Venezuela

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Sir Alan Duncan)]

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham P. Jones) for securing this debate. I thank him and his many colleagues for their continued interest in and support for Venezuela. I congratulate him on his re-appointment in October as chair of the all-party parliamentary group. However, I very much regret that I am unable to use such a welcoming tone for the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson). He has become a defender of the indefensible, a champion of someone who has impoverished his people, and a supporter of someone who has smashed the rule of law and usurped the constitution. I rather sense that he wants to make himself the most hated man in Venezuela. It is perhaps a race between whether he becomes so there, and whether he establishes that reputation in this House first.

Let me make no bones about it: Venezuela is a failing state in the midst of the deepest man-made economic and humanitarian crisis in modern Latin American history.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I will make some progress, but if I have time, I will give way later.

When I spoke about Venezuela at Chatham House in October, I described the demise of a once vibrant nation, charting, for the benefit of the hon. Member for Derby North, the many decisions that had been taken to prove that this was a Chavista-made crisis and not a US one. Since then we have seen no improvement; in fact, the situation has gone from bad to worse. The social implications are astonishing: four-fifths of Venezuelans are living in poverty. They are vulnerable to malnutrition and disease because of shortages of food and medicines. The poor are not just poorer—they are destitute. More than 3 million people have been driven to leave the country—10% of the population. In the UK, that would equate to almost the entire population of London. That massive exodus puts enormous pressure on neighbouring states, particularly Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. We applaud the remarkable generosity towards Venezuelan migrants of those countries, and that of Brazil and other countries in the region.

As well as punishing his own people, Maduro has damaged Venezuela’s reputation and relations in the region and the wider international community. Instead of diplomacy, he has chosen confrontation. He has deliberately sought confrontation through reckless border incursions by the Venezuelan security forces. He has cut off any means of diplomatic engagement, including by announcing Venezuela’s withdrawal from the Organisation of American States in 2017, and his conduct inexcusably threatens the peace process in neighbouring Colombia.

Under the Maduro regime Venezuela’s democratic institutions, including the judiciary, the national electoral authorities and local government, have been systematically undermined, while political repression and electoral malpractice have increased. The creation of an all-powerful Constituent Assembly in August 2017 was clearly a deliberate attempt to neutralise the democratically elected National Assembly. Over the past two years, election after election has been manipulated, culminating in a presidential election in May 2018 that few apart from the Government themselves considered free and fair. At Saturday’s United Nations Security Council meeting, which I attended, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Arreaza waved a copy of, and spoke passionately about, the constitution, yet it is Maduro who has trashed that constitution and Juan Guaidó who has upheld it.

The political Opposition have been suppressed and intimidated, their leaders have fled or been imprisoned, and we will never forget that the Opposition activist Fernando Albán was detained and then found dead beneath the windows of the national intelligence facility. Some leading Opposition leaders have been imprisoned, forced into exile or banned from holding public office. Maduro has cynically used his control of supposedly independent institutions such as the Supreme Court and the National Electoral Council to cement his position. There was global criticism of the May 2018 presidential elections, with allegations of electoral malpractice and the banning of Opposition parties.

Those actions, along with the recent brutal suppression of demonstrations in Venezuela, are symptoms of an increasingly intolerant Government turning to repression simply to cling on to power. Ironically, Maduro’s re-inauguration on 10 January might just have been a catalyst for change, but a clumsy attempt to intimidate the new president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, by temporarily detaining him backfired spectacularly.

We know what has happened recently. During an Opposition protest on 23 January, Guaidó declared the May 2018 presidential elections fraudulent—and they were. Citing article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution, he declared himself interim President of Venezuela, and he was swiftly recognised by the United States and 12 Lima Group countries. As of this moment, 22 countries have recognised him as the interim President.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I am not going to make a commitment about what precise reaction we will make in terms of procedures in the House. As my hon. Friend appreciates, that is a matter for the usual channels.

[Melanie Onn]

The Minister mentioned that he accepts that Venezuela is in a state of crisis. If that is the case and that is the Government’s position, why are they wasting taxpayers’ money on trying repeatedly to appeal the asylum claim of my 73-year-old constituent Nelly Gelves, which was approved by a tribunal? Is it their intention to send her back to Venezuela while it is in that state of crisis?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

As the hon. Lady will well appreciate, asylum is a semi-judicial process that is handled by the Home Office. I regret that I am unfamiliar with that case and she did not notify me of it in advance of the debate, so I did not ask the appropriate questions in advance.

In addition to what I have described, the UK stands with Spain, France, Germany and the Netherlands in demanding the announcement of urgent free and fair elections within six days, and in calling for a legitimate Government to be established. We stand with the Organisation of American States and the Lima Group, whose members last September referred the Venezuelan Government to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States in saying that the National Assembly and its president, Juan Guaidó, are best placed to lead Venezuela to the restoration of its democracy, its economy and its freedom.

Budget Resolutions

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Monday 13th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

This year’s Budget coincided with International Women’s Day, whose theme was “Women in the Changing World of Work: Planet 50-50 by 2030”. It is nearly 100 years since women were first granted the right to vote in the UK, but there is still much to do to achieve gender equality, both here and around the world.

The last Labour Government achieved so much for women. We introduced the minimum wage, created tax credits, increased maternity and paternity leave and pay, introduced pension credits, expanded childcare, and introduced the Equality Act 2010. That all made a massive difference to women in this country.

Gender equality means delivering long-term, tangible change for women, including securing women’s economic freedom, providing secure work and promoting women’s access to innovative technologies. The Budget could have taken greater steps to achieve some of those aims. Instead, the Tory Government, in their seventh year, have failed to redress the disproportionate impacts experienced by women as a result of tax and benefit changes and public spending cuts since 2010. From tax credit cuts to the crisis in social care, it is women who have consistently been hit hardest by the Tories’ policies.

Yet again, this Government have made no assessment of how their policies impact on women in the UK. As of the 2017 spring Budget, £80 billion—more than three quarters of all savings—have come from women, with a disproportionate impact on women from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. Even the lauded £5 million for returning-to-work mums works out at a pretty useless £10 a mum. What exactly will that buy?

That is why I support the recent announcement by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), the shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, that she will seek to introduce an economic equality Bill, which will eliminate obstacles that prevent women from reaching their economic potential. Part of that will be the need to provide more secure work. The number of those working without guaranteed hours or baseline employment rights has shot up by more than 660,000 over the past five years. How is a working parent —a working mother—supposed to plan childcare when they do not know the hours they will be working? Never mind the fact that, under this Government, only a third of local authorities actually believe there will be enough childcare available in their area for eligible families.

The reality is that women still make up the majority of part-time, non-permanent full-time and zero-hours contracts. Of the 900,000 workers—nearly 1 million—on zero-hours contracts, 55% are women. That should come as no surprise because, in almost any labour market in the world, social care work is performed by an insecure and largely female workforce. In the UK care sector, companies delivering social care for cash-strapped councils are, in a bid to remain viable, offering more zero-hours contracts than ever, which means even less protection for these workers.

Equality must take more of a priority than this Government are currently affording it. One way to do that would be for the Government to provide a clear commitment to play a much more active role by promoting women’s access to innovative technologies to help them to be successful entrepreneurs and leaders in innovation; encouraging women to enter and thrive in the tech industry; creating the conditions necessary for change at all levels; and encouraging women to enter typically male-dominated sectors, such as the energy and renewables sector. That is happening in my constituency, where the likes of DONG Energy and E.ON are providing excellent apprenticeships for young women. The Government used to talk about that, but they have now gone suspiciously quiet.

We should do much more than the Government’s Innovate UK initiative, which is seeking to invest £200,000 to help more women to be successful entrepreneurs and leaders in innovation, as this one-off initiative essentially offers just 12 women a tailored package of support, of whom just four will actually receive a financial package worth up to £50,000. That is not a ringing endorsement of women by this Government.

Britain in the World

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

I am very pleased to follow the greatly experienced hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), whom I had the pleasure of meeting on my first day in this Parliament. I stand before the House today as only the fourth Member of Parliament for Great Grimsby since the end of the second world war. Members will find that I look and sound distinctly different from my predecessor. They should not be alarmed; it is that I am the first woman representative of that truly great town, and the first in modern times to be born in the shadow of our famous Dock Tower.

In keeping with tradition, I have turned to the maiden speech of my predecessor, Austin Mitchell. It was made two years and one month before I was born. I say that not to point out the difference in age between Austin and me, but rather to highlight his extraordinary length of service and the commitment he gave over 38 years not only to the constituency, but to this House. His maiden speech mentioned the often “perfunctory” references to preceding representatives of a constituency. Having had our differences of opinion over recent months, it may well surprise him and others to learn that I will not be limited in my praise of him.

Austin’s passion for Grimsby, its people, heritage and future remained strong throughout his tenure. He lobbied for what he believed best served the town and its people, whether that was a lengthy struggle for fishermen’s compensation packages or, more recently, supporting local people facing the demolition of their high-rise homes without a proper plan to re-house them. He was firmly on Grimsby’s side. That passion often led him into conflict with his own party, but I suspect that history will be kind to Austin, his independent thought and steadfastness in the face of opposition.

The short film that Austin and his wife Linda have recently premiered, “Great Grimsby”, was produced to counter the often negative perception that others have of the town—the social difficulties that exist have been broadcast to the nation in Channel 4’s “Skint”. Their film gives everyone a chance to see the delights that our corner of the country has to offer, as it is freely available on YouTube. I urge hon. Members on both sides of the House to take the time to view it.

Austin’s scepticism over Europe is well documented, and the local resentment towards a perceived poor deal from Europe for our former main industry of fishing led to a significant challenge from the UK Independence party during the election. UKIP laid all the ills of society at the door of Europe: “You can’t get an appointment to see your doctor; your child hasn’t got into your first choice of school; you can’t find work; you can’t get a flat.” All those issues—domestic issues of the NHS, education, jobs and housing—are for the current Government to tackle. They were wrongly set at the feet of Europe and European migration. Indeed, just as Nigel Farage blamed congestion on the M4 on immigrants, my UKIP opponent challenged us all to ask, “What happens when the renewables run out?”—a European conspiracy to steal our wind, perhaps?

The issue of wind, or more specifically wind energy and renewable energy, is where the future lies for our town. While UKIP sought to look back and return to the days of a port filled with deep-sea trawlers, with the town’s young men taking their lives in their hands with each three-week voyage to sea, local businesses, the council and individuals have turned to look outwards and to the future. Our future clearly lies in the prospects of a strong renewable energy sector, in partnership with our European neighbours. There is now an opportunity to draw more businesses to an additional port and to the port complex along the south bank, and that brings with it the hope of 4,000 new jobs.

I stress in the strongest terms how important those jobs are for rejuvenating our area, offering something new and exciting for our young people to be proud of. Some 25% of our young people are not in employment, education or training, and that cannot be allowed to continue; our young people deserve better. I have heard it said in the House over the past few days that employment is the best route out of poverty, but I suggest that it is a safe and secure environment for independent young people to live in, coupled with supported access to continued education, that would best prevent poverty being the guaranteed outcome for so many.

If, as so many in the town hope, we are to take Great Grimsby forward and truly become a 21st century port town, political support for the renewables industry is essential. Our other traditional industries of food manufacturing and petrochemicals have shrunk in recent years and there is an increased reliance on short-term jobs, which provide no security for people or their families. Redundancies and relocations have hit the town hard. I meet more and more people who are working two or three jobs simply to make ends meet, and they are the jobs not of mayor and MP, but of cleaner, carer and factory worker.

The people of Great Grimsby want to work. Nearly a thousand have applied for 30 new hotel jobs in recent weeks. My campaign slogan was “Pride, Passion and Belief in Grimsby”. Although I doubt that I will be changing my surname to Haddock, I will use my time in this House over the next five years to champion my home town.