Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill

Debate between Nigel Evans and Siobhan Baillie

2nd reading
Monday 27th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Siobhan Baillie]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When we look into how these things work, we see that it is not a debt, but very much an enabler. However, we know that many people feel that it is a debt. I want to understand how the Department has looked at this issue and how we deal with those concerns going forward.

In the final minutes I have, I want to make two separate points: first on green skills, then on employability. I wrote an article some time ago that set out and argued that net zero cannot happen without know-how, but we have effectively got a green skills emergency. There is a challenge to reskill those who work in existing industries that will be affected by the transition. Fossil fuel production in the North sea, for example, created skilled and well-paid workers who are sorely needed to make the transition successful, but they need to have a skills bridge to make sure they are being retrained for future industries. I am interested to know how the lifelong learning entitlement can help that.

The second issue with the skills emergency is educating our young people. We have a huge skills gap for our future workforce, which urgently needs closing. I did some work with the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) to create a nature GCSE and engage people. My main message to young people when I go into schools is, “Do not lie down on motorways or glue yourselves to stuff. Do your STEM subjects and make sure you are learning well, because if you become scientists, you will be fixing the environmental challenges that we have today, and you will be the saviours of our future.”

I encourage people to look at the Onward report, “Green Jobs, Red Wall”. I work closely with the Onward think-tank, and it is excellent. I will run out of time if I go through that report, but alongside the Bill, it is important that the Department for Education works with other Departments to ensure that the landscape is set up so that we educate, encourage people to gain skills and encourage people to take on more courses. However, unless we get the factories up and motoring and unless we get the seed investment into some areas of tech, the jobs will not be there, so I ask the Department for Education please to work with other Departments.

On employability, I started the all-party parliamentary group on the future of employability in direct response to the calls of employers in Stroud, which are echoed around the country, about recruitment issues; the calls of potential employees who are feeling burnt out post pandemic; the high number of people with mental health issues; and the millions of people on welfare. I have also been fighting the good fight on childcare, because we have a huge group of economically inactive people—mainly mothers—who are not working at full tilt.

I had been looking at the issue and I spoke to a good friend, Ronel Lehmann, who started an employment company called Finito. It is his job to get people work ready, so we put our heads together and started the APPG, because I passionately believe in the power of work doing good. I can see that thousands of people are no longer work ready, that many millions are not working at full tilt, and that people do not feel that they have a place in the workforce because they do not feel that they can engage.

All the evidence tells us that work is the fastest route out of poverty. It gives us a reason to get out of bed and it is good for mental health and for relationships. It is also good for children to see their parents have a routine and a sense of purpose. We do not always have to like our jobs—there are days, even though it is a great privilege to be here, when we do not like our jobs—but we have to send a strong message to the country that, “Work is good for you. Work will help not only you and your family, but the country.”

Having a focus on lifelong learning, on employability and on ensuring that we are getting people work ready and into a job—and that once they are in a job, they can transition into a more responsible part of that job or to a new job—is the quickest way for people to feel sustained and fulfilled. I look forward to working with the Minister, and I believe passionately in what he and the Secretary of State, who is now in her place, are trying to do. I am genuinely ambitious for every single person I meet, and I think the Front-Bench team from the Department for Education feel exactly the same, so I wish the Bill Godspeed and I look forward to making sure that it happens.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We now come to the wind-ups. I call the shadow Minister.

Midwives in the NHS

Debate between Nigel Evans and Siobhan Baillie

Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Siobhan Baillie]

I thank my hon. Friend for all the campaigning that he has done—as has my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), who is not in the Chamber this evening—and he is absolutely right. Birthing partners not only provide that immediate bond and that precious time with the baby; they provide support for the mother and support for the team, and have the important ability to spot what is going on. A mother who is taking quite a lot of gas and air might need someone else to have a couple of conversations when she cannot do so herself.

We are making changes in schools so that we do not see restrictions and closures again, and I think that if we are ever faced with the need to introduce further covid restrictions, we cannot do that in maternity services. The restrictions have had a knock-on impact on midwives as well: seven out of 10 RCM members have experienced abuse about visiting restrictions. That abuse may well have come from very worried and well-meaning people, but there is no doubt that it has contributed to their wish to leave their jobs.

The campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed did a great deal of work on this, and 98% of respondents to its survey said that the possibility of further covid restrictions on maternity services was causing them anxiety. There is enough for pregnant women to be worried about without their having to worry about that. Mothers reported rushing their hospital care during the pandemic, and seeking early discharge so that they could get home to be with their partners. As was mentioned earlier by my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey, women-centred care is the ethos of midwifery. and continuity of carer is the national recommendation. It is the right approach, but at no stage have the current staffing levels and the impact of covid been taken into account to assess the viability of a new system. The vaccine mandate continues to cause concern, and the potential loss of more staff is adding to the pressure-cooker effect.

We in Stroud are hugely proud of the facilities that we have. In the past, Stroud constituents have come together and fought to save the maternity unit, and that fight was so strong that I do not think anyone would dare to try to close it down again. We have also recently instigated an important campaign to deal with mental health and birth trauma. Between 25% and 40% of women view their experience of giving birth as traumatic—I am probably in there somewhere—and one in four have experienced sexual abuse. Such issues often have a huge impact on fears for pregnancies and future births. The campaign and the dedicated mental health team that Gloucestershire is setting up will change perceptions and conversations surrounding birth from the off. Our minor injuries unit across the road from the maternity unit has received a welcome £2 million for refurbishment purposes. I was at the hospital recently for my scan, and it is really buzzing. Although I have raised some serious matters, I do not want expectant mums to be worried about the care that they will receive at Stroud or anywhere else, as professional maternity teams will look after all of them.

One midwife told me that midwives do not speak out because they are always trying to put the women in their charge at ease, but unfortunately it has reached the point at which they feel that they must do so, which is why they have sent me here today. That said, although a Minister will respond tonight, the issues raised are clearly not just for the Government to address. NHS trusts, their human resources teams, managers, and all of us as patients in society need to think about how we behave, how we use the NHS, and how we can improve it. Making the NHS a political football, claiming that more and more money is the only way to fix issues, or putting the NHS on a pedestal so that there can be no criticism or open scrutiny, will not help a single midwife in this great country. I believe that the men and women of our maternity services deserve better. They literally hold new life in their hands, along with all the hopes, dreams and responsibilities that come with that job.

I leave the final words to a midwife who told me:

“I love my job. I love supporting women and the team. But I too feel that maybe this is as far as I can go. I have never suffered with mental health concerns prior to this last year. Anxiety has crept into my normally happy life due to work issues.”

I think that that is quite a stark way in which to end the debate, and I genuinely think that we can do better. I look forward to hearing from the Minister, who I know cares deeply about this issue, and I am grateful for the time that I have been allowed tonight.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

The hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) and the Minister have agreed that Taiwo Owatemi may make a short contribution. I ask her please to allow the Minister some time to sum up.

Online Anonymity and Anonymous Abuse

Debate between Nigel Evans and Siobhan Baillie

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Siobhan Baillie]

I thank my hon. Friend; it was very kind of him to set up a meeting between me, Katie and her mum Amy. We talked about her experiences of the trolls. What they have been through is absolutely heartbreaking. Harvey has been subject to the most vile abuse, which I actually cannot bring myself to say. This has gone on his whole life. The strength with which he and his family have endured these issues is remarkable. Any mother would want to protect her children and we must arm parents with the tools to do just that.

In Stroud, a robust military veteran has had years of deliberate online attempts to ruin his business and reputation. It has nearly broken him mentally at times. The Facebook page that attacks him has a spare one in case the first gets taken down. Another constituent has endured years of stalking and harassment. She is a retired social worker. She has found the police ill equipped to deal with such fast-moving tech, and even when the perpetrators put a picture of her garage door up online—indicating they knew where she lived—she still felt unprotected. A Gloucestershire journalist was recently told by an anonymous loon that she is single because she

“is self absorbed and looks like a slut”.

I have done enough domestic violence work as a lawyer to know that such attitudes and language are a short hop, skip and jump to violence.

Of course, not all online nastiness is anonymous. One named man said of me on Facebook last week:

“She should be banished from our lovely Stroud…years ago she’d have been shot on the spot for her arrogance and hypocrisy…yet people voted for the ass licking vile piece of slime.”

Lovely—and I could go on and on. I do not have enough time to properly address other reports of dangerous antisemitism, fake news, vaccine misinformation, deliberate reputation ruining and online fraud. That is on top of the daily legal but harmful harassing-type behaviour, plus posts that have the veneer of a justified challenge but are really just deliberately spiking pile-ons and hate.

Constituents I have spoken to are clear that the reporting does not work, the cost of legal remedies are out of the reach of normal people and the law needs updating. We need to make social media known more for the good in our society, rather than as a toxic, unsafe hellhole. The Government’s online harms work, though overdue, is to be commended as a huge step in the right direction. That legislation will require media platforms to take more effective actions against abuse, whether it is anonymous or not. Its aims of protecting children and empowering adults to stay safe online are noble, yet the White Paper barely addresses the issue of anonymity. There were no specific consultation questions about the issue. That should be rectified without delay.

As it stands, tech companies do not know who millions of their users are. No matter how good their intentions, the lack of basic information means that any attempt to police platforms and bring offenders to justice is a painful process, if it happens at all. Ofcom’s hands will be tied behind its back before it even starts.

I do not propose the banning of anonymous accounts. There are great benefits in anonymity that I know other Members will speak passionately about today. I would like to see tech companies move on this issue, as we should not always need the Government to intervene, although sadly it currently looks like they will have to.

Three simple steps would go a long way to prevent, deter and reduce online abuse. First, we should give social media users the option to verify their identity. Secondly, we should make it easy for everybody to see whether or not a user has chosen to verify their identity. Members of this House already use that function—my Twitter account has a prominent blue tick next to it, thereby providing confidence that the account is genuine and my details have been checked. Verification works: we should make it available to all. Finally, we should give users the option to block communication, comments and other interaction from unverified users as a category, if they wish.

Some people argue that such moves would undermine freedom of speech, but I disagree. No one would be prevented from using another name or being “Princess What’s-her-chops”, but it would make it harder for online abusers to hide in the shadows if they cause mayhem. Importantly, it would make abusers easier to catch and give social media users the power of choice. Some will be happy to interact with unverified users; others will not. But there must be a choice.

In any event, what greater impediment to freedom of speech is there than people worrying that what they say online will end up in a death threat or a rape threat? What personal freedoms have been lost through the damage done to mental health by online bullying? How many people have already looked at online abuse and hesitated before applying for public-facing jobs, or not applied at all? My proposals would protect freedom of expression and respect the choice of anonymity, but make it harder for abusers to hide in darkness and give individuals new powers to control how they interact with others. I urge everybody to look up the organisation Clean up the Internet, which was co-founded by one of my constituents, to see the proposals in more detail.

Mr Deputy Speaker, no one should face the abuse and horror that you will hear about today. For the victims of online harm, the abuse is not virtual. It does not stay in cyber-space. It impacts the real lives of real people in the real world. If we fail properly to investigate the impact and options surrounding anonymity, I fear we will render any forthcoming legislation and change—no matter how good it is—out of touch and out of date before the ink is dry. We have the expertise, support and drive to tackle online harms; let us be a beacon of light and illuminate the dark streets of social media. Let us really lead the world on tackling anonymous abuse.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

It may be of use if I go through some of the timings for the rest of the debate and the afternoon. The wind-ups will start at 4.21, with six minutes for John Nicolson. We will then have Jo Stevens at 4.27 and the Minister, Matt Warman, at 4.35. At 4.43, Siobhan Baillie will have a couple of minutes to wind up the debate.

The time limit is three minutes and I must ask hon. Members to observe it very strictly, because otherwise colleagues will simply not be able to get into the debate. They will be doing colleagues a favour if they can even manage to deliver their speeches in less than three minutes.