Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Michael Tomlinson and Luke Pollard(2 years, 1 month ago)
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The Solicitor General (Michael Tomlinson)
His Majesty’s Government are committed to improving rape prosecutions and are investing across the justice system. Through Operation Soteria, prosecutors across the south-west have helped to lead the way with a focus on joint working with the police and on early advice, and an enhanced service to victims.
Luke Pollard
Last week, Devon and Cornwall police were placed into special measures because of their failure to record crime and manage sexual offenders. Fewer than 20 people were convicted of rape in Devon and Cornwall out of 1,500 recorded offences last year. People are losing faith in the CPS and the police. Does the Minister agree that now is the time to extend the sexual offences backlog pilot from London and the north to include the south-west, with a clear focus on reducing the 1,000-day wait for rape victims to get justice in court?
The Solicitor General
Not least because I am a south-west MP, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the issue. Work is already under way: I mentioned Operation Soteria in the south-west. Specifically in his Plymouth constituency, I know that work is going on with the violence against women and girls commission; I have seen that work and I commend the commissioners for it. There is also a conference happening in the next few weeks and I ask him to keep me updated.
More broadly, on the hon. Gentleman’s substantive question, referrals from the police to the CPS are up for offences of rape, charges are up and prosecutions are up. I am determined that that positive work and positive trend must continue.
Voter Registration Bill
Debate between Michael Tomlinson and Luke Pollard
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
I disagree fundamentally with the Bill, for two main reasons. First, it does not focus on enforcing existing laws. We must be cautious about creating more laws for the sake of it. The statute book already provides for people to be prosecuted for voting more than once in a general election, so the effort should be put into ensuring that there are sufficient resources to allow electoral registration offices in our local authorities, which are well known to be suffering as a result of Government cuts, and police forces, which are also suffering from cuts, to enforce the law as it stands.
Secondly, we must consider what the Bill would mean for particular voter groups, and I am thinking especially of students and members of the armed forces. Those who serve in our armed forces are frequently posted away from their homes and families, so their ability to register in both locations is vital to ensure that they do not miss out on their democratic right to choose who represents them in this place and on local councils.
Michael Tomlinson
The hon. Gentleman makes a sensible argument, but did he not hear the response to that point from my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), which was that students and those serving away from home in the armed forces can choose to register elsewhere and simply vote by post?
Luke Pollard
Given the frequency of snap elections—past and potentially future—I do not think that we should necessarily be arguing for people to plan their residency arrangements around the whims of the Government, whether they collapse or not. Also, people are not able to apply for a postal vote right up until the last moment, and they do not always know whether they will have to be away from their home address for an election. There are many circumstances, whether relating to education or to work, that will mean they need to move between different locations where they are registered, which makes that a more difficult argument. I think that we should be focusing on getting more people registered to vote, rather than making it harder for those people who are already registered to use their vote.
The point I was making about the armed forces is important, because we should go further to ensure that those who serve our country in uniform can use their vote to elect people to this place, and to local government and other offices. We must recognise that deployment patterns mean that they need to move to different locations, away from their homes and families. Indeed, voter registration already recognises that and allows it to be done.
A similar argument can be made for students, especially those studying away from home. The ability to register and to use their vote, whether they are at university in Plymouth or Exeter—wherever they might live—is an important part of ensuring that our young people and others in education do not lose their right to vote.
I think that there is an argument about making it easier for people to register to vote and then to use their vote. Instead of removing the flexibility that comes from having complex lives, often involving unpredictable travel patterns, we should be using this opportunity to talk about how we get more people on the electoral register, how we encourage our 16 and 17-year-olds to register at an early age—even though they are currently denied the right to vote—and how we can move to automatic voter registration, so that when someone registers for council tax, for instance, they are automatically passed on to register online.
This morning I registered to vote in my place in London, because I moved house a couple of months ago. When I filled in the online registration—I did it on my mobile from the Front Bench—I was asked, “Have you moved house recently?” There is progression in making registration easier. In fact, some of the points that the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) made in his speech dealt with how people currently register to vote online. Online electoral registration has been an improvement in the system. It has not yet reached what I think should be its final destination, which is more automatic registration so that everyone is registered, regardless of whether they can fill in the details, whether their national insurance number matches Department for Work and Pensions records, or whether they follow things up with a letter along the way, which are the complications that have come from the registration system.
I think that potentially denying people the right to vote based on this type of legislation would be bad for our armed forces and bad for our young people studying in higher education, and for that reason I cannot support the Bill.
Employment Rates
Debate between Michael Tomlinson and Luke Pollard(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) on securing this important debate. Sometimes we do not get into the nitty-gritty of the stories behind the statistics, so I would like to focus on that today. In particular, I will focus my remarks, as would be expected of a Plymouth MP, on the experience of Plymouth, which, as we know, is the centre of the world. However, I also want to delve into the statistics and to look at unemployment not in isolation but as part of a basket of measures, because there needs to be greater focus not just on one raw indicator, standing in isolation, but on the broader picture if we are to safeguard the job creation, stability and quality of employment that we all want to see throughout the country.
Unemployment statistics are only one part of the picture, and I am always a bit cautious about Government statistics, whether they were produced under the coalition or the current Government or, indeed, when Labour was in power, because they are designed to tell one part of the story only. Although the overall jobless figures may be falling, which is to be welcomed, in-work poverty, insecure employment and the use of zero-hours contracts are rising. Food bank use is up. The housing crisis continues, and the welfare system continues to be cruel, all too often creating poverty and worry, where it should be achieving the opposite.
Michael Tomlinson
The hon. Gentleman will forgive me for interrupting him so early in his remarks, but I want to take him back to what he said about Government statistics. I agree that we should be cautious and have a healthy scepticism about statistics, but, of course, the statistics under discussion are ONS statistics, not Government statistics, so perhaps we can lend them greater weight than a sceptical public otherwise might.
Luke Pollard
Indeed. The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. How statistics are presented by Government can sometimes devalue some of the credibility that the original source may provide, and I am sure that we can all bring to mind examples of that. On the subject of statistics, I am a great believer in the way inflation is calculated. If hon. Members will indulge me for a few seconds, I will explain. Inflation is calculated by taking a basket of measures, of everyday goods, and calculating the inflation rate based on the real-world experience of many measures, many goods, not just one of them. In that sense, a basket of measures can create a fuller, more thorough illustration of what is actually happening.
The reality gap between individual employment statistics and the lived experiences, especially of young people, would be addressed much more thoroughly by having a basket of measures than by focusing just on the jobless figures or any other singular reality. I suggest that when we look at how we talk about unemployment statistics, employment statistics and debt, we look at a basket of measures, which needs to include employment, wages and wage growth, in-work poverty, child poverty, homelessness and temporary housing, disposable income, the number and penetration of zero-hours contracts and especially their demographic targeting, benefit take-up, sanction levels, household debt and overall personal indebtedness. Perhaps those things could be wrapped up together as a new basket of measures whereby we can look at the lived experience of people in employment, because all too often the fact that someone is in a job and that there is a tick beside that box is what is presented by Governments of all colours. We know that the lived experience of people in work, especially in today’s economy, where simply having a contract does not guarantee that someone will get any wages at the end of the week or month, devalues some of the credibility that the jobless figures or employment figures may have carried in the past, when employment was more secure and long term.