Draft Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2022

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2022 General Committees

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I have a couple of simple questions for the Minister. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge has highlighted, this measure is quite late in coming. When the scheme was being put together, there must have been some thought somewhere in the Government’s system that there would be a need for this new measure. When were the Minister’s Department and the Home Office first aware that there might need to be a change in the legislation? If there were any delays in bringing it forward from that date to now, can she explain why?

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank all colleagues for their contributions to this debate. I will take the issues that were raised in turn before I come to the shadow Minister. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead raised very good points about the importance of using SIs for a specific purpose, which is exactly what we have done. There is a role both for the Ministry of Justice and for the Home Office. We have had to amend the Police Act 1997, as I set out in my initial remarks, and we are also having to amend the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. As other Members have suggested, the scheme has been incredibly important. I agree with the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch and pay tribute to all Members of this House and elsewhere who are hosting our Ukrainian guests. It is an incredibly compassionate act and demonstrates the true British spirit.

The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch asked when we became aware of the issues. It is fair to say I was part of the initial set-up of the scheme in my previous role in the Home Office under the previous Home Secretary, and we worked at pace, along with Lord Harrington, to set up the scheme, which was a true cross-Government effort. It was a completely new, bespoke scheme, so we worked through the night on many occasions to try to address the myriad issues that sat with our Department, with other Departments, with DLUHC, and, in some cases, with the devolved Administrations.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

On that point, the Minister says that it was a bespoke scheme. The Public Accounts Committee, which I have the privilege of chairing, looked at the Syrian resettlement scheme, which we gave quite a big tick. There are always issues with big projects, but it worked very well, so there was an example of a scheme that went before. It was not domestic hosting, so the safeguarding was slightly different, but there were still issues there. Did she look back to that scheme? I am still puzzled why the Government drew up a whole new scheme when there was a fairly good model on the stocks.

[Rachel Maclean]

That is a perfectly valid question, but I fear that the scope of this debate is very narrow and is about the exceptions in the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. I was not the Minister responsible for the policy decisions. The right answer for colleagues who have raised valid points about the future of the scheme is probably to seek a Backbench Business debate—perhaps a Westminster Hall debate—so that the relevant Minister can come along and answer all those questions. It is not possible for me to answer them now, but I am happy to feed them back to my colleagues or to answer any correspondence on them.

The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge mentioned the fact that the scheme was initially going to run for a shorter period and that people are now coming to the end of that period, and asked what plans we have made for that. Again, it would be wrong for me to try to answer those questions as I am not the Minister with responsibility for those issues.

I very much hope that colleagues are reassured that the draft SI is an important part of the Government’s safeguarding responsibility, and I commend it to the Committee.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

My hon. Friend is completely right to highlight the harm and the horrendous impacts of drug dealing in his constituency. There are already significant penalties for supplying that drug—as a class B drug, the maximum penalty is four years in prison—but the Government always keep such matters under review.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is not just the criminal courts that are seeing backlogs; the probate registry service and the divorce courts are also causing problems. One constituent came to my surgery last week. She is still living with her husband but her divorce case has been passed to Suffolk, where people cannot understand how she could still be living in the same house as him while trying to divorce—but that is the reality of the London housing situation. What action is the Minister taking to make sure that the pace of dealing with such cases increases?

[Gareth Johnson]

The Government have invested £324 million over the next three years to bring down the backlog in the family courts. The hon. Lady is right to mention the probate court as well. Obtaining grants of probate has a satisfaction rating of about 90%, but there are some serious delays with that other 10%. When people apply online and everything is order, probate is swiftly dealt with, but there are difficulties with some of the other 10% of cases. We are working on that at speed.

Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

Very much so. I am told that some people who fall into the criteria described by my hon. Friend have already been evacuated to the United Kingdom. I know that she has been a real advocate for the community sponsorship policy. Indeed, I am proud to say that one of my local churches is making efforts to participate in that. I look forward to seeing that in my constituency.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister has repeatedly talked about the family reunion rules and pointed to the existing rules. However, there are families who cannot pass the English language test to try to get into the UK—how on earth will they learn the English language under the current Taliban regime? Are the Government looking at loosening some of the rules of family reunion for Afghan families coming to join their family member in the UK? The family members have got housing and the ability to support their families and help them to learn English here, but that rule is one of the many barriers to them coming here in the first place.

[Victoria Atkins]

I understand the House’s focus on family reunion rules, because, as the hon. Lady said, so many already have family here. We have had to apply the rules as fairly and proportionately as we can, recognising the realities of the security situation in Afghanistan. We have no consular presence in Afghanistan, and the British Army withdrew at the end of August, so we are working with third countries and consulates in third countries to try to help people. I cannot pretend that this is an easy process. I have tried to be clear throughout with the House about just how difficult it is to get out people who are already in Afghanistan.

Black Women: Domestic Abuse

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It gives me great pleasure to raise a very important issue to the UK and to this House, particularly as we are about to debate the Domestic Abuse Bill, which returns to this place in the next fortnight or so.

In preparation for today’s debate, I was aided greatly by a number of groups. I would like to thank Refuge; Southall Black Sisters; Women’s Aid; the End Violence Against Women Coalition; Hackney Council; London Councils; Imkaan, which does amazing work in this area; and my local organisation, Sistah Space, with whom I met recently and who were the inspiration behind this debate.

I would also like to put on record my thanks to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), who is unable to be with us physically today, for her assurance to me that she is committed to listening on this. I appreciate her willingness to engage on this vital issue, and look forward to hearing the Minister’s detailed response to the points that I raise.

It is important to summarise some of the concerns around this. We are dealing with domestic violence and domestic abuse, which is an issue that of course cuts across all people, all ethnicities and those of every socioeconomic status, but black, minority, ethnic and migrant women are particularly vulnerable to high rates of abuse. I am concerned that small specialist organisations are often unable to compete for the contracts that Government and other authorities run to provide money and support, partly due to funding cuts to local authorities and the knock-on effects on services provided. My own local authority, for example, has suffered over 40% cuts in the past decade. This collective loss of money means that anything that is not a statutory service is at risk.

There is also a need for greater representation of black women at policy level. The term, “black, Asian and minority ethnic”, or BAME, as some people call it, groups together a lot of different lived experiences and is a lazy shorthand for the real lived experiences of so many women. In Hackney, we see domestic abuse as an issue that particularly impacts black and minority ethnic women—disproportionately so. I will be touching on the issue of “no recourse to public funds” and of course return to the Domestic Abuse Bill.

The budget cuts to local authorities have meant that there has been a general push towards generic, lower-cost service provision for domestic abuse and violence against women services. Because of economies of scale, that push towards lower-cost services favours larger organisations and contracts over the small, specialist groups that are led by and for the communities they support. They often do not have the resources or finances available to them, or the stability, because they are small groups working in the community. We need to acknowledge that the experiences and discrimination faced by black women are different from those faced by other minority ethnic women, although I shall speak about other women in this speech as well. Using that term BAME—black, Asian and minority ethnic—as an all-encompassing term homogenises vastly different lived experiences.

Let me take a very human example. Imagine someone leaves their home fearful of their situation, in the middle of the night. They have managed to escape from their abusive partner and they turn up, if they are lucky, to a refuge or a hostel and are unable, as a black woman, to have the cream to cream their body or the hair products that they need to support their hair. Their dignity is already through the floor and these little things can make a significant difference, but generic services just do not always get that. That is not particularly a criticism of every generic service—they provide a service and I am not critical of them for that—but there often needs to be much more specialism, and it needs to be locally driven, because local areas know their communities best. Even in my own borough, for instance, we see many differences between our population and that in the neighbouring boroughs of Tower Hamlets or Islington, both of which my constituency abuts.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Lady for bringing this issue to the House. I am always inspired by her care and compassion for others, for her community and for this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a whole—that is something that I have noticed in my time in the House. Does she agree that work must be done, time put in and funding directed to enable women to know that they are valued, that their experience matters and that there is a hand to help them towards a life in which fear is not the norm?

[Meg Hillier]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his thoughtful and sensitive intervention. That is exactly what I think everybody is aiming for: to make sure that women are not living in fear and have somewhere to go. However, sometimes that somewhere to go is not a comfortable place to go for some women, and it is important that we recognise that domestic violence does not affect everybody homogenously, that different groups are affected in different ways, and that cultural, religious and other differences are important to recognise. It is important that we have an accurate representation of the needs of black women, and that they are listened to when decisions about services that disproportionately affect them are being made. Quite simply, I say to the Minister: no decisions about black women without black women.

Of course, work is being done to tackle domestic abuse, and I welcome the Domestic Abuse Bill, to which I will turn a little later. London Councils has begun work with the Women’s Resource Centre to better understand the structural inequalities that exist in grant making, to create a longer-term funding vision and framework that will bring about tangible change in the next grants programme. If we look at the numbers, we see that only 32 refuges are run by and for black and ethnic minority women. We know that there is a shortage of refuge space generally—I do not have time to go into some of the other wider issues today, but that is a big concern.

London faces some unique challenges with domestic abuse compared with the rest of the country. London-based refuges account for 23% of the total refuge spaces in England—higher than the proportion for any other comparable region—and domestic abuse is on the rise in London. Between July 2018 and December 2019, some 2,817 women and 2,425 children in London were placed in refuges. London boroughs will receive some £13 million in this financial year via the London crime prevention fund to try to tackle domestic abuse. London grant programmes distributed £14 million over the past four years to support the tackling of sexual violence and abuse.

It is important that we see better representation of different groups in the media. The London Borough of Hackney has been trying to promote awareness work, so that people from different backgrounds see themselves reflected and thereby have the confidence to come forward. It is a good way to educate people about what is available. Imagine, Madam Deputy Speaker, that you are living in fear at home. It is difficult to make that call to a domestic abuse hotline. You may be in a controlling relationship and it might be difficult to find help from a friend. You may have your phone monitored. But if the television is on and soap operas are sending out messages about where you can go for help, that is important. It is important that we press for that.

I recognise that it is not entirely in the Government’s control, but in focus groups that the London Borough of Hackney ran with survivors, the following comment was made:

“Having messages on TV shows, soap operas, radios would help.”

A recent storyline in “The Archers” was cited as a good example but, of course, only a narrow group of people listen to Radio 4 on a weekday evening. One person said,

“Having it talked about more makes it easier to talk about.”

Another said,

“There should be more advertising on buses.”

Someone said, rather poignantly,

“I lost my job due to being fearful. You cannot exactly tell your colleagues what is happening with your life, but if you see yourself represented in the media, you know that you’re not alone.”

It is a small but important element: too often, our media does not reflect the richness and diversity of cultures and backgrounds of people I represent in my borough, so I see this as a very significant issue.

I was talking about the London figures just now, but in London there was a 63% rise in reported domestic abuse offences between 2011 and 2018. In 2018, there were more than 85,000 recorded domestic abuse offences in London in just that 12-month period. Staggeringly, that represented one in 10 of all crimes reported in London that year, and that is just those that were reported. For many people, it is still very hard to report the situation that they find themselves living in, wanting to protect their children—I know that the Minister will be well aware of all the issues.

Funding for refuge provision is a key concern in London and for London councils. In my own borough since July 2017—so just in the last three years—169 women and 146 children have been placed in refuges. Of those 169 women, 110 were from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. There are real concerns about that percentage. Over and over, the evidence that I have gathered—although the data, I have to say to the Minister, could be better, including at national level—shows clearly that a disproportionate number of black women, and Asian and minority ethnic women, are affected in London.

In Hackney, in the last financial year, there were a total of 492 high-risk victims or survivors of domestic abuse reported to the multi-agency risk assessment conference. Black women constituted a disproportionately high number of those compared with the general population—27%. If this were any other group, people would take it a bit more seriously, and it is important that we recognise that.

I have mentioned children a number of times, and in my research for this speech I have been alarmed by the number of children who are affected by domestic violence, particularly for this group of women: 45% of all children assessed due to domestic abuse concerns in Hackney were black children. If there is a perpetrator in the household, it is not just the woman who is affected—it is usually a woman, but obviously men can be victims too—but it has a damaging and long-term effect on those children. In many ways, if domestic abuse was treated as a public health issue, notwithstanding the efforts of the Government to finally get the Domestic Abuse Bill through, it might have been dealt with in different ways and more seriously in the past.

I turn to the Domestic Abuse Bill, and I am particularly concerned as we approach that debate. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s views. The “no recourse to public funds” provision is a big concern in my constituency. I have many constituents who are migrants who come here to work, they work hard and pay their bills: they do all the right things according to Home Office rules, but they have no recourse to public funds, so if they need to flee a domestic abuse situation, they do not qualify for a lot of the support that is available. Those often life-saving routes to safety are not available, and the Home Office needs to look at this issue, just as it has with victims of human trafficking, for whom some safeguards are in now place—not all of them, but I will not go into that now.

There are some safeguards to support people in that situation, and there needs to be some safeguards here. These are people who want to work and will want to continue to work if they can, but if they have not got the money to pay their rent or they have a problem with their job, they will be left high and dry and in a very vulnerable position, often unable to leave, under the Domestic Abuse Bill. It is a significant barrier that excludes many people from those routes to safety.

The domestic abuse commissioner is also highlighted in the Bill. I hope the Minister can confirm that domestic abuse commissioner will listen to all voices and make sure that all these diverse groups—black women included—are at the table so that decisions are made that reflect their very specific needs. I know that my own Front Bench, with my support of course, are pushing for other migrant women to be better supported through the Domestic Abuse Bill. There is no provision, for example, for those on non-spousal visas to enter a refuge.

We also need to see a public duty on all commissioning authorities to fund domestic abuse services in the community. Refuges have a very important part to play but, as with Sistah Space in my constituency, it is the community-based services that are often there on the frontline, accessible and embedded, and they know who is who.

It is much easier to do that, especially for someone who, for example, is having their phone tracked or someone who cannot travel very far from their partner because they will not allow them to do that. Having that local specific support is very important.

It is important as well that the Bill reflects that the commissioning of community services needs to reflect protected characteristics. Too often, black and minority ethnic women’s services go completely unfunded, as I have touched on, and they cannot be sustained, and that means that black and minority ethnic women often struggle to access services.

It is essential—I hope the Minister will agree and give me some comfort and comfort to the women out there, some of whom are not yet affected, but may be in the future, and those who have been through it and those who are living through it now—that funding systems for domestic abuse understand that a one-size-fits-all policy will not address the problems within the sector. We need a granular way of funding so that whatever the main funding body, it can get right down to those small grassroots organisations that do not have the resources necessarily to bid, but can provide essential services.

We need, as I have said repeatedly, to ensure that black women’s voices are listened to and represented at policy level. I think I have time to segue into my experience 13 years ago almost to the day, when I became a Minister in the same Department as the Minister. One of the first things I was asked to do was sign off the board for the vetting and barring service. I was presented with a list of names, and I said, looking at it, “Can I just ask out of interest whether anyone has any experience of African child abuse?” At the time, there had been a number of such instances, including the torso of Adam in the Thames, which many people will remember vividly. Representing a constituency with a large number of West Africans, I was very attuned to it, but it was a very big issue at the time.

There was a slight awkward silence from the officials—I am not critical of the officials, who were trying to do a good job, but just were not tuned into this reality—but lo and behold, they went off and found an excellent woman. I have not told her I would name her, so I will not name her today. She was very expert in the area and became a vital part of making sure that our child protection and our set-up for the protection of vulnerable people began to understand and reflect some of those specific issues. It was a minority in that community, but nevertheless the issue was present.

She said to me, “I thought of applying for this position, but I thought they would not want people like me.” It is her story to tell, rather than mine, but the stories she told me about how people reacted to her as a black African woman in that position—unusual in the public sector—are important. The Minister is not entirely responsible for public appointments, but Ministers get that chance, and it is important we have a much more diverse reflection of our community in public appointments, especially for issues where their lived experience is vital to getting things right.

I do not think there is a single official deliberately trying to exclude people, but practices can build up and assumptions can be made. Unless we constantly challenge that, we will end up with a homogenous group of people making decisions about other people. I am on a mission to make sure we support civil servants and Ministers in understanding the wide diversity of people who are affected by the decisions they make.

The Domestic Abuse Bill is a real opportunity, but we also need clear data about the impact of domestic abuse on women, and we need detailed breakdowns of ethnic background, nationality and so on, so that we can really understand where the problems are and where emerging problems arise. As I have said repeatedly, future funding must recognise the importance of specialist services. In simple terms, let us make sure—I hope the Minister will agree—that we do not see decisions about black women without black women.

Streatham Incident

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

I am not going to begin prejudging what the business managers might have in mind or, indeed, the allocation of time in the House, but as soon as possible.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), the Minister said that he would look at further legislation, but she hit the nail on the head. This man was released from prison, and immediately followed by armed police. The Minister seems to have ruled out control orders, so what will be in the emergency legislation that means that that risk cannot happen again? If this man was so dangerous why was he let out?

[Robert Buckland]

I do not know whether the hon. Lady, the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, heard what I said. The purpose of the emergency legislation is to end automatic early release at the halfway point. That will apply to serving prisoners, which is why I want to introduce emergency legislation, which will be introduced as soon as possible. That ends the automaticity element, which was the reason why this individual, who posed a risk, was released. There was nothing more that we could do, because the law, as passed by the previous Labour Government, was what we had to apply. That is what we are going to do, and I am more than happy to explain it further to the hon. Lady later.

Serco Justice System

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard]

We have absolutely no indication at all that the fine has had any impact on Serco’s ability to deliver its current contracts to the Government.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I think the Minister deserves a medal for coming here with such a positive outlook on what has been a major catastrophe. In the case of all these strategic suppliers, one of the really key issues is the Government’s oversight and management of contracts where things go wrong but the companies are too big to fail. What is his Department learning, and going to do differently, in making sure that the skills are there in the civil service to oversee these contracts and pick up the problems much sooner?

[Paul Maynard]

I am sure that there are few individuals in the House better qualified than the hon. Lady to assess the role of these contracts across Government as a whole, given her work on the Public Accounts Committee. Since 2010, one crucial change has been the introduction of Crown representatives in each of these business areas. That makes sure that Government have someone sitting inside the room making sure that decisions will be taken appropriately.

In my Department, we are reviewing all these contracts carefully, working with Serco and other private providers who work in the public sector to make sure that the quality of what they provide meets their contractual obligations.

Probation Reform

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

With regard to previous experience, there is always a balance to be struck between trying to deliver something in good time and waiting to see all the evidence emerge. On where we are now, we should move to a different model. We will lead with Wales, and by the end of this year, we should have moved to a unified model. England will follow in 2021. My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of work. He knows that that is a key issue for me in terms of rehabilitation. Both paid and unpaid work have important roles to play. I do want to encourage innovation; I want to make sure that, in such areas, we have innovation and a diversity of suppliers who can play a role in ensuring that we try new things, learn from experiences and get things improving.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

This failed experiment was set to cost the taxpayer £467 million because of the early termination of contracts at the end of next year. It would be helpful to know what the total bill will be. My biggest concern as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee is that the Secretary of State has just laid out that there will be major local procurement processes over the next two years. It seems like a long time now, but that time will go very fast. How will he make sure that that procurement is done thoughtfully and sensitively and really reaches those small voluntary groups that were so cut out of the previous system?

[Mr Gauke]

First, let me make the point about costs. I come back to the point that I made earlier, which is that our expenditure with community rehabilitation companies has been considerably lower than had been forecast—£1.4 billion lower. That takes into account the £467 million to which the hon. Lady referred, which was there to ensure that we had operational stability. As we move on to the new system, she is right to say that 2021 will soon be upon us. We do need to focus very heavily on ensuring that procurement works well, that we make use of the voluntary sector and that there is proper competition so that those who can contribute to this process can do so properly, and we are very much focused on that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

1. What estimate he has made of the proportion of offenders on probation being supported by community rehabilitation companies.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)]

The CRCs currently supervise just over 59% of all offenders and the National Probation Service supervises 41%.

[Meg Hillier]

The CRC contract has been a dog’s breakfast, so what is the Minister going to do to make sure that CRCs work better to support people, particularly those on shorter sentences?

[Rory Stewart]

First, I pay tribute to the Public Accounts Committee for its work in looking at exactly this subject. In order to work better, we are consulting on having a closer relationship between the National Probation Service and the CRCs. Secondly, we are making sure we put much more focus on the basics, by which we mean the risk assessment, the plan for probation and regular contact.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Dominic Raab)]

I think it is well known that the current test for denial of entry for people coming from the EU is that they must pose a serious, genuine and present threat, which has obviously created difficulties over the years.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Last week the Public Accounts Committee published a report on the criminal justice system. One of our conclusions was:

“The criminal justice system is not good enough at supporting victims and witnesses.”

We also cited the fact that only 55% of witnesses, many of whom are of course victims as well, say that they would go through the process again. Does the Secretary of State agree with our conclusion?

[Michael Gove]

Yes, I do. It has sometimes been the habit in the past for people to be greeted with a report from the National Audit Office or the Public Accounts Committee and attempt to suggest that it is an exercise in—well, there have been criticisms in the past. I certainly do not criticise the PAC or the NAO. The report is a welcome wake-up call. My right hon. Friend the victims Minister will bring forward a Green Paper with details on how we can better help victims and witnesses, but there is much that we need to do to improve the criminal justice system, and our judiciary get it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Few know more about what happens in our courts than he does as a result of his work as a barrister. Yes, it is important to put an emphasis on rehabilitation, but it is also important that we give all our citizens the security of knowing that those people who pose a real threat to us are incapacitated behind bars and receiving the punishment they deserve for the most heinous crimes.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Last week the Public Accounts Committee heard from the chief executive of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority. He was asked what three projects kept him awake and worried him most, and the courts programme was one of them. We can add that to the list: to the tagging and translation services fiascos, and the concern that has been expressed about the big probation and prison programmes. Does the Secretary of State fear that his Department cannot cope with all this change?

[Michael Gove]

I look forward to having a cup of cocoa with the gentleman concerned to help him sleep more easily at night, as I manage to do.