Policing and Prevention of Violence against Women

Debate between Priti Patel and Ian Paisley

Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for the sentiment that he has shared with the House this afternoon. I agree entirely with his comments. Alongside that, of course, he asks what I am doing. I have commissioned the inspectorate of constabulary. It is important that we have the full facts in addition, to supplement the lessons learned review. I come back to the point that I really, strongly recommend that colleagues do not prejudge. The images were upsetting—of course they were upsetting—but alongside that, it is right that we see the full report in due course and that we hear the facts as they come out.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I add my condolences to the family and friends of Ms Everard, and all those who have been affected by this most hellish and tragic of murders.

Turning to the events that we saw on Clapham common on Saturday evening, I think Members are entitled to ask the question, what on earth was the Metropolitan police thinking? What on earth happened to police discretion? What on earth happened to proportionality, to flexibility, to empathy, to any sense of self-awareness, given the circumstances that surrounded that hellish murder? Every ingredient of good policing, in my view and in the view of many of my constituents, appeared to be completely absent from the policing activity on Clapham common.

The defining image that will stick in the collective mind of Britain will be of Patsy Stevenson being almost sat upon by three police officers while being detained. I must say that if I saw one of my adult daughters treated in that way, I would find it impossible to contain my anger. May I ask the Home Secretary, therefore: how quickly will this report be made available? How expeditiously can she act to rectify what is an appalling wrong?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Gentleman’s comments are very strong, but in response to his question, he knows, and the House knows, that I have commissioned a report from the inspectorate of constabulary. I have asked for the report to be concluded in the next fortnight. We will obviously then update the House in terms of findings and recommendations.

I think it is worth reflecting that in terms of what happened on Saturday, for approximately eight hours there was peace around the bandstand. People were respectfully paying their respects, laying flowers, grieving and showing support and empathy in a way in which every individual would want to in offering their sympathies and condolences. That is why we need to look at the review to see effectively what happened operationally, and then if lessons need to be learned, they will be post the report.

Major Incident in Essex

Debate between Priti Patel and Ian Paisley

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for her considered and thoughtful remarks. She is right that all MPs feel a strong sense of solidarity with Essex police as they undertake the investigation. I think our police provide a remarkable service and do remarkable work. The chief constable of Essex, BJ Harrington, and his team will deal with this case in the right way in challenging circumstances. My hon. Friend is also right about our continued work with agencies across the European Union. That work is always ongoing—it is part of our way of working and our international collaboration—and that will not change. We work collaboratively to keep our country safe, and we can do more collaborative work to make sure that those who perpetrate such awful crimes are brought to justice.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

To give some scale, there are approximately 39 or 40 Members sitting on the Opposition Benches right now. That gives us a way to measure visually the sheer loss and devastation caused. Without prejudicing the investigations the Home Secretary has announced today, may I ask her to look further into paramilitary and organised crime groups in Northern Ireland, which use unauthorised and illegitimate transport and trade links to carry out their own horrible and despicable crimes, and to see whether additional measures need to be placed both on our existing border in Northern Ireland and, in co-operation with the Garda Síochána, on ports in the Republic?

[Priti Patel]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions and comments. There are a number of points to make in response. First and foremost, a police investigation is taking place specifically into the events in Essex today. He is right about criminality, and we work collaboratively across all our agencies, including the National Crime Agency, and with other police forces, including the Police Service of Northern Ireland as a key partner. We will continue to investigate all avenues to make sure we stop this criminality happening—stop it flourishing—and bring its perpetrators to justice.

Public Services

Debate between Priti Patel and Ian Paisley

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady raises a very important point, and we are in the process of working with the Department for Work and Pensions. I come back to the point about a statutory duty, but also stress that all organisations across Government must work together. That is the right thing to do because protecting victims from abuse, whether it is mental, physical or emotional, and getting justice are important, as is ensuring their wellbeing and their ability to move on with their lives.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Does the Home Secretary welcome the publication of the Bills that will apply to Northern Ireland, specifically the measure on historical institutional abuse in Northern Ireland? It is welcome that at last we will get this awfulness addressed and that the victims will hopefully get some sort of recognition for the problems they have had to face.

[Priti Patel]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s point about getting the right kind of justice and welcome the steps that have been taken.

I have outlined the Government’s response to some of the most shocking crimes. I reassure the House and the British public that we are determined to have sentences that properly reflect the severity of the crime. We want the public to have confidence in the criminal justice system. Too often we are told that the current system is failing victims and the wider public. That is why we have ordered an urgent review of sentencing for the most serious violent and sexual offenders. We will take immediate action to deal with the most serious cases so that offenders sentenced to fixed terms of seven years or more have the time that they serve in prison extended from half to two thirds of their sentences.

Time served must reflect the severity of the crime. Measures to protect and serve victims are also vital because becoming a victim of crime or abuse is often a life-changing experience.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018

Debate between Priti Patel and Ian Paisley

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

With two months to go until 29 March, it is hardly surprising that we are once again debating our withdrawal from the European Union. It is pretty obvious that we should be much further ahead in the process. Of course, the warning signs have been there for months, as all Members have said: from the minute the backstop went down to the Chequers agreement and the withdrawal agreement, which were of course not right for our country. I voted against the withdrawal agreement.

At this crucial time, we need leadership, which is why I welcome the Prime Minister’s very clear statement today. She should be commended for the way she handled strong questioning and rightly addressed many of the challenges relating to the withdrawal agreement. She should be particularly commended for reopening the negotiations on the withdrawal agreement. I would like to hear more from the Government about whether they have engaged in discussions and are preparing to hear from the European Commission whether it is prepared, willing and able to reopen the negotiations and get that legally binding change to the withdrawal agreement.

It is right that we now concentrate all efforts on delivering the referendum mandate. We cannot have more statements or glorified letters of assurances; we must get that clear, legally binding change to the text of the withdrawal agreement. When the negotiations are reopened, we need to ensure that the right people are engaged and involved in the process.

[Ian Paisley]

Does the right hon. Lady agree that yes, obviously, a legal textual change is now being sought, but that should not come as any surprise because the words of amendment (n) are already in paragraph 27 of the political agreement, of which Europe has been aware since November last year?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, which is why there is now an opportunity for us to land a clear commitment on the future relationship and on every aspect of the trading relationship and to remove some of the ambiguity in the political declaration.

It is important to recognise—as I think all Members do—that Parliament must deliver on the referendum mandate, and we have the opportunity to do so. The Prime Minister was right to refer to Conservative colleagues who were on either side of the referendum argument but have put forward new proposals that seek to provide certainty and clarity. They seek to unite the country in getting that compromise, including by extending the key issues around implementation, replacing the backstop and supporting the future UK-EU free trade arrangement, as well as by seeking co-operation in security matters and guaranteeing citizens’ rights going forward.

I was reassured by the Prime Minister’s remarks today, which is why her hand should be strengthened when she goes back to Brussels. I have called for the Government to go back to Brussels again and again since I voted against the withdrawal agreement. We must leave on 29 March so that we can position ourselves as an outward-looking, global, free-trading country, and as a nation that is on that mission of economic and democratic renewal. I will support amendment (n). We have to find the right degree of unity and compromise to strengthen the Government and the Prime Minister to go, as she herself stated today, back to Brussels to deliver for Britain.

Skills Devolution (England)

Debate between Priti Patel and Ian Paisley

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

In Northern Ireland we have recognised it is important to address the issue of skills shortages and to go into secondary schools. Some people have suggested we should even go into primary schools, although I am not sure that is entirely appropriate. We have also addressed the skills shortage in engineering. We should encourage ladies and girls to look to engineering as a possible job for the future, because they can do it as well as we men.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions should be short and not made into speeches.

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is absolutely right. Young girls should be encouraged and should have the opportunity to look at the careers that they might not even consider to be suitable for them. In STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and maths—engineering is a classic example.

If I may, I will share with the House a little bit about Essex and how we are approaching the skills issue locally. Essex is famously the county of entrepreneurs. Firms based in my constituency have a proud and strong record of creating jobs and local employment. Businesses in my constituency are almost entirely small and medium-sized businesses and they have now created 25% more jobs leading to more than 30,000 people in employment. They are doing well, but they could do even better. They want to see the barriers to recruitment, employability and access to the labour market brought down. They want people with the right kinds of skills. They want change because we have seen that a deficit in skills standards is one of the biggest barriers to growth locally, and to productivity in our wider economy.

On Friday I attended a skills forum organised by the excellent Essex Chambers of Commerce and Industry, which was also attended by my equally brilliant colleague, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon). In that business-led forum the spotlight was on skills and on the barriers that prevent businesses recruiting people. It particularly looked at the barriers around the skills and training programmes in Essex and the demands and challenges for the future workforce who are being trained. We need highly trained people, but the lack of flexibility within the training and provider landscape was clearly on display in the discussions that we had.

What stood out in the skills forum, and in my previous meetings and engagement with local businesses, was that they want to be at the heart of the decisions that are made on skills policies, and they want to be involved in designing and shaping courses. They want to play their part in offering job training opportunities. However, there are many barriers and restrictions on their doing that. They are best placed to understand the needs of their businesses and the local economy in a way that no Government with a centralised approached and no local authority can fully understand until those businesses are a full part of the discussion. The devolution of skills to local authorities can be successful only if businesses play a leading role in developing that skills agenda, including working with the education establishments and the courses in those areas.

Over the years, I have received endless complaints from businesses about the time it takes for new courses to be approved. They also complain, as I have mentioned, about barriers put up by the public sector to engagement with businesses. It can take years, with hundreds of hours of input from business and trade organisations, for new courses to be signed off. That equally applies to relevant courses. On Friday, I met representatives from a business who said that finding a course that was specific to their business was near-impossible. They just wanted a course, for a young person who wanted to be on an apprenticeship scheme, that covered the basic employability skills.

There is so much more that can be done, and I welcome the many creative suggestions in the all-party parliamentary group report. We need to ensure that there is flexibility, and that businesses are at the heart of the devolution agenda. I strongly support the idea of devolution in skills coming to the county of Essex. I think that we would benefit from that, in some of the ways that have been suggested today. Devolving skills, and focusing on skills in the workforce, is important not just to businesses, but to individual workers. The skills deficit has a drag not only on our economy, but on the life chances of people who want to work. We have so much untapped potential across our workforce, and there is a great opportunity for the Government to lift the lid on the talents of those people who are struggling to access the labour market.

One way that we can do that, as the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green mentioned, is through the apprenticeship levy. We need to look at how we can unlock the potential of the levy and use the funds it raises to support the upskilling of a whole generation who are simply not accessing the levy. I also suggest using the funds to upskill agency and temporary workers. More than 1 million people go to work every day to do agency and temporary work. That model offers a great deal of flexibility, but those workers make an enormous contribution to our economy; their net contribution stands at something like £35 billion. There is growing concern that the funds that agencies put into the apprenticeship levy cannot be used to train and upskill workers on their books. Somewhere in the region of 2,000 to 2,500 businesses are paying the levy, and the rules on the spending of funds raised by the apprenticeship levy are so rigid that it is almost impossible to use that money to invest in agency or temporary workers.

We have a very good record in Government when it comes to revitalising apprenticeship schemes, and we should be proud of that. The levy has a critical role to play in providing a great pathway. We know that the current pathways are not suitable for everyone, and we need more flexibility when it comes to the levy and apprenticeship schemes. Many workers need to go on shorter, practical courses to take the next step to move on in their career. Examples include courses in food hygiene and fork-lift truck driving, which are not covered by the apprenticeship levy. The flexibility of the levy could be increased to support some of those courses, so that we can support more people to get back into work and get better pay progression, and give them long-term employment opportunities.

If we are to deliver a fair society that invests in people and provides opportunity for those who want a hand up so that they can reach their full potential, why on earth would we not do this? We have a fantastic opportunity to provide greater training support; existing employment programmes are far too rigid and inflexible to do so. A very good way in which we could do that, I suggest, is that the Minister, working across the Department for Work and Pensions footprint, could give people who are on universal credit, and who are limited in their hours of work, the freedom and flexibility to access the levy, to get on some of these courses, and to get skilled up so that they can progress.

We are on the cusp now. The levy is new, but it represents a fantastic opportunity. Devolution of skills is surely a success for our region, and it deserves to receive more encouragement.