National Citizen Service Bill [Lords]

Debate between Rushanara Ali and Karen Bradley

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 16th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

I agree with my hon. Friend. It is important to make the point that money should never be a barrier to such social cohesion and integration. We want young people from all backgrounds to have the chance to participate in the NCS. It must never be the case that money is the barrier that prevents them from doing so.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

The NCS represents an impressive cross-party effort. Its precursor came under the previous Labour Government in the form of the “Be Inspired” programme in which Lord Blunkett and Gordon Brown, among others, were involved. How much work will be done on successor programmes for the hundreds of thousands of young people who will be going through the NCS? I must declare an interest here: the UpRising leadership programme works closely with the NCS, and one issue is the need for mentoring to enable people to continue their progress. I will be delighted if the Secretary of State looks into the programme’s new initiative to recruit and train 1 million mentors over the next decade and to deploy them to organisations such as the NCS.

[Karen Bradley]

I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson), who has responsibility for civil society, has had discussions with the hon. Lady about precisely that point. We are looking at mentoring programmes and, of course, the #iwill programme is an important part of making sure that there are places for young people to continue developing the work that NCS starts.

It is vital that any expenditure of public money is transparent, accountable and proper, so the bulk of the Bill is a series of measures on that front. The NCS Trust must prepare annual accounts, which the National Audit Office will audit before they are laid before Parliament. At the start of every year, the trust must publish an annual business plan setting out its strategic priorities and annual objectives. At the end of each year, the trust will produce an annual report, which will be laid before Parliament, outlining how the trust has fulfilled its priorities and main functions. Furthermore, the Bill lists specific metrics that that report must assess, including value for money and the extent to which the NCS has mixed people from different backgrounds, which my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes) mentioned. The Bill requires the trust to notify the Government in the event that a breach of contract has serious financial consequences, if a provider is in serious financial difficulty, or if a staff member commits fraud, which will allow the Government to take rapid steps to minimise the loss of public money.

Hate Crime

Debate between Rushanara Ali and Karen Bradley

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

As someone who grew up experiencing considerable racism and Islamophobia, I am utterly shocked by what we have seen. My parents’ generation are even more shocked and sickened, because they thought we had conquered that level of racism. Does the Minister agree that some of our national leaders have been utterly irresponsible in playing the race and anti-Muslim card? That has to stop, and we need cross-party agreements between our national political leaders that it will not happen in future. Politicians need to take responsibility where they have acted irresponsibly.

Even before the referendum in the run-up to the campaign, Britain First and other far right organisations targeted constituencies such as mine, mosques and other institutions in acts of provocation wilfully to cause disorder. There is a lack of resources for policing, and inept legal provision in tackling the hateful groups that are trying to stir up intolerance and violence in our communities. Will the Minister take action immediately? Will she insist that the Prime Minister leads the debate and ensures that we actually step up to the plate?

[Karen Bradley]

I agree with the hon. Lady—we all thought that hate crime was something we had left behind and it is shocking that that has proved not to be the case. I also agree with her that, as politicians, we have a responsibility to be measured and responsible in our language, in what we say and in the actions we take. We must never try to pit one race against another, one gender against another or one sexuality against another. That is totally and utterly irresponsible.

The hon. Lady asks about far right extremism in her constituency. Our counter-extremism strategy has specific measures to deal with extremism of all forms. People looked at the strategy and thought that it was perhaps just about Islamic extremism, but it is not—it is about all forms of extremism, including neo-Nazi and far right extremism. The new civil orders that we will consult on as part of our counter-extremism Bill will address part of that.