Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Priti Patel and Tracey Crouch

Monday 8th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, the rule of law applies to everybody. I particularly commend the work he has led, with his local council colleagues, on working with the chief constable to urge the police and crime commissioner to tackle this scourge. Any crime of this nature blights communities, and communities are disproportionately affected by this.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

While many people completely understood the impact of the strict global lockdown on their personal travel plans, things are beginning to change at destinations across the world. Many of our constituents are due to travel in the next few weeks but now face potential financial loss because of the lack of clarity over whether the quarantine policies are a refundable reason for cancellation under their insurance policies. What discussions has the Home Secretary had with the insurance industry about cancellations due to the impracticality of quarantine for those about to go abroad, and will she commit to giving her speedy support to travel corridors, so that our hard-working constituents can go on the holidays they have saved for?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend will be well aware of my comments last week about travel corridors, and specifically international travel corridors. I have been working across Government, with Transport but also the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The travel advice right now still clearly advises against non-essential travel. However, this is important, and my hon. Friend makes a valid point about insurance companies, refunds and some of the financial responsibilities and liabilities. We are working across Government, as I said to the House not only today but last week, to make sure that all those considerations are actively pursued and discussed. She will hear from other Government colleagues who lead on those policy areas.

Lotteries: Limits on Prize Values

Debate between Priti Patel and Tracey Crouch

Tuesday 12th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Tracey Crouch)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham) for calling what has been a stimulating and wide-ranging debate on an important issue, and I thank all Members who have taken part. Many of the issues that have been raised are complex, and are exactly the ones my Department has been grappling with for a while now, so it has been timely and invaluable to hear everyone’s considered views.

I will start with some specific comments. The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) asked whether I recognised the value of society lotteries. Of course I do. I certainly do. Like those of many colleagues, my constituency has benefited from society lottery funding, including for Kent search and rescue and the Luton Millennium Green community nature park. So naturally, like many people, I understand the value of both society lotteries and national lotteries.

I want to deal up front with the issue of the advice from the Gambling Commission, which has been raised by many colleagues. I have received the commission’s advice and have been considering it carefully. The commission will publish the advice in due course, and I hope to update Members soon. One particular piece of the advice, on transparency, was published just this afternoon. Many Members will know that the Gambling Commission recently consulted on introducing new licence codes to improve the transparency of society lotteries, and its proposals include requiring lotteries to publish the various proportions of their proceeds. I want first to deal with those issues—I will come back to the timetable later in my speech.

It is clear that the society lottery sector plays an important and growing role in supporting a diverse and wide range of good causes in the UK. We have seen sustained growth in the sector since 2008, when the per draw sales limit was doubled from £2 million to £4 million. Indeed, sales have increased by more than 100% in the last five years. Last year, a record £255 million was raised for good causes, which was an increase of more than 20% on the previous year. Not only are society lotteries raising more funds for good causes, they are giving a greater proportion of their sales back to good causes, with a sector average of just less than 44%.

Each year, more charities and good causes start their own lotteries to raise funds to support their important work. I recognise that, for charities, money raised through society lotteries has become an important source of funding, which allows their work to continue and grow. Colleagues will appreciate that I am the Minister with responsibility not only for gambling but for civil society so, whatever we do on the issue, I recognise the contribution the lotteries make to charities that I support in another part of my brief.

In 2015, I was a member of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the report of which many colleagues have cited today. We looked at society lotteries in some detail. The guiding principle then, as now, was that the regulatory regime which governs society lotteries should encourage the maximum return to good causes. The licensing regime should be light, protecting players without placing unnecessary burdens on operators. In some bizarre twist, I, in my role as the Minister responsible for lotteries, and the former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the right hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), who had previously been the Chairman of the Committee, agreed either to accept the report’s recommendations, or to explore them with expert advice from the Gambling Commission. The issues are important and complex, and it has been prudent to take our time over them and to consider a number of options.

My hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk and other colleagues mentioned limits, which was a recommendation for review in the Select Committee report. However, before making any changes to the current rules, it is important that all options are looked at and consideration is given to the wider picture. We do not want any unintended consequences.

The key consideration in the reforms has been how to strike the right balance between society lotteries and the national lottery. The sectors grew in tandem for many years, and it is important that any reforms enable them both to flourish. I want to pause here to acknowledge the importance of the national lottery. This year marks its 23rd anniversary and, since 1994, more than £37 billion of national lottery funding has been raised—an average of more than £30 million each week—for more than half a million projects all over the UK. The national lottery has had an unparalleled impact on 21st century Britain, making a valuable contribution to funding our many Olympians and Paralympians, our historical buildings and monuments, and even our Oscar winners, one of whom I was fortunate enough to meet a fortnight ago, alongside some of our future stars who are benefiting from film clubs run with lottery funding. It is, of course, our communities who benefit most of all from the lottery. The majority of national lottery money goes straight to the heart of our communities. Last year, most of the grants made were for £10,000 or less—small amounts going to community-led projects that make a huge impact.

I was sorry to hear that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) is unaware of some of the national lottery funding in her constituency. We are working with all distributors to ensure that people are made more aware of the local as well as the national good causes that the lottery supports. Just as a headline, in my right hon. Friend’s constituency the national lottery has funded the Museum of Power—somewhere we should all visit—Tollesbury sailing club and the local rifle club. I know that Braintree District Council covers more than her constituency, but it has had more than £18 million of Sport England funding. I do not know the details of all the other national lottery distributors, but I will ensure that we write to her with them.

[Priti Patel]

I know very well the distribution of national lottery funds and support in my constituency and I thank the Minister’s officials for giving her the chance to tell the House today where the money has gone. But there is a point of principle here, which is that of competition and choice in communities—also the purpose of the debate—ensuring that society lotteries are able to compete with the national lottery and that a wider pool of funds goes to a much wider range of local charities and communities.

[Tracey Crouch]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s point, which—she is right—the whole debate has addressed. It is important, however, and other colleagues have made this point, that we have a strong national lottery. It has become a part of our national fabric, but that does not mean that we cannot also have strong society lotteries. The Secretary of State made that point recently.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Priti Patel and Tracey Crouch

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

I welcome my hon. Friend the Minister to his new position and I look forward to working with him in the future on some key issues.

Government amendment 4 would replace the amendments to the Bill that I tabled and that were passed in Committee. I am grateful for Opposition support for the amendments and for the support of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) and the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara). It is important to set out in context the reasons why I pressed those amendments to a vote in Committee and the background to the issue.

When we came to discuss the issue of antisocial behaviour and the new injunctions, it was clear that this was a perfect opportunity to talk about the vitally important issue of bullying. It is a key issue for many children and their parents. The statistics speak for themselves. Research now shows that one in three children have experienced bullying, with some suggesting that 70% of young people have at some point experienced some form of bullying. One million kids are being bullied every week, both in and out of school. It is one of the greatest concerns for children as they grow up and their parents. Beat Bullying research found that 44% of suicides among ten to 14-year-olds were explicitly linked to bullying, and at least 20 children every year commit suicide because they are being bullied.

I wish to pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) who, like me, has met the family of Ayden Olson, who unfortunately committed suicide as a consequence of bullying. Politicians need to take notice of such stories and try to make a difference to them.

I felt that the new injunctions were a really good opportunity to bring bullying back to the forefront of public debate, not least because in the past people have been concerned about criminalising bullies. Under previous legislation, bullying could lead to some sort of criminal sanction. The change to injunctions requiring instead a civil punishment meant this was the perfect opportunity to require them to include a positive requirement as well as the punishment of the injunction.

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning my constituent, who was involved in a horrific bullying case that led to his suicide. Does she agree that the Bill is a good opportunity to find a way in which to protect vulnerable children and to punish bullies in the right way, as in the case of my constituent that she has highlighted?

[Tracey Crouch]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and that is exactly why it is important to add to the Bill the requirements to deal with bullying. We can deal with the bullies as well as the victims, because bullies are often victims of wider bullying, perhaps at home. The positive requirements would enable all sorts of agencies to intervene at an early stage and protect not just the victims, but the bullies themselves.

Bullying is not just face to face any more. Cyber-bullying is a massive problem, and it is certainly something that Ayden experienced. We are seeing increasing numbers of cyber-bullied victims. Some 63% say that the bullying started offline and then continued online. Bullying is not the same as it was when I was at school, when it was people being mean to each other in the playground. It is now persistent bullying on and offline. That is why I am pleased that the Government accepted the need to put bullying back into the guidance on the injunctions. It was originally in the guidance on the 1999 Act that introduced ASBOs. The subsequent review of ASBOs in 2002 also included persistent bullying, but the 2006 guidance—which until recently was the current Home Office guidance—did not mention bullying. I was grateful therefore for the commitment in Committee, from the former Minister, that bullying would be included in the guidance. Having seen an early draft of that, I am content with the guidance that will be issued.

If we are including bullying within the guidance of the injunction, it is logical to give those who primarily have responsibility for dealing with bullying—mainly schools, which unfortunately retain most of the responsibility—the tools to deal with it. That is why in Committee I pressed for head teachers and principals to be given the opportunity to apply for the injunctions. That would have been a permissive power that I thought would be a logical step. Unfortunately, that view is not shared by the teaching unions, all of which I have subsequently consulted, so I am reluctantly resigned to the removal of heads and further education principals from the Bill and I accept Government amendment 4.

I hope that bullying is not taken off the agenda. I hope that it is recognised as an extremely important issue for both children and parents, and that we recognise that further steps need to be taken to protect our children. We must ensure that perpetrators of bullying are dealt with in a way that helps them in their family and in society, and that they can have the positive requirements that the injunctions will give, despite the teachers and principals not applying for them. I am pleased that the Government continue to recognise the importance of bullying by keeping it in the guidance on the injunction, but I am sad that the teachers did not feel that they wanted the power to apply for it.