Online Abuse

Debate between Rebecca Harris and Caroline Nokes

Thursday 7th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

I add my thanks to the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate, and I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) for securing it. I am sure that many Members of all parties will, like me, have met in their surgeries the victims of online abuse—or, more often than not, their parents, who come to us seeking some form of redress or often just some ongoing safety for their children. It is interesting to note that organisations such as the Girl Guides with their annual girls’ attitude survey have ascertained that cyberbullying is in the top three concerns of girls between the ages of 15 and 20. It is growing in its significance and impact on its victims.

Abuse is abuse, wherever and however it happens. Just because it is online does not make it any less awful, but it does make it significantly harder to identify perpetrators and bring them to justice. It is simply not good enough to shrug one’s shoulders and dismiss the internet as some sort of wild west—ungovernable and devoid of social norms and the laws of the physical world. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke said, we must bring an end to anonymity.

We must remember that many of the victims are children. I vividly recall my daughter’s transition from primary to secondary school, now some years ago, when her headteacher got parents together to talk about the perils of Facebook. At that time, social media was growing in popularity, but was still relatively small. There was not the multitude of platforms that there are today. The phrase the headteacher used will always stick with me—that, frankly, in her view children were losing the ability to empathise. They were making their unpleasant comments online from their smartphone, and unlike in the playground, they could not see the reaction in someone’s eyes. People are not learning about the hurt caused, but simply banging out a message that can have a terrible impact. The ability to understand and comprehend the hurt that has been caused is disappearing.

It is not just children who are losing the ability to empathise. People often say the most dreadful things online, which they would never repeat in person or even on the telephone. If I receive an abusive email, I sometimes find that the best tactic is to phone up the person. Suddenly, they turn into the most polite and delightful constituent that I could ever encounter.

[Rebecca Harris]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we could take that slightly further? I have knocked on the doors of people who have been particularly abusive, and they crumble.

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend is slightly braver than I am. She earlier used the phrase “keyboard warriors” who we find are incredibly brave in the sanctuary of their own homes, but much more timid in the real world. When online trolls are arrested and we see their pictures in the newspapers, I always think how terribly inadequate they look. The monsters they have made of themselves in people’s minds are often not borne out in real life. They simply do not understand the terror that they can cause.

I have had my own experience and vividly remember a Facebook message from someone purporting to be a woman, hiding behind the photograph of a dead lady whose death had been covered in the newspaper. I was sent the most terrible message, threatening me with rape, torture and, ultimately, death. The greatest lesson I learned from that is that it can take many months to wheedle identities out of Facebook. Facebook appears to have become the bogeyman of this debate, but I think deservedly so. When we find the actual identities, it brings a sense of relief, because they are an identifiable person, albeit not necessarily someone who lives anywhere nearby. Such messages can still be absolutely terrifying however.

Brain Tumours

Debate between Rebecca Harris and Caroline Nokes

Monday 18th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

I add my congratulations to the Chair of the Petitions Committee, the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), on the Committee’s excellent report, and to every Member on today’s thoughtful debate. I pay particular tribute to colleagues who spoke movingly about their own experiences or those of people close to them.

I will briefly mention one of my own constituents, but first echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) about Sacha Langton-Gilks. It is clear that someone is a dedicated and doughty campaigner when they not only attend the surgeries of their own Member of Parliament, but pitch up at those of other Members. Sacha came to see me when I was a new MP—bringing with her the legal requirement, one of my constituents, who introduced her—and spoke incredibly movingly about her son, David. She also brought with her the HeadSmart cards and emphasised the importance of early diagnosis and the HeadSmart campaign, which seeks to bring awareness to schools, doctors and, particularly, parents. As a result of that meeting, I was able to introduce her to the leader of Hampshire County Council, who agreed for those cards to be distributed in Hampshire schools. Those cards are incredibly informative, outlining symptoms in an age-specific way and, above all, not provoking alarm; they just educate people. It is important that we increase awareness of brain tumours without instilling fear in people.

[Rebecca Harris]

I, too, commend the HeadSmart cards, but does my hon. Friend agree that unless the medical profession is more aware of brain tumours we will run into the problem, as we have time and again, that it overlooks parents’ instincts in such cases?

[Caroline Nokes]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work as chair of the APPG, and I will highlight exactly that situation with the case of a constituent. Brain tumours are not as rare as we might think; they are the biggest cancer killer of children. That is why I argue that research and knowledge are critical.

I received an incredibly moving letter from my constituents, Charlotte Swithenbank and James Butler, the parents of Alfie, who is not yet two years old and has been fighting his cancer for more than a year. As in many cases, Alfie was not initially diagnosed. It was not until his seventh trip to the doctor in just two weeks that he was referred to Southampton general hospital. Within 36 hours of admission, he was diagnosed with a grade 3 infant ependymoma, and he has since had more than 24 hours of surgery. He has also had chemotherapy.

Planning Policy (Housing Targets)

Debate between Rebecca Harris and Caroline Nokes

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point about the green belt. Unfortunately, in Hampshire we have next to none.

Recent information from the National Trust indicated that if the five-year land supply can be disputed by developers, more than 70% of locally made decisions are overturned at appeal. The Minister will not comment on individual cases, and I do not ask him to, but in order to highlight how the requirement for a five-year housing land supply has been abused, I shall use the example of Parkers Farm on the edge of Rownhams, which is the subject of a speculative planning application that right now is at the appeal stage.

Test Valley’s revised local plan has recently been submitted and is expected to be determined some time reasonably early next year. Throughout the borough, local communities are looking at neighbourhood plans, some more actively than others, and there is real enthusiasm locally to ensure that residents’ views are heard and taken into account.

If there is one thing that my constituents get, it is local planning, and as someone who served for 12 years on the southern area planning committee of Test Valley borough council, it is something I get. I have long held the belief that nothing is more vexed in the world of politics than local planning. Where guidance is clear and statistics cannot be manipulated and distorted, however, there is at least clarity. People can reasonably understand policies and not be confronted with ever-shifting sands.

With Parkers Farm, which is only one site that I have identified—the Minister might be aware that there are several others across southern Test Valley—the case of the appellant rests on there not being an adequate five-year land supply. The Minister may recall the correspondence from the leader of the local council on the matter, following a motion in Test Valley borough council, but the five-year supply depends entirely on how it is calculated and on the rate of delivery of granted permissions. In the majority of cases, that rate of delivery is entirely in the hands of the developers.

[Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con)]

I totally support my hon. Friend on that point. In effect, we appear to have an extraordinary flaw and an unintended consequence of the planning system. Developers like the comfort of a long-term plan and lots of land in it, but they are not as keen to deliver that land as quickly as we might like for many reasons, among which is not wishing to bring the local land price down, as well as ensuring that they can get more land into their land-banking systems.

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend is of course right. The issue is entirely about the laws of supply and demand. Those who control the supply have the upper hand in this case.

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend is right to a certain extent, but in Test Valley we have both scenarios: neither brownfield sites nor greenfield sites with permission are being developed.

I have raised the issue more than once in the Chamber and with more than one planning Minister. In Test Valley, we have repeatedly witnessed the scenario in which each developer seeks permission by demonstrating, usually on appeal, that sites with extant planning permission are for some reason or other undeliverable. We have even had the bizarre situation in which landowners have argued that their own sites, previously granted permission, are now not coming forward at the expected rate, so a further permission is required for an additional site. That is all in order for the borough to maintain its five-year supply.

The revised local plan, therefore, proposes a higher annual housing delivery figure than that contained in the now revoked south-east plan. Test Valley is doing its bit to aid housing supply. The construction rate is at a 15-year high, and since 2012 the borough has had the highest completion rate in Hampshire, including in the cities of Portsmouth and Southampton.

The council has a long-standing working relationship with many developers and seeks to bring forward appropriate sites. It has worked hard and made incredibly difficult decisions, but is repeatedly frustrated. It is doing its best to grant appropriate permissions and to encourage developers to bring forward housing, but the ability of certain landowners and developers to fail to meet their promised delivery rates once they have obtained planning permission is causing huge difficulties. That manipulates the land supply forecast and calculations to the developers’ advantage and, as a result, yet more greenfield sites fall under the continuous pressure from speculative planning applications.

[Rebecca Harris]

My hon. Friend is being generous in giving way. The problem is clearly one that we recognise in many parts of the country. What counts as deliverable in planning circles is very much what the developers tell us is deliverable. They will assure us that they can get their vehicles straight on to that nice green-belt site, or in the course of a couple of days, but that the brownfield sites are not deliverable. Once the site is given to them in the plan, it becomes quite another matter, and sites might sit there vacant, but causing planning blight for residents.

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to identify that cause of planning blight. Residents see a greenfield site with planning permission, but with nothing happening, which causes huge frustration. Decisions not to bring forward sites that are not under the local authority’s control—for commercial reasons, for example—should not have the effect of penalising the land supply figure.

At this point, I remind the Minister that Hampshire has no green belt, save for a small corner in the far south-west designed to prevent the spread of the Bournemouth conurbation, which I must remark lies in a totally different county. Hampshire does not benefit from green belt and, as a result, the coalescence of settlements and the loss of the distinctive gaps between them is a serious problem.

The Minister’s response to me, of Monday’s date, helpfully points out paragraph 82 of the NPPF and identifies exactly why my local authority cannot designate new green belt. The NPPF states that the general extent of the green belt is already established—we do not have any and we are unlikely to get any—and that new green belt should be established only in exceptional circumstances. Let me tell him that unfortunately the circumstances in Test Valley are not exceptional, and it would be incredibly difficult for us to designate a new area of green belt, because we are not planning a large new settlement or major urban extension. Even if we could designate a green belt, the current criteria do not allow us to. I urge him to revisit those criteria.

I return to the point in hand. Over the past four years, all the speculative developments in southern Test Valley have been justified on the grounds of a lack of a deliverable five-year supply and the supposed ability of yet another site to make up the shortfall. Yet, as the deputy leader of the council said earlier this year, if we were to tot up all the permissions granted across southern Test Valley, there would be over seven years’ worth of supply. Developers are building deliberately slowly, for either strategic or commercial reasons.

The housing land supply figures are too easily influenced by developers simply either changing their forecasts on permitted sites or not bringing sites forward at all, or else not as quickly as was forecast. The case of the Romsey brewery is well documented. That development has been brought forward at a painfully slow rate since the final brew was started on my 11th birthday.