Relationships and Sex Education

Debate between Maria Miller and Jess Phillips

Monday 25th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

rose—

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

rose—

[John Howell]

I will give way first to my right hon. Friend.

Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy

Debate between Maria Miller and Jess Phillips

Thursday 19th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

I want to add my voice to the many people who have spoken already and to the many voices who have called me since they met with the Leader of the House and saw the proposals—the voices of the many women and men involved who brought us to this point—in saying what a positive step forwards this is. As someone who has been a naysayer all the way through the process, I thought that it would never be good enough—there would have to be a million tick boxes to satisfy me—but what is outlined in this very detailed and quite long document is to be commended, and I feel confident that people will and should bring cases forward.

It will be a massive pleasure for me to no longer be the referral system for victims of violence in this building. I have been exhausted by the stories that I have heard since the situation started to break in October last year. I think that I am up to around 50 complaints about Members from a variety of people from different political parties and others who work in and around politics. It will be delightful to hand those cases over.

It would be wrong of me to say, as the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) has already outlined, that I do not have concerns about historical cases, not least because most of the cases that caused us to do anything will not necessarily be able to go through this system. I have deep trust in the Leader of the House and in her desire to make this right and to make sure that wherever possible, regardless of when a situation may have happened, there are still ways for this system to look after, care for and respond to victims and to give them independent advice on how to manoeuvre around the system.

It has always been a part of our code of conduct, whether in 1864 or today, that we must not bring this House into disrepute, which is an enormously broad term. I would argue, and I do not think it is up for debate, that sexually harassing our staff brings this House into disrepute. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Sir Kevin Barron) rightly said that we should all have great faith in the credentials of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, as well as in her attitude and tone. The way she works with Members of Parliament should fill people with hope for the system, and she has plenty of scope to take complaints from people who may not fall within the 2017 issue raised by this specific report, but there are still things in the code of conduct that have definitely been broken in many of the cases I have heard, so I look forward to the review.

It is brilliant that we have a six-month review, and it is a new way of doing things around here that, after we sign a piece paper on day one, we do not just believe that nothing has to change and that everything will be perfect. This system will absolutely be tested by the first person who goes through it.

[Mrs Miller]

Does the hon. Lady share my concern about how the amendment might incite idle speculation about the identity of victims, which we know could be devastating to those individuals?

Secure Tenancies (Victims of Domestic Abuse) Bill

Debate between Maria Miller and Jess Phillips

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 8th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips]

I absolutely agree. If we could get our housing and welfare systems, which have become fragmented—and were never perfect, don’t get me wrong —to work better together, at least people would have a fighting chance of understanding what the hell they were meant to be doing, because it is a bit confusing at the moment. My hon. Friend is completely right that we are talking about people in chaos.

A tiny fraction of victims of domestic violence present as homeless. The vast majority either stay or end up in refuge, and they will likely have help in those circumstances to get them through the process. But we have to do better for those who turn up the housing office. We have to ensure that local authority staff have a much clearer understanding of this cross-border issue, because the triumph of hope over experience has left many people unhoused.

[Mrs Miller]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), my fellow member of the Women and Equalities Committee. Of course she speaks with great power on these issues, given her experience. We also heard a great deal from the Minister to give us reassurance about how much work the Government have done to ensure that this Bill is the best that it can be and that it further supports victims of domestic violence—something that this Government have made a huge priority. I congratulate the Minister on all that she is doing to ensure that the situation improves ever further.

I will make some short comments about the amendments, because I think that the Bill generally has cross-party support. A lot of what the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley said was, frankly, about training among local authority employees, and whether we should be drafting legislation because of the imperfections in local authorities. It is always a balancing act, but we need to ensure that the legislation is as strong as it can be.

I am concerned that new clause 1 could have a clear unintended consequence of undermining the existing devolved powers by taking new powers in the way set out in the new clause. Parliament is clear, as was the Minister in the other place, that there was not and is not a need for primary legislation in this area regarding cross-border movements. In fact, we could unintentionally erode devolution by acting on new clause 1 in the way in which the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) has outlined. Ministers clarified that individuals will have the support that they need and that we do not need to legislate in this way. It is good to hear that these devolved matters are being discussed across the nations, and that there is nothing that concerns the devolved nations in this respect.

I turn to amendment 1. The Minister set out that there is already protection in the Bill for all lifetime tenants, including those who have fled their homes and lost security of tenure. The Bill is specifically drafted to protect individuals facing that situation. In my experience as a Minister, I remember feeling on a number of occasions, “Perhaps we need a belt-and-braces approach here. We really need to spell it out in the Bill.” And what always came through to me in those circumstance was the fact that, in trying to do the very best we can to be as clear as possible, we can actually create confusion by not following the usual protocols. I urge the hon. Member for Great Grimsby to consider that for a moment. As the Minister said, local authorities should have no problem understanding their duties. Indeed, adding to the Bill in the way that the hon. Member for Great Grimsby is suggesting could, because of the redundancy of her new clause, create the opposite of the clarity that she wants.

I have a brief point on amendment 2. As the Minister said, allocating a house that is too big would not be in the best interests of the victim, but specific circumstances might require flexibility. I remember looking particularly at the role of discretionary housing payments when I was a Minister. Such cases fall squarely into the list of examples of why we have these payments. One of the reasons for having such an immense amount of money in this fund—£150 million or so a year—is to be able to give local authorities the flexibility that they need to be able to deal with local circumstances as they see fit. I think that it is better to trust local authorities to get that right than to create specific exceptions that might run the risk of not being used in the way in which the primary legislation requires.

I understand the reason behind this set of amendments. I particularly understand why the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley has spoken with a great deal of passion. One question that I would really like the Minister to answer is: how do we work even harder to ensure that local authorities provide the same support for victims of domestic violence, whether they are in Basingstoke, Birmingham, Yardley or anywhere else?

Women in the House of Commons

Debate between Maria Miller and Jess Phillips

Thursday 7th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

I want to pay tribute to all who have spoken, with some special tribute to my colleague the hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes). Like him, I grew up in a family in Birmingham, I have only brothers—obviously we make boy babies in Birmingham, because I also have two of those—and I grew up with an Irish heritage. I certainly have the same touch of the Blarney that he has. My experience and my views are different from his, but I know we have the same goal.

In case there is any question whether the Labour party feels that what happened in Totnes with a coffin was appropriate, I will self-appoint myself as spokesman for the Labour party and say that it is totally unacceptable to have political debate that leads to a Member of Parliament having a coffin put outside her office. It is especially unacceptable in regard to that particular Member of Parliament, who works tirelessly—often better than some members of the Labour party—to hold the Government to account. There is no question that she is fighting. If the Labour party had any involvement in that, I can only apologise whole-heartedly. It is totally unacceptable.

Stopping the cross-party love-in, I am disappointed that the Government did not listen to a single one of the recommendations of the Select Committee. If it had been me writing those recommendations, they would have been considerably more radical. I would have asked for the moon on a stick. The Committee’s recommendations were thoughtful, and it was not asking too much to recommend some of the outreach, as has already been pointed out. Some of the tiny changes to the Equality Act 2010, which would mean we could have all-women shortlists for mayoral and police and crime commissioner candidates, are the sweep of a single pen. They would not affect a single person in the Government even slightly, because their party does not recognise all-women shortlists anyway. They do not have to do it. We just want to, and we need the law to reflect that. If the Conservative party, the ruling party, does not think that quotas work, then it can crack on with that point of view. We in the Labour party know that they work. To answer the question asked by the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant), the progress was made as a result of the Labour party and all-women shortlists. They are the single biggest reason for progress.

[Mrs Miller]

I pay tribute to the work the hon. Lady does for the Committee, and she knows that I support the recommendations of the report. Is she not a bit disappointed that she feels her party needs all-women shortlists for mayoral elections in order to get female representation?

[Jess Phillips]

I feel utterly disappointed, but the triumph of hope over experience tells me that I have to force my party to look at electing women into the position of metro Mayors. The Conservatives want it too, but they are not willing to do it, whereas I am willing to say, “Yes, we have a problem. I have a solution. It will work.”

To speak to the point made by my hon. Friend, and I will say friend, the Member for Walsall North—is it north? It is all just the Black country to me—the idea that I would not want a surgeon selected via a quota to operate on me is not something I recognise. I would be delighted to have somebody who had been selected from an all-women shortlist be the surgeon in my hospital and operate on me. I would be less happy to have somebody who had probably got the position because he went to a certain school or was born into a certain family. He would be no better; he would just have been given all the tools to allow him to become a surgeon or even to dream of becoming a surgeon. My hon. Friend will know, just as I do, that kids from Birmingham who have kissed the Blarney stone rarely end up being surgeons in Birmingham’s hospitals. I would be more than happy to be operated on.

To draw out the surgeon analogy, when somebody operates on me I expect evidence to have been taken about how they do that procedure. I want to know how they have come to the conclusion that that procedure is the very best thing for my health. I want to know that it is going to work, and I look for evidence. I want to see more women in Parliament, so I will look at the evidence of what works and I will ask that it is implemented. What works is quotas for women and sanctions when they are not realised. There is no other area of Government where we would just say, “Oh, do you know what really works to stop people being hit by buses? Oh, well, I’m just not sure it’s the one we want to go for,” or, “Do you know what really, really works for making sure that more kids go to school? But I just don’t know whether it’s good enough for choice if we do that.” We would not do that with any other thing, so why do we do it about this?

We look at clear evidence about the heavy lifting and the reason we have more women in Parliament now. In the last election, the Conservative party went backward. The Labour party surged forward. Do not get me wrong: the Labour party is in no way faultless in this area—I have just had to apologise for someone having a coffin left outside their house—but it is willing to do the thing that actually works, and to do it at every single level of the political party. It has to be balanced for every single person who sits on the National Executive Committee and for every person who goes to the conference. That is not because of people who want to claim they are great heroes of the movement. It is because of women in the Labour party fighting and bearing the scars.