Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

There are two key things to do: first, to empower governors so that they have real flexibility and control over education budgets and career advice; and, secondly, to connect that to housing. There is an obligation under the Act that my hon. Friend has championed, and co-ordination with local authorities will be essential.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Why has the number of women who become homeless on release doubled in only a year? Is this not more evidence of the Government failing prisoners and probation policies?

[Rory Stewart]

There are a number of complex issues relating to homelessness, but we absolutely agree that this is unacceptable and shocking. We need to work much more closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, with local authorities and with prisons to ensure that we cut those numbers.

Cycling Fatalities: Ian Winterburn

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Thursday 21st December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)]

This debate is the last parliamentary business before the recess and, indeed, the last business of the year, but it nevertheless deals with an issue that is of great seriousness and grave concern to my constituents and to many others, given the number of people who have been injured or killed when cycling on our roads.

On 12 December last year, 58-year-old Ian Winterburn was cycling to work at 7.30 am, as he did every day. Ian was a keen and regular cyclist. As usual, he was wearing his cyclist’s high-visibility jacket, and all his bike lights were on. He always wore a cycling helmet. As he was passing the junction of Whitkirk Lane on the A6120 ring road in Halton, Leeds, a silver Skoda Fabia was signalling to turn right, but instead of waiting for Ian to cycle past, the driver went straight into him, knocking him off his bike and fatally injuring him. She claimed that she had not seen him. After 10 days in a coma, Ian died from his injuries on 22 December.

Cyclist Charlie Alliston was famously sentenced to 18 months in prison recently for fatally injuring pedestrian Mrs Briggs in one of two such fatal accidents last year, yet any more cyclists have been killed or badly injured by cars during the same period. Alliston’s case justifiably received plenty of media coverage, but shocking deaths such as that of Ian Winterburn scarcely receive any, and public anger towards cyclists is now at an all-time high.

The 51-year-old driver of the Skoda that killed Ian was sentenced on 20 October by Leeds magistrates court for causing death by careless driving.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on initiating the debate. I co-chair the all-party parliamentary group on cycling, and I commend to him one of the recommendations of our report on justice for cyclists. We asked the Government to address

“Confusion and overlap between ‘careless’ and ‘dangerous’ driving”

in such cases.

[Fabian Hamilton]

I shall deal with the issue of careless versus dangerous driving and the different penalties involved. Indeed, I shall refer to the all-party parliamentary group that my hon. Friend so ably chairs, and of which I am currently the treasurer.

The driver of the Skoda was given a four-month prison sentence suspended for two years, a £200 fine, 200 hours of community service and a two-year driving ban. Her licence had been suspended previously for 14 months for drink-driving.

One of the most shocking aspects of this tragic case—apart from the loss of a much-loved husband, father and teacher—is the way that the family have been treated by the various authorities involved in dealing with the terrible and totally avoidable loss of such a valuable life. Ian Winterburn was hit at 7.30 am that day, but the West Yorkshire police crash investigation team did not arrive at the scene for more than an hour.

The police and the Crown Prosecution Service believed that the driver did not adequately defrost her car windscreen before setting off from her home nearby. There was circumstantial evidence to support that, as her windscreen wipers and car heating were on full power although it was a dry day. However, because the crash investigation team took so long to arrive, they could not confirm the state of the windscreen at the time of the accident. Of course, had they arrived sooner, there could have been proof that the windscreen was not properly de-iced. The driver would then have faced a charge of causing death by dangerous driving, which carries a considerably higher sentence on conviction than the lesser charge of death by careless driving.

There is only one crash team for the whole of West Yorkshire, an area with a population of 2.3 million. The family have asked a number of pertinent questions about that issue alone. They asked, for example, why there was only one crash team for such a large area, how many people were in that team, how many crash investigations they investigated each week and where the team was based.

It took more than three hours for the police to contact Mrs Winterburn that day to inform her about the collision. When she asked why it had taken so long, the answer was that the crash team was too busy securing the crash site and collecting evidence, which was its main priority, and that there were not enough staff to contact Mrs Winterburn earlier. As Members may imagine, this was extremely traumatic for Mrs Winterburn and her family and greatly added to the trauma they experienced upon hearing such terrible news.

But it gets worse. When the family arrived at the hospital, they spent a number of hours in the resuscitation unit, where no staff were available to keep them updated. Ian Winterburn was still wearing his cycling clothes, and it was to be another 16 hours before any member of staff gave the family information about the extent of Ian’s injuries, the prognosis or, indeed, the next steps in his treatment.

Let me move on now to the role of the coroner service. Although Ian died on 22 December, just one year ago tomorrow, it took until 10 January to obtain a death certificate. That was apparently because of a backlog over the Christmas and new year holidays, but it meant that Ian’s body had to be kept at the Leeds General Infirmary mortuary for two weeks before a funeral could take place. As Members may imagine, this added considerably to the stress and trauma suffered by the family. Presumably, people still die from unknown causes or accidents over holiday periods, and although everyone deserves holidays and time off, especially public servants, surely it is important that the coroner service does not close, except perhaps on Christmas day itself.

The Crown Prosecution Service told the family that the case against the driver who killed Ian was so serious that it would be heard in the Crown court and that they should not even attend the magistrates court hearing, which would be merely a formality and would only last for a few minutes. However, in the event, the driver was convicted, after two one-hour sessions, by the magistrates court, and no support whatsoever was given to the family.

No help was even offered to the family in the preparation of their victim statements, which of course they had little knowledge of how to prepare and no previous experience of writing. This further added to the anxiety felt by Ian’s close family, and made them lose faith in the whole criminal justice system. One of the pertinent questions asked by Ian’s daughter, my constituent Alex Wilks, who is here today, when she came to see me about her father’s death and her family’s treatment by the various authorities was, “Why is the most senior CPS lawyer in West Yorkshire only employed for two days a week?”

After the shock of the brief court case and what the family feels is the inadequate sentence for a driver who had previously been given a 14-month driving ban after a conviction for drink-driving, the family was told by the police that the coroner would now close the inquest because there had been a criminal conviction. A short while later, the coroner phoned Georgina, Ian’s widow, to tell her that there would still be an inquest and that a number of witnesses would attend it.

As we can imagine, this came as a huge shock to the family, and Alex, Ian’s daughter, rang West Yorkshire Victim Support to ask what the family should expect from the hearing, only to be told that it knew nothing about the hearing. The next day the coroner’s office rang Georgina to tell her that there had been a “mix-up” and that there would not be an inquest after all. No apology has ever been offered for the further upset caused to the family by this so-called “mix-up”.

Many Members will know that I am a keen cyclist, because I pester them every summer to donate to my annual charity bike ride, and I can often be seen arriving at the Palace of Westminster in my hideous, brightly coloured lycra on my carbon racing bike; indeed you, Mr Speaker, have generously seen me off on some of my cycling jaunts.

I am also an officer of the all-party group on cycling, which last July published a report on cycling and the justice system. We took a huge amount of evidence from cycling groups, lawyers, the police, the CPS, Transport for London, local authorities and many others. Among our conclusions were the following recommendations. The police must ensure that a higher standard of investigation is maintained in all cases where serious injury has resulted. That includes eyesight testing, mobile phone records and assessments of speed, drink and drug driving. We received many examples of the police failing to investigate properly, or even to interview witnesses or victims. Too often, weak investigations have undermined subsequent cases. I hope that the Minister will want to comment on this.

We also recommended that all police forces should ensure that evidence of common offences submitted by cyclists or other witnesses using bike-mounted or person-mounted cameras or smart phones should be put to use and not ignored. Too often, these bits of evidence are ignored. The confidence of cyclists that their safety is a priority for the police will be undermined if such evidence is dismissed and no action is taken. In some cases, just a written warning could be enough to change bad behaviour.

The length of time required by the police to serve a notice of intended prosecution for a road traffic offence is currently just 14 days, and that must be extended. That was one of our strong recommendations. We believe that that period is too short to enable cases to be adequately processed. In some cases, it could enable offenders to escape justice altogether.

We also said that there was confusion and overlap between careless and dangerous driving, a point echoed by my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), so bad driving often does not receive the level of punishment that the public feel it should. New offences introduced over the past few years have started to plug some of the gaps in the legislation, but many problems remain, particularly when cyclists are the victims. We believe that the Ministry of Justice should examine in more detail how these offences are being used, including the penalties available for offences of careless and dangerous driving.

The police and the CPS should ensure that victims and bereaved families are always kept adequately informed throughout the process of deciding charges. This is done in many cases, but we have heard of victims being ignored and informed only at a much later date that cases have been dropped or that guilty pleas for lesser offences have been accepted.

[Ruth Cadbury]

I am a member of the Justice Committee, and one of the issues that we have heard about—which applies not only to cases such as this one—is that the cutbacks in the Courts Service and the Ministry of Justice mean that there are fewer people to carry out these important administrative tasks. In too many cases, administrative failures mean that justice is not being served, either for the victims or for their families, because there are not enough people to make the kind of contact that is, as my hon. Friend says, so important at times like these.

[Fabian Hamilton]

Again, I thank my hon. Friend for her helpful intervention. I think that the first part of my speech clearly showed that the family of Ian Winterburn are just such a family. They had appallingly bad service from the CPS; they were not kept informed at all. They were given no assistance; there was no family support whatever. I do not know whether that was the result of cutbacks or of bad organisation and training. I think my hon. Friend probably knows more than I do about that, because she is a member of the Justice Committee, but I will leave it to the Minister to respond to that point.

The final recommendation in our report involves the fact that the number and length of driving bans appears to have declined, with a 62% fall in driver disqualifications over the past 10 years. That is double the fall in convictions for driving offences. Furthermore, very large numbers of drivers are escaping disqualification on reaching 12 points or more on their licence. The Ministry of Justice should examine the reasons behind the decline in the use of the penalty of disqualification and in particular the effect of the so-called exceptional hardship scheme.

I know that our report, which was published seven months after Ian Winterburn was killed, will ring many bells in the minds of his family, who still grieve for him every day. The family would like answers to a number of more specific questions, notwithstanding the recommendations I have just read out, so will the Minister answer the following questions? What is the current status of the review of guidelines for causing death by careless driving? Is a review even being carried out? Why do drivers who have caused death not face mandatory custodial sentences? How many complaints does the Ministry of Justice receive about the coroner service every year? What training is given to the coroner service staff? Who holds the coroner service to account? Is it the Ministry of Justice or is there any form of local accountability? When was the last review of the coroner service, and what were its findings? Finally, when will the coroner service website be improved to offer more and better information to grieving and unsupported families, which seems a simple, straightforward reform?

In conclusion, if we truly care about our environment and about the growing public health crisis, surely we must do far more to encourage cycling, both as a healthy activity and as a way to reduce carbon emissions and congestion, but tragedies such as the death of cyclist Ian Winterburn do nothing but discourage the public from cycling. We need to make cycling far easier and much, much safer, and part of that task is about ensuring that when terrible fatal accidents do occur, the appropriate administration of justice can be relied upon. We all need the assurance that cycling is a safe activity and a good way to move around our towns and cities for everyone who is capable of using a bike. Meaningful answers to and action from the Winterburn family’s pertinent questions, born out of tragedy and grief, would be a good start.

Prison Reform and Safety

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Prison safety and reform will continue to be major priorities for the Justice Committee until the challenges facing prisons are stabilised. I want to focus on governor empowerment and on young adults in our prisons.

The increase in assaults, self-harm and self-inflicted deaths are all unsurprising, given rising prisoner numbers, over-occupied prisons, understaffing, and the wave of psychoactive drugs that have been washing over prisons for the past couple of years. How can the system turn prisoners’ lives around when too many are locked up for 22 hours a day and are unable to access education, treatment or work? Those are major challenges not only for prison governors, but for Ministers, the MOJ and the Prisons and Probation Service.

In the Queen’s Speech of 2016, there was a plan that prisons would be independent legal entities, with the power to enter into contracts, generate income and appoint their own boards. Both the Secretary of State and, more recently, one of his Ministers have said that they remain committed to continuing to work towards not only making prisons places of safety, but reforming them.

The Justice Committee, of which I have been a member since September, agrees that prison management and the provision of safe and secure prison conditions that promote rehabilitation are complex activities that must be well grounded in evidence. I would add that adequate resources are also crucial.

I remember, once upon a time, when governors could be incentivised to reduce the reoffending rates of those released from their establishments. Even now, there are many examples of positive good practice in prison, a number of which have been mentioned today. Overarching that, however, there appears to be no joined-up strategy of rehabilitation, or even of reform. The prison system seems to be always in crisis management mode. This is exactly the time for clear lines of accountability between the Ministry of Justice, the Prison and Probation Service and governors. Those lines appear fuzzy at best to members of the Justice Committee.

What is the current status of devolution to governors? What support have governors been given to implement the empowerment agenda? Where is the review of reform prisons? Overarching that, where are the levers, and who gets upset when there are failures?

I want to move on to young adults in the criminal justice system. I draw the House’s attention to my former trusteeship of the Barrow Cadbury Trust, which initiated the Transition to Adulthood Alliance. Young adults aged 18 to 25 are a distinct group: only 10% of the general population, but accounting for 17% of those sentenced to prison every year. That is, admittedly, a drop from 25%, but is still too many people at a key stage in their vulnerable lives. Research shows that when policy makers, sentencers and practitioners take into account developmental maturity and the particular needs of young adults, they are more likely to grow out of crime.

Those results were reflected in a key recommendation by the Justice Committee in its inquiry into young adults in 2016. A week ago, the MOJ released a study that supports the Transition to Adulthood Alliance’s long-standing campaign for criminal justice agencies to take account of young adults’ maturity in service design and delivery. Given the Government’s research findings, what assurance can they give that they will provide a distinct regime for young adult offenders, as proposed by the T2A Alliance and the Justice Committee?

We all have to ask what prisons are for. I hope that, instead of prisons just warehousing prisoners, as too often seems to be the case, the Secretary of State and the Minister will take responsibility for ensuring that our prisons are humane and safe, and that they turn lives around and reduce reoffending.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to listen to whatever creative solutions he can bring to the long-standing problem of accommodation for offenders.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

The joint report of the chief inspectors of prisons and probation looked at through-the-gate services and revealed that 10% of prisoners were homeless on their first night out of prison. Having a home is key to reducing reoffending, so what assessment has the Minister made of reoffending rates?

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Lady makes a very important point. As I said in response to the previous question, this is a priority for us. We are looking at expanding bail accommodation and support services to include lower risk offenders, utilising spare MOJ capacity, expanding our approved premises programme, and working very closely with other Government Departments, such as the Department for Communities and Local Government, to solve this serious problem.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

I certainly welcome the progress. I would like to visit Chelmsford—I make that offer to my hon. Friend. We want to go further: she will be aware that we are supporting the private member’s Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on emergency workers, which will increase penalties for assaults on prison officers.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

16. What progress he is making on reviewing cases of prisoners serving a sentence of imprisonment for public protection.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

We are making good progress in helping IPP prisoners to progress to eventual release. We have implemented measures such as individual psychology-led case reviews, increased access to offending behaviour programmes and we are increasing places on progression regimes, with an additional three regimes planned to come online at the end of March 2018.

[Ruth Cadbury]

On 18 October, the Select Committee on Justice heard that 760 released IPP prisoners were recalled in the past year, but 60% of those were quickly re-released. Does the Minister agree with the chair of the Parole Board that the threshold for recall is too low and should be reviewed to stop the revolving door for prisoners who have already long served their minimum tariff?

[Mr Gyimah]

I do not agree that the threshold is too low. When an IPP prisoner is recalled, it is not because they were found, for example, hiding under their mother’s bed. It is often because there is a clear causal link to the behaviour exhibited at the time of the index offence. Our duty is to keep the public safe. Where there is any signal or any cause for concern, it is right that such prisoners are recalled into custody. However, the national probation service is working on a programme to help IPPs when they are released into the community to transition into the community and to reduce the incidence of recall in a way that protects the public, but also allows IPPs to rebuild their lives.

Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 20th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I feel as though we are already in Committee. The hon. Lady makes a good point. Once a barrister, always a barrister; I am not sure whether she is being paid by the word or by the intervention. [Interruption.] Sorry; there had to be one anti-lawyer comment today.

The third thing that the Bill does is make provision for the taking of samples when an assailant has spat at an emergency worker. It makes it an offence punishable by a fine of up to £500 for an assailant unreasonably to refuse to give an intimate sample, such as a blood sample. That matters, because so many officers and emergency workers have been spat at and lived in anxiety for months about whether they had contracted a communicable disease.

I want to be very careful about how people refer to HIV in particular, but I have had one example of a police officer—I met him yesterday—who was spat at, with the saliva entering his eye and mouth. The assailant refused to give a sample, and the police officer had a false positive test for hepatitis B, which created enormous anxiety. His wife and children had to be tested as well. I just do not think that that situation is appropriate, and I hope the Bill will help to change it.

Some have argued that the Bill is unnecessary because the sentencing guidelines already deal with the matter. In particular, they say that the guidelines on assault occasioning bodily harm—section 47 offences from the Offences Against the Person Act 1861—state that the court should consider the fact that the offence was

“committed against those working in the public sector or providing a service to the public”

an aggravating factor. I believe that that is drawn far too widely in the guidelines, and I want to throw a cordon sanitaire specifically around our emergency workers.

The sentencing guidelines also make it clear, as they have to by law, that there are two categories of aggravating factor: statutory, such as previous convictions and offences committed while on bail, which have been mandated by Parliament in statute law; and a non-exhaustive list of other factors, including location, timing, an attempt to conceal evidence and 14 other factors. The point is that the fact that the assault leading to bodily harm was on an emergency worker is not a statutory aggravating factor, and my Bill would make it just such a factor.

Those who argue that that is unnecessary are arguing against the very concept of statutory aggravating factors, including hate crimes. I believe that the country now widely accepts the proposition that such factors should exist. Moreover, the victims of hate crimes say that the very fact that the court has to state that the homophobic or racial element of the offence is an aggravating factor gives them a sense that justice is being done. Part of the fury that 999 workers feel is caused by the fact that that element is never stated in open court, but now it will be.

Paragraph 4.12(c) of “The Code for Crown Prosecutors” states:

“A prosecution is also more likely if the offence has been committed against a victim who was at the time a person serving the public.”

That, too, is written in the widest possible terms, and I am trying to enhance the protection specifically for emergency workers, because they put themselves in harm’s way on a daily basis.

Every single one of us knows that merely introducing a new offence will not put a sudden end to such assaults, and there is much else that we need to do to protect our emergency workers. This comes to a point that was made earlier: one reason many prosecutions are not brought is that the perpetrator is a vulnerable patient suffering from a condition that makes them violent. The health worker, who wants only the best for their patient, is understandably reluctant to press for a prosecution. A hospital might be so keen to keep out of the news that it will be reluctant to summon the police.

The truth is that if a mental health unit or an accident and emergency unit is under-staffed, it is far more difficult to maintain order and secure the safety of staff and patients. It should be a fundamental duty of any organisation that employs people in such circumstances to make sure its staff are safe. Someone who rocks up at A&E drunk or high and is told that they will have to wait for several hours is, of course, more likely to get aggressive and violent than someone who is seen swiftly. I do not say that to excuse anyone—of course I do not; violence against medical staff is morally offensive and medically counterproductive, and we should adopt a zero-tolerance attitude towards it—but health bodies need to put the safety of their staff at the top of their list of priorities, and the Government must give the NHS the resources it needs.

I am not going to make many partisan points, but it is incomprehensible to me why the Government are going to cancel NHS Protect, which provides the statistics on this—without such statistics, we would not have been able to have this debate—and will rely only on staff surveys to get such statistics in the future.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about NHS resources. When I visited my accident and emergency department at West Middlesex University Hospital, I found that it is spending £2 million a year on additional mental health staff in the main part of the hospital, because there is not adequate capacity in the mental health services to enable people with acute mental health problems to be directed straight to the appropriate mental health services. The hospital has to spend a lot of money to protect the other patients and the staff in the accident and emergency department because so many people are very vulnerable when people with such problems come in and pose a risk. It has had to set aside separate rooms, but even then there is not enough capacity.

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. This is a debate for another day, but my feeling is that this country wants a Swedish standard of NHS on American levels of taxation, and in the end I just do not think that works. The Unison survey I mentioned earlier said that 87% of mental health staff felt that the lack of staff was the major contributory factor in attacks, and 50% felt that over-reliance on agency staff was a problem because those staff do not know the patients well enough to ensure safety and deal with them appropriately. If the Bill is to have the desired effect, it is self-evident that the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and prisons will need adequate resources.

I again pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax. I was more delighted by her re-election than by the fact that I was myself re-elected at the general election. She has done a wonderful job of work, and we have worked closely together on this campaign. There are others I want to thank. This is going to sound like the Oscars now, but I am not going to thank Harvey Weinstein. I want to thank the Police Federation and all the trades unions—particularly the GMB, Unite and Unison, which have worked long and hard on this—as well as the Royal College of Nursing, the British Medical Association and the National AIDS Trust, which provided some important advice at the last minute.

I do not often say something like this, but many Conservative colleagues have helped me to get as tough a Bill as possible out of the Government parliamentary counsel. In particular, I am enormously grateful to the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb), whom I think of as a friend. He was quite helpful when I broke my leg playing rugby—at Twickenham, incidentally—so I have to say that. I really never thought I would say this sentence, but I would like to thank the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), because he has lent considerable support to making sure that we are all singing from the same hymn sheet.

Finally, I thank the Minister. I have had a few tussles with some Ministers over the legislation. It is only right and proper when we are considering a new offence under which people may be sent to prison for a considerable period to have a barney about how precisely we draft that legislation. I am grateful to the Minister on the Front Bench and his colleagues. I very much hope that the Bill will have unanimous support. I hope, too, that the public who are watching will not think it an anti-climax if there is no vote. That simply means that the view of the House is unanimous: we will not put up with assaults on emergency workers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May we please have two short, one-sentence questions? That is what topical questions is supposed to be about.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Will the Justice Secretary have it in her heart to look into the case of Charlie Gard, a very sick eight-month old baby boy with a rare mitochondrial depletion condition who is legally unable to leave Great Ormond Street hospital to receive treatment in the US that might just save his life? His family are constituents of mine and my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), and they have raised £1.25 million to get Charlie to the United States. This is a complex legal case, but if the Justice Secretary has any powers to intervene I plead with her to do the right thing.

[Mr Speaker]

I will say in the hon. Lady’s defence that there were probably a number of semi-colons in there, but I accept that this is a very important matter.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Heald]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point to the fact that as cars have become safer there have been fewer road traffic accidents. It is shocking that whiplash cases have gone up by over 50% in the past 10 years. The reforms I mentioned will, taken together as a package, ensure that the genuinely injured receive compensation, and fraudulent and exaggerated claims are tackled.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

22. Six thousand vulnerable road users—pedestrians and cyclists—responded to the Justice Department’s consultation on the reforms, expressing concerns that cyclists and pedestrians would be disproportionately affected by any increase in the small claims limit. Will the Minister discuss the proposals with officials and consider excluding vulnerable road user claims from the increase, as discussed yesterday by Cycling UK?

[Sir Oliver Heald]

I pay tribute to the work of the all-party parliamentary cycling group, which the hon. Lady co-chairs. We have taken account of the overall effect of the measures and looked at the representations made. She will have noticed that some of the original proposals have not been taken forward, and the ones we have taken forward we believe are proportionate.

International Women’s Day 2016

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies) for securing the debate along with my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler). I am pleased that we are here in Parliament to recognise and celebrate International Women’s Day, along with women and Parliaments across the world. I am also happy to be the third consecutive woman to represent Brentford and Isleworth. We must remember that although women have guaranteed rights in law in the UK, there are still cultures, attitudes and practices that hold women back, subject them to violence and deprive the economy of the benefit of their full involvement.

So many issues that disproportionately affect women are worthy of debate, but I will focus on women’s status in the workplace. In the past 30 to 40 years, there has been a significant increase in female employment. As a consequence, there has been positive Government policy change on matters including workplace rights, childcare and anti-discrimination law. One of the big issues now is flexible working. Employees can have flexible working, but they have to have been in post for six months. Many employers are beginning to realise the value of flexible working. An employer in my constituency, Debbie Leon, who represents a successful and growing company called Fashionizer, recognises that having flexible working practices enables her to get the best employees in the field.

Unfortunately, such practices are not always to be found in traditional workplaces, and I hope that Ministers will review the position. In fact, the Minister for Skills, the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), told the Women and Equalities Committee that he used flexible working arrangements at the point of recruitment in the organisation that he ran to get the best staff for the job. If a Minister could do that in a previous workplace, I hope that Ministers will be encouraged to introduce a right for employees to request flexible working from the outset. I want women at all stages of their caring responsibilities to feel free to apply for jobs and not to be constrained by fixed work times and work days.

We cannot talk about flexible working hours and workers’ rights without talking about the European Union. Britain’s membership of the EU gave British workers the right to minimum paid maternity and paternity leave, and to equal pay and anti-discrimination laws. That is why I will be voting to stay in the EU.

Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Lady is right. There are huge lessons to be learned, and I will come on to them because both parties that were in government between 1995 and 2010—predominantly the party that is now the main Opposition party—have to be able to explain, to look at themselves and say, “Could we have done more? Could we have communicated better?” The answer has to be yes, although there is a philosophical question that remains valid today. It is for Members, and indeed for the WASPI campaign, which has offered some thoughts, to come up with ideas about how that philosophical question can be addressed, because surely there is a balance of responsibility between what the Government must do to spell out change, what the wider world, including the media, must do to communicate that change—in today’s world that includes social media—and what the individual must do to take responsibility for finding out about major things that will affect their life.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) on introducing this debate. Those of us who have had children have received child benefit. I have received an annual statement from the DWP about my entitlement to child benefit, so it would therefore not be too difficult for people to receive annual statements on their pension entitlement in the same way. If the DWP can do it for parents, surely it can do it for those approaching retirement age.

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Lady is correct. Indeed, people can get a pension statement from the DWP, and half a million people have done so. Of course, an individual has to ask for that statement, rather than it being automatically sent. She raises a question about whether the DWP could do more to communicate directly, which I am sure the Minister will address.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I congratulate the WASPI campaign on getting this debate on to the parliamentary agenda.

Like many MPs, over the past few months I have had a flurry of emails from women who are extremely concerned about their future and how the equalisation will affect them financially. They are rightly angry about the lack of fairness. The fact that women were given just two years’ notice of a six-year increase in their state pension age, while men received six years’ notice of a one-year rise, is representative of just how unfair the changes are.

I obtained data from the House of Commons Library, which estimates that around 4,470 women in my constituency will be affected by the changes to the state pension age. If the Library can find out that information, why on earth can the DWP not find it out and have the courtesy to tell all the women affected? On the basis of the figures given by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), some 1,300 women in my constituency are still not fully aware of the changes.

It would be wrong to debate the changes without discussing the knock-on effect they will have on older women who have planned their retirement but now remain on the job market. Many people in the room will know that we have a real issue in this country with the employment of older women, who are often on low pay and in zero-hours contracts. Many of those women had career breaks. Many earned less than men doing equivalent work, and many suffered gender discrimination in the era before the Equal Pay Act 1970. Many were working at a time when few women worked in well remunerated professional roles with occupational pensions, as other Members have mentioned.

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that we have ultimately failed to take into account the gender pay gap and the inequality between women and men for the many women who have been in low-paid work and have caring responsibilities?

[Ruth Cadbury]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right; this situation compounds a number of other inequalities that women have faced in the workplace.

One constituent of mine was not informed of the changes and only found out due to divorce proceedings. She was formerly a pro tennis player and a coach. Due to the nature of her field, she had to retire from the sport as she got older and retrained in childcare to get her through to 60. It is now not only too late for her to retrain in another field but too early for her to retire. She is stuck struggling with the demands of caring for small children and counting down the days until she can finally retire.

Women have emailed me to say that not only are they finding it difficult to find jobs, but the financial burden is causing breakdowns in family relationships. That is why I urge the Government to consider making transitional arrangements that truly work for the women adversely affected by the changes to state pensions. I received an email from a constituent outlining her case and how the changes affected her, and I was struck by her final sentence:

“As a single woman, my future is bleak. As a woman with significant underlying health issues, my future is dire.”

We cannot overlook the misery that this change is causing people. The former Pensions Minister, Steve Webb, said that his one regret during his tenure was that he

“pushed too hard and too fast on raising women’s state pension age.”

I plead with the current Minister to learn from the mistakes of the past.