect rainwater drainage to the sewage system. I will focus on that for the Minister. The Government need to bring into force schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, which removes developers’ automatic right to connect rainwater drainage to combined sewers, which can put additional storm water pressure on our sewage works’ capacity. What plans do the Government have to tackle that piece of legislation, which is still unenacted?

Overflows in Basingstoke are also caused by high levels of groundwater infiltrating the Thames Water network. Thames Water will work on that through a scheme to reline sewers from 2025 to 2030, plus two upgrades at the Basingstoke sewage works to increase capacity. I am concerned, however, that because Thames Water has done a significant amount of work on the issue already, it does not see Basingstoke as a priority for future investment.

The Act requires a plan to be in place to make improvements at every stage. I stress to the Minister that it cannot be right that a river such as the Loddon, which is little more than a stream as it runs past the Basingstoke sewage works, as I have pointed out, is subject to the same national storm water overflow rules as much larger bodies of water. Will she set out how plans to reduce and eliminate storm water overflow events can take into account the different size of water courses involved? The Loddon may have one of the lowest number of overflow events in the Thames valley, which makes it less of a priority for Thames Water, but it is a small tributary to the Thames when it receives overflow water in Basingstoke.

I pay tribute to the Minister’s work on the issue of water quality, on which she has made so much progress, and it is fitting that she should be responding to today’s debate.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

I am not imposing a formal time limit, but hon. Members should keep it in mind that if they take about five minutes each, we will comfortably get in everybody who wishes to speak. I now call Tim Farron, and I see you, Mr Morris.

Elected Women Representatives: Online Abuse

Debate between Maria Miller and Ian Paisley

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered online abuse of elected women representatives.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I start by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate, which was called for by members of the all-party parliamentary group on women in Parliament. It is a great privilege for me to be able to open the debate. May I, in advance, thank hon. Members for their overwhelming support for the debate today? I also thank the organisations that have provided briefings, including the Local Government Association, the Centenary Action Group, the Fawcett Society and Compassion in Politics.

Parliaments are at their best when they are diverse. King’s College London’s global institute for women’s leadership, chaired by Julia Gillard, put it well when it showed the evidence that equal participation of men and women strengthens our democracy. We have made huge progress here: one in three of our Members is now female. Record numbers of women stood for election in 2019, and record numbers were elected to this place. They were inspired to make a difference to their community and their country; inspired not to accept the world as it is but to put themselves forward, despite the barriers that remain, to be here and to be able to change things; and inspired by many of the right hon. and hon. Members taking part in the debate today. Many Members, including in this debate, do not want to accept politics as it is today —a politics in which aggression and abuse are part and parcel of our working day. That is not the democracy that we have signed up for. We want a democracy that relies not on that, but on reasoned debate.

The evidence is also clear that online abuse is not only a factor in preventing women from taking on careers in politics; it is also cutting short the careers of those who stand and are successful in being elected. Members of the APPG on women in Parliament called for this debate because tackling online abuse, particularly when it impacts the freedom of speech of elected Members, needs to be a bigger priority, not only for the Government but for Parliament.

Mr Speaker has done an incredible amount of work to improve the physical security of Members. I very much welcome in particular the statement on 9 March 2021 by my hon. Friend the Minister for the Constitution and Devolution, updating the House on progress on tackling intimidation in public life, but three years on from the original review, we are still waiting for a cohesive plan, with Parliament and Government working together. We need to redouble our efforts in this area, ensuring that we have a comprehensive package of the right laws to tackle online abuse, the right support and awareness of the law that is in place, the right punishments for those who seek to silence democratically elected representatives, and the right support for staff and colleagues who are victims of these dreadful abuses.

Let us be clear about what this abuse looks like. It is not offensive language. It is not strongly held views in political debate. For some colleagues, online abuse is a threat of rape, murder, stalking, or physical violence towards them or their families. At other times it is mass co-ordinated online harassment by groups. Online anonymity means the police can find it difficult to take action swiftly. Above all, online abuse is an attempt to keep women away from contributing to political life. As elected representatives, we condemn those who take that approach, and we need to redouble our efforts to stop them.

I want to be clear: MP or not, there is absolutely no place for any vile abuse online and the law needs to protect everyone better. I look forward to the introduction of the Government’s online harms Bill as soon as possible. Legislation needs to specifically address online abuse, which is designed to bully, intimidate and silence. When it comes to elected representatives, we need to recognise that the impact of that abuse is particularly concerning and unacceptable. In a free and open democracy, no elected representative should ever be intimidated or feel constrained in speaking out on behalf of their constituents, but that, at the moment, is exactly what happens.

This debate is about elected female representatives who endure online abuse disproportionately, but I know that many, including the Local Government Association, are concerned that those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, members of the LGBT+ community and those with disabilities are also being particularly targeted.

The current police advice is to remove victims’ social media presence, which is completely unacceptable as it prevents candidates from campaigning online and engaging effectively with residents once they are elected. It is clear that action is needed swiftly, well before the next general election, if we are to stop that unacceptable impact on our democracy.

Let us look at the evidence before us. Elected women MPs already report that the levels of online abuse and treatment from the media that they experience would have stopped them putting themselves forward for selection if they had known the extent to which it would affect them and their family lives, according to research from the Fawcett Society, which might help to account for why women’s tenure as Members of Parliament is significantly shorter than that of male Members. Unfortunately, the abuse is not limited to them. Family members, children and often staff members are also subjected to harassment, and it puts women off standing in the first place.

In its Equal Power project, the Fawcett Society found that almost 70% of respondents cited abuse or harassment as a reason for not pursuing a career in politics. The evidence is really clear. Although the rise in abuse impacts all candidates, the increase in hate and abuse towards women over the past three general elections was almost double that experienced by men, according to data from the Constitution Unit at University College London. The University of Sheffield’s research has shown that rising abuse against women MPs has persisted during the pandemic. The role of online media in delivering that abuse is significant.

The Minister will no doubt say that what is illegal offline is illegal online, so the police can and do take action on threats to murder, rape, sexually assault and stalk. There have been many cases of online abuse involving female MPs and many convictions in the past 12 months. There is no definitive figure, however, on the number of reports, the number of cases taken forward, and the number of convictions. If Parliament is to take its equality duties seriously, it should closely monitor that, and commission research on why male and female elected Members are treated so differently on social media to ensure that measures are in place to deal with it.

This is not just a UK problem. In 2016, a study by the Inter-Parliamentary Union found that 82% of women politicians surveyed in 39 countries had experienced some form of psychological violence. Indeed, 44% had received death threats, or threats of rape, beatings or abduction, and 65% had been subject to sexist remarks. In our year of hosting the G7, let us use this opportunity to draw nations together to voice our solidarity with women across the globe by pledging our support for democratically elected women, and to advocate laws and support that stop the abuse worldwide.

Gone are the days when we did not know what to do about online abuse. We know. We need to have clear laws and the Government must not only promptly bring forward the legislation to introduce the new electoral sanction on intimidation, but use the online harms Bill to recognise the harm faced by women and elected representatives when they deal with social media.

Research by the think-tank Compassion in Politics found that more than one in four people is put off posting on social media because of dreadful abuse. We cannot have an open and honest pluralistic political debate online in an atmosphere in which people are scared to speak up. I hope the Government will also look to tackle anonymous social media accounts in the online harms Bill. I support the idea of giving people the opportunity to create verified accounts by supplying a piece of personal identification, and also of having the ability to filter out unverified accounts. Does the Minister agree that we need to change the culture from the police recommendation that victims move offline, and move to social media platforms banning abusers, with sanctions to incentivise social media platforms to act quickly when abuse actually happens?

The House of Commons itself has a role as an entity to play in this issue. Online abuse must be treated as workplace harassment, a safety hazard by the House of Commons authorities, who should provide training and support—not only to MPs but to our constituency staff, who often have to deal with this abuse on a daily basis—so that we can all feel safer, more prepared and better able to protect ourselves. Political parties have a role, particularly when it comes to candidates. My right hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) has already made significant changes in the support provided by the Conservative party. The House of Commons has a duty to protect our democracy and should routinely collect and analyse data that breaks down why we fail to have a fully representative Parliament, including the impact of online abuse on female MPs.

I want the Government to think about how we fund the programmes to tackle online abuse. According to the Office for National Statistics, the new digital services tax of 2% on tech giants such as Facebook, Google and Twitter raised £29 million in the first month of operation alone. Let us take the polluter pays principle and use the money yielded from that to provide the sort of support against online abuse that women and girls need more generally, but that is also needed to protect democratically elected women both at local and national level.

Sixteen months ago, we celebrated record numbers of women being elected to Parliament and we still celebrate and encourage more women to stand for election. All the main parties agree that a 50:50 Parliament would be a better place, but the facts speak loudly. The Fawcett Society’s Equal Power project found that almost 60% of women surveyed said they were unlikely to stand as an MP and 44% were unlikely to stand as a councillor. Nearly a year on from that, those numbers have risen to 74% and 62%, respectively. This is a worrying state of affairs, particularly when we see that 69% of respondents cited abuse or harassment as the key reason for not pursuing a career in politics. Online abuse is a significant part of that. This is a barrier that has to be lifted, for the strength of our democracy. It is in our power to tackle this. Parliament, Government and parties have to work together to do just that.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Before I call our next speaker, who will be Caroline Nokes—just to give her early warning—Members will have four minutes to speak.

Abortion (Northern Ireland) (No. 2) Regulations 2020

Debate between Maria Miller and Ian Paisley

Monday 8th June 2020 General Committees

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

Thank you, Sir David; It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I was reminded that it was just over a year ago that the Women and Equalities Committee published its report on abortion in Northern Ireland after colleagues and I spent an extensive period looking at the issue. I am really grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate.

The Government have introduced regulations that put into place the decisions of this Parliament, which were democratically agreed very recently. The regulations also right a wrong that long predates this Parliament and devolution, and has been sidestepped by all political parties. It is absolutely clear that the Government have a legal obligation to act, not only because of the recent decision of Parliament, but because of the decisions of the courts in recent years. While abortion is a devolved matter, that is clearly a fudge, because there are clear and specific obligations that the Northern Ireland Assembly must adhere to when it passes legislation—that it cannot be contrary to the UK’s international obligations or contrary to human rights law. It is a fudge, because this law predates that devolution, and it was not tackled at the time of devolution itself. However, devolution does not remove the UK Government’s responsibilities to ensure that all the law in the United Kingdom complies with international obligations, and it does not remove the Government’s obligation to ensure that all law is compliant with human rights law as well.

The United Nations committee on the elimination of discrimination against women found “grave violations” in relation to abortion law in Northern Ireland as it stood previously, particularly regarding fatal foetal abnormality, rape and incest, and “systematic violations” in the criminalisation of abortion and the restricted access to the ability to end pregnancies for many women, because of the need to travel outside Northern Ireland to secure it.

That is something that we should all be concerned about. We undertake international obligations so that we can comply with them. Those in Northern Ireland cannot simply have special pleading to sit outside that framework. What is more, at home, the UK Supreme Court identified very clearly that there was a breach of women’s article 8 rights in the law as it stood. The highest court in the land identified that the law breached human rights, and that is not something I believe any Government should ignore.

On top of that, if the Democratic Unionist party Members argue that this is something that is being foisted upon them, I would be interested to understand why, in October last year, the High Court in Belfast itself, in the heart of that community, found that the law as it stood was incompatible with article 8 rights.

[Ian Paisley]

The right hon. Lady should know that the European convention on human rights case that was brought by the ECHR was dismissed by the Supreme Court in Northern Ireland. It was not upheld. It was dismissed.

[Mrs Miller]

And the hon. Gentleman will know that some of the problems in that case related to the standing of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, which I will come on to later, if I may. I hope that in raising that point, he was not seeking to try to mislead people who are following this debate. It is important that we stick to the facts of the debate, because—[Interruption.] If I may finish my point, in our visits as a Select Committee to Northern Ireland, the one thing that was overwhelming was how confused people were about the law.

[Ian Paisley]

I do not attempt to mislead anyone. It is stated in the documents that are before us. The fact is that, whether we like it or not, no matter the reasons or the deliberations of the Supreme Court of Northern Ireland, it dismissed the ECHR case because the plaintiff had no standing. End of story. That is a fact. That is what I said.

[Mrs Miller]

Again, I thank the hon. Gentleman, and we will not fall out over this, but I will gently remind him that it has been widely accepted that the reason the case was not accepted either in Northern Ireland or in the Supreme Court just over the road was because of a technical error in the drafting of the legislation when the standing of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission was drawn up.

Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

Debate between Maria Miller and Ian Paisley

Monday 1st February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I am pleased to serve under your chairmanship in this important debate, Mr Stringer. I commend the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) for securing it and the members of Women Against State Pension Inequality, many of whom are here, for their successful petition.

There is a great deal of heat in this debate; I hope that at the end of it, we will get a bit of light as well. We owe it to the many people who have signed this petition to lift the fog of debate. I say that because many of my constituents have contacted me to ask for clarification of many of the issues raised here. The Minister has an important role to play in ensuring that some of those issues are clarified.

What is clear is that we all agree on equalisation of the state pension age. It is the right thing to do. It is equally right that we are regularly reviewing the age at which we retire. The great news is that we are all living longer, but we cannot possibly expect that not to affect the age at which we can retire. Surely it cannot be sustainable for us to live longer in retirement than in employment. The sums simply do not add up.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Does the right hon. Lady have some heart for my constituent Lilian, who this year had the honour of receiving an MBE but was told in the same week that she is not getting her state pension? You could not meet a more loyal person or a more honoured person, nor a more betrayed person.

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Gentleman makes his own point in his own way, but we are trying to take some of the emotion out of this debate to get to some of the facts, and we owe it to those people who are really heavily engaged in this debate to do that.

We need a fairer pension system and one in which everybody knows what they are going to get out of it at the end, not only from the state pension system but from private pensions as well. It would be very fair of us all here today to be highly critical of the pensions industry for the opaque way in which it operates, which makes it is very difficult for us to know exactly what we will get and when.

I shall refocus on the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) made, namely that the petition being debated today creates some of the fog because it appears to call for change that puts all women in their fifties who were born on or after 5 April 1951 and who are affected by the changes to the state pension age to be in exactly the same financial position that they would have been in if they had been born or before 5 April 1950. That appears to be a call for a significant change, which I am not sure has been advocated in the contributions made by hon. Members thus far.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Maria Miller and Ian Paisley

Monday 20th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

That issue has been raised at every stage of the debate—on Second Reading and in Committee. My hon. Friend will know by now that there are some technical differences in the way the Bill will work, but the biggest difference of all is that we are for the first time enabling same-sex couples to have access to something that heterosexual couples have taken for granted for many decades and hundreds of years and that society values intrinsically. We have to ask ourselves why we should deny people the ability to take part in something that so many of us know is a rich and important part of our lives.

[Ian Paisley]

Can the Secretary of State confirm to the House the special arrangements that she has put in place for Northern Ireland—that if a same-sex couple get married under new laws here and move to Northern Ireland, in law it will be regarded as only a civil partnership?

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue. These are matters that have been decided in Northern Ireland and I respect entirely the decisions that have been taken. I will continue to work with colleagues in the Northern Ireland Assembly to make sure that the will of that part of the United Kingdom is dealt with in the appropriate way. What he rightly describes is the situation for civil partnerships that take place in other parts of the world already. The Northern Ireland Assembly recognises, as we would expect it to, a civil partnership that took place, for example, in Canada or Spain. We are simply asking for marriages of same-sex couples to be recognised in the way that civil partnerships from other countries are recognised. I am sure the hon. Gentleman would agree with that.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Maria Miller and Ian Paisley

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend will know that clear provisions are already in place for faith groups and faith schools to be able to talk about their beliefs on issues such as marriage. As with many other areas, be they to do with divorce or with children being born outside marriage, teachers have to deal with the issues sensitively. That, of course, is the point he is getting at. Just to reiterate, we would expect teachers, as professionals, to explain these issues to the children they teach, but we would in no way require them to promote something that did not accord with their belief—their faith—and I think that is right.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

rose—

[Maria Miller]

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will conclude in order to give individuals the time to make their own contributions.

Despite all the discussion and debate, this Bill is about one thing—fairness. It is about giving those who want to get married the opportunity to do so, while protecting the rights of those who do not agree with same-sex marriage. Marriage is one of the most important institutions we have; it binds families and society together, and it is a building block that promotes stability. This Bill supports and cultivates marriage, and I commend it to the House.

Same-sex Marriage in Churches

Debate between Maria Miller and Ian Paisley

Monday 10th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I very much value my hon. Friend’s contribution and he is right to say that our objective of ensuring that no organisation is forced into doing something that it does not want to do must be made absolutely clear. I give my hon. Friend a complete undertaking that my officials will work with him—well before Second Reading, I am sure—to ensure that he and other religious leaders are content with proposals that may be forthcoming around the future of equal civil marriage. We all share the objective of wanting to ensure that individuals who want to be married can be married, but that institutions that want to protect their freedoms and religious beliefs have that protection.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

If marriage is opened to allow individuals to marry one another regardless of sex or gender, article 12 of the European convention on human rights will apply to both same-sex and opposite-sex marriages. If that is the case, will the Minister seek a derogation under the convention to protect churches, rectors and church trustees who do not want to hold same-sex marriages in their buildings, in order to protect their rights, freedoms and religious identity?

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Gentleman is drawing me into a great deal of detail—exactly the sort of detail that a Bill Committee would look at in the development of any legislation. He is right to say that such detail is important and must respect freedom on both sides, and I am sure such matters will be considered on Second Reading and in Committee. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the situation in Northern Ireland will be different; this is a devolved matter and the Northern Ireland Government may take a different view.

Leveson Inquiry

Debate between Maria Miller and Ian Paisley

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I will make a little more progress.

We have not wasted time since last Thursday. Following the publication of the report, we have acted. Lord Justice Leveson recommended that there should be cost protection in defamation and privacy cases to ensure that ordinary people are not put off using the courts by the fear that they cannot afford it. The Justice Secretary has asked the Civil Justice Council to look at that issue and the Government will implement the changes at the earliest possible opportunity.

Additionally, some of Leveson’s recommendations build on work that has already been done by the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers on behalf of the police. The report recognises that, because of that work, the policing landscape is changing.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for her generosity in giving way to Opposition Members. I agree with what she has said about the status quo and about how the media should be monitored and regulated. However, the former editor of the Belfast Telegraph has said in today’s paper that the time when the press can mark their own homework is well gone and that the time when the press can determine what punishment they should face when they have breached the law is well gone. Does she agree?

[Maria Miller]

I agree that we need an independent self-regulatory system that can be overseen and is seen to be effective. I urge the hon. Gentleman to ensure that he has gone through the recommendations in detail. It is not the Government who are saying that the system should be put together by the press, but Lord Leveson himself, and he is right to do so.

Sir Jimmy Savile (BBC Inquiry)

Debate between Maria Miller and Ian Paisley

Monday 15th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I understand my hon. Friend’s question and concern, but I suggest that extending the scope of Leveson at the moment might result in a delay to the inquiry that I do not think anybody would want to see. I reassure my hon. Friend that the issues about which she is concerned will be dealt with within the two inquiries that have been announced. I hope I will be able to reassure her further when the terms of reference of those inquiries come out, and she can be assured that I will continue to work to monitor these issues closely with the BBC.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Is the Secretary of State utterly convinced that the culture of the BBC has changed since the revelations about the vile actions of Jimmy Savile? Just a few weeks ago, one of its senior talent was caught in photographs in the grips of a young woman with his hand down her trousers in a public place and he got away with it with nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders and a silly excuse. Is the culture really changing? Has it really changed? Is the Secretary of State utterly convinced? She knows that the police inquiry will take years and that the BBC will get away in the smoke. Surely now is the time for the independent inquiry into the BBC.

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to question not just past but present practices. The BBC investigations will consider that exact issue, including not only the situation with the piece on “Newsnight” but the additional work on the troubling allegations we all read about in the papers over the weekend and today. He is right to say that the BBC must consider the present as well as the past.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Maria Miller and Ian Paisley

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is right that the inflexibility in the system does not reflect true family life. Every single family is different. It is difficult to reflect that in a statutory system, which is why encouraging more people to work on those arrangements together, whether the issue is finance or access, is the way for children to get the best results after family breakdown.

[Ian Paisley]

It would be churlish to not recognise that the Government have listened, because a £100 access fee would have been prohibitive to families, especially the most vulnerable families, who matter most in all this. I put on record my thanks to the Government for listening on that point, because that will allow more engagement with the statutory agencies, which is how we can get to the bottom of these problems.

[Maria Miller]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for those kind words. It is important that we have a solution that we feel everybody can work with as we move forward.

Child Support Payments

Debate between Maria Miller and Ian Paisley

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Gentleman was reading my mind; I was about to move on to that very issue. Let me reiterate, though, that I inherited the anomaly. I commend my colleagues for acting so swiftly that we can introduce regulations to address this matter under the future scheme. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to support the measures in the Welfare Reform Bill, which will support the introduction of the new scheme, including the IT system, and to encourage his constituents and his hon. Friends to make their views known as part of the consultation. None the less, as he rightly says, people face financial problems now. I should certainly like to make such changes to the existing child maintenance scheme, and I have considered doing so in some detail. However, we inherited a situation in which 100,000 cases have fallen out of the system due to its failings and the prohibitive cost to the taxpayer continues to be borne.

To make fuller changes to the existing scheme rules and the underpinning IT systems risks further problems and added costs to a system that already presents the taxpayer with a bill of £450 million per annum. I share the hon. Gentleman’s frustration, but I hope that I can garner his support for the implementation of the new scheme as soon as possible. That is dependent on the enactment of the Welfare Reform Bill.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I agree that it is important to maintain maturity and consensus on this matter if we are to move forward swiftly. Will the Minister ensure that, whenever the Department addresses these anomalies, proper and appropriate training is given to staff, so that they can take the claimant through the process swiftly and with as few problems as possible?

[Maria Miller]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which gives me the opportunity to talk a little about the staff at the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission. I was in Belfast recently, visiting the arm of the commission that deals with his constituents in Northern Ireland and the constituents of a region in England. I was impressed with its capability and its commitment to do a good job for all of our constituents.

The issue lies in the failings of the IT systems, the approaches taken in the past and the complexities of previous systems. As we look to the new scheme, I urge hon. Members to remember that simplicity and replacing the current IT system are critical if we are to effect the sort of changes that the hon. Gentleman advocates.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Maria Miller and Ian Paisley

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

I know that the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) is keen for us to make progress today and was somewhat concerned that we did not complete consideration of all elements on Monday. I will try to address all the issues that I am able to address in a speedy manner so that we can consider things fully.

Right hon. and hon. Members who have been listening to the debate thus far will already have a flavour of the complexity of the current scheme. Unfortunately, the scheme is open to widespread abuse, and some of that is driven by the remoteness of the administration of these elements of the discretionary social fund. Just so that hon. Members are absolutely clear, I should say that we are talking about replacing budget loans, crisis loans and the community care grant with national payments on account, including advances and alignment payments, and with local authority -delivered local assistance. The bulk of the comments of the hon. Members for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and for Westminster North (Ms Buck) were about crisis loans, half of which are alignment payments, which will continue to be paid at national level through payments on account. It is important that hon. Members are aware that to all intents and purposes people will still have access to that money on a national basis. I hope that will reassure hon. Members regarding a number of the issues raised.

I do not think that the status quo is an option because of the level of abuse in the system at the moment. First, the number of crisis loans has tripled since 2006, but we do not believe that that increase reflects an underlying increase in genuine need as a result of the recession or anything else. We have looked in detail at the individuals who are causing that increase in demand and our analysis has shown that it is being driven by young single people on jobseeker’s allowance, many of whom are still living at home. We should be looking at what is driving that demand and asking whether the money is getting through to the sort of vulnerable people about whom the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington is rightly concerned.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

What is the Minister going to do to ensure that the operation of the social fund across the devolved regions does not set a hierarchy of standards and differences that are so far apart that people come to realise that the social fund operates very differently in certain parts of the UK? That would create hardship for many vulnerable people.

[Maria Miller]

The national payments on account will be dealt with on a national basis in the same way in any part of the country and the regulated part of the social fund will continue as it is. The hon. Gentleman is talking about how local assistance will be dealt with and I am sure that he, like all hon. Members, will know that local authorities want to do their best by the vulnerable citizens we are talking about. That is certainly my experience of most, if not all, local authorities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Maria Miller and Ian Paisley

Monday 10th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady brings up a very detailed point, and I should be very pleased to look at it with her separately, but I should underline the fact that in all the changes we are making, we want to make sure that we are judging disabled people on what they can do, not what they cannot, and we want to make sure that more disabled people are able to get back into work. At the moment, 50% of disabled people work, and many more want to, with the right support.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The Minister will be aware that the employment and support allowance has largely superseded incapacity benefit. In week 11, the claimant is assessed by a medical board. What plans does the Minister have to involve a claimant’s GP in future assessments, so that we can ensure that they are more accurate, as opposed to being a snapshot at week 11?