Safer Neighbourhood Policing: London

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) on securing the debate and I congratulate my right hon. and hon. Friends on the excellent points that they have made in the debate.

Just before Christmas a pig’s head was left on a pavement in Hounslow alongside anti-Muslim graffiti. Among the first people on the scene were PCSOs who work on that beat. They saw the graffiti and could speak to local people, report the incident, give reassurance and act as liaison. They could act as the first point of call, to reduce community tension at a time when, as we know, such tension is heightened in parts of London. Police driving past in a car would not have seen the graffiti and might not even have seen the head. That is just one example of the importance of PCSOs and neighbourhood policing in London, and of why they need to be protected.

In Hounslow there has been an increase in the number of full-time equivalent police officers, although I think that clarification is needed with respect to the total number of officers and PCSOs and full-time equivalents. The number has gone up by 16 to 556 since March 2010—a small increase. In the same time, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) has said, the number of PCSOs in Hounslow dropped from 109 to 23 by November. There are now fewer than one per ward.

I have spent 25 years as a ward councillor, have been a deputy leader and cabinet member, and have served on my local ward panel, and I have seen the benefit of neighbourhood policing to my community and borough at grassroots and neighbourhood level. As has been outlined, safer neighbourhood teams are in regular touch with councillors, young people, headteachers, voluntary and community organisations and key people in all the main local public and community services. I am told that the police and PCSOs in Hounslow do not feel confident that neighbourhood policing has a future in London, despite the good words of the commissioner late last year. The drive towards car and computer-based policing means fewer links between the police and the community and less of the benefit that they bring in reducing tensions and improving community safety, and in counter-terrorism. PCSOs are the conduit between the police bureaucracy, the local authority and public services and local residents.

Londoners have built confidence in the police since the implementation of neighbourhood policing. None of us wants to go back to how it was before. I do not want policing to go back to the situation I experienced in my early years as a councillor, when it was impossible to get in touch with the police. There was no engagement on local issues and no consistent engagement; it was only as and when, as a reaction to an incident. There were no long-term links with community organisations and little understanding of local issues, local tensions and local people. I do not want to go back to that position, which is why I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North on securing this debate.

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[Mike Penning]

I will have to write to right hon. and hon. Members, as I will not have time to deal with all the points now, because we are going over the debate that we have already had. However, Operation Trident has done fantastic work, with local information, in the hon. Lady’s constituency, so arrests and prosecutions have taken place. That is happening today.

I will have the honour and privilege in the next couple of weeks of going to Hendon for the passing-out parade, so more officers will be coming out of basic training. On PCSOs, the commissioner has already announced that there will be no reduction from the present levels. I think we would accept that that is right and proper.

Let me also touch on some of the points to do with representation. I think that is really important. Actually, this is one of the things that the commissioner has done that I think is really important, and the Mayor of London has supported it as well. The commissioner has said that recruits—people who want to join the police—have to live in their communities. There is an exemption, which is right and proper, for our armed forces. I was born and bred in Edmonton, but I went off and joined the Army at 16. When I left the Army, I would never have been allowed to join the Met police under the present rules unless there was an exemption for our armed forces. That exemption is right and proper.

However, I think we need to go further. I would say this as a Hertfordshire MP, but the Metropolitan police often recruit trained police officers from outside the Met area and bring them in. I do not think that that is great. I know there are some specialist roles that need to be done, particularly in relation to armed response and other areas, but actually officers should replicate the communities that they serve. I am determined that, throughout the ranks of the police forces in England and Wales, officers should replicate the communities that they serve and live in them. They do not now, and that is not something that has suddenly happened; it is something that we should have addressed years ago. How many chief constables are from a black and ethnic minority background? Very few are, so we must ensure that that happens.

The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee mentioned other duties that the police undertake. That is one of the things that I have been banging on about. I am sorry if she has not heard or has been sent to sleep by any of the speeches that I have made on that subject, but I know that the shadow Policing Minister has heard them. We now have an inter-ministerial group—it started under the coalition—so that we are stopping police officers doing something that they are fundamentally not trained to do, particularly in relation to mental health. I have been out on patrol with the police, like many colleagues here, and all too often when we say, “Where are we going?”, the reply is that we are going to see Mary or Johnny, and this is at 7 o’clock on a Friday night. “Why are we going to see Mary?” “Well, because social services phoned up and they haven’t seen her all week. She’s a very vulnerable lady, so we should go and see her.” No, we should not. It was because a phone call had come in earlier in the evening saying, “We haven’t seen her. Will you go and see her?” That is a social services responsibility. Of course we went, and of course the police would do that, but it is not the key role of the police.

[Ruth Cadbury]

The Minister might like to reflect on the fact that too often the police are the ones being called in because too many of these public services, such as social care and youth services, either are non-existent or have been cut back so far that there is no one to do that visit.

[Mike Penning]

I would challenge whether that is true. I hear this from police officers all the time: when they ask social services when they realised that Mary or Johnny had not been visited and they have not heard from them, the answer is that it was earlier in the week. This nearly always happens on a Friday evening. I am not saying that the police will not respond—of course they will—but we should not be continually asking the police to do something that they are fundamentally not trained to do. Social services need to step up to the plate.

We have changed the rules, particularly on holding juveniles in cells. We were told that that could not work, but what was happening was fundamentally wrong and illegal. A place of safety for someone with a mental illness or a learning difficulty is not a police cell. It is actually and fundamentally an important place that they should be taken to. I was in Holborn recently and we did exactly that. Traditionally, people would have been taken back to the cells—section 135 or 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 might have been used to detain them. We are changing that more and more as we bring in mental health professionals—paid for by the NHS in most cases—who may be embedded with the police in custody facilities, although actually more of them are triaging people out on the streets. That is the sort of thing that is required. We have to have other experts from other departments. We have to break down these silos to try to ensure—[Interruption.] Hon. Members ask from a sedentary position where that is happening. It is happening around the country now. We must not say that it is acceptable that the police are being used inappropriately, and they have been for many years—not just under this Administration, but prior to that.

It is fundamentally important to make this point. Yes, there is a debate—a discussion—but the British public are safer today than they have ever been from traditional crime, which continues to fall. We must ensure that we put all our resources into protecting them from the new types of crime, particularly terrorism. Of course neighbourhood policing is a very important part of that, but it is not about buildings or stations; it is about people delivering the help that the public need.

West London Coroner’s Court

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I thank the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry) for securing the debate and speaking at a time that may not have been easy for him. I concur with what other Members have said about the memory of his father and about seeing whether there is anything we can do to help the many people—our constituents and their families—who are going through such pain. I also thank him for doing the research on comparative examples to let us know that what we are experiencing is not normal.

Delays in death certificates cause huge disruption and pain to those coping with the death of a loved one. We must not underestimate the problems that the delays at the West London coroner’s court have caused, especially for those planning religious burials, as has been mentioned. I want to share two examples from casework in my constituency, which illustrate two different aspects of the administrative problems being experienced.

First, a constituent of mine sadly passed away at his home in Chiswick in April this year at the age of 85. He had not seen two doctors in the preceding months, so his body was taken to the mortuary and referred for an autopsy. In order to make arrangements for the funeral, the family rang the coroner’s office to establish timings for the release of his body. They were held in a queue for more than 50 minutes without reply and directed to send an email. Two weeks later, the family were still waiting. They had not received an acknowledgement of the email and no phone calls were answered or returned. They did eventually get an answer, but for 16 days, the family had no idea whether the remains would be subject to autopsy or when the body would be released back to the family. That is a common situation.

Secondly, Cheryl Hounslow is the ex-wife of Raymond, who died and an inquest was needed. Although estranged, she was the next of kin. He died in April 2014, and she waited 15 months for an inquest that only went ahead, so far as I understand, after my intervention. It turned out that the person handling the case had all the files ready to present to the coroner within two months, but for some reason they were not passed on. I understand that the staff member may have left, but the case could have been passed on for inquest in June 2014. Every organisation should have a procedure for what happens when staff leave, and files should not disappear when someone leaves an organisation. Cheryl could not get through on the phone and got no response to five emails. It was only when my staff got involved that the case was looked at again. In fairness, when the coroner found out that the paperwork had not been passed on, he expedited the hearing and allowed Cheryl to choose the date of the inquest. He blamed the local authority and the Met police for the poor customer service. With that inquest being brought forward quickly, it will have meant someone else waiting longer.

In any organisation, someone somewhere must be responsible for performance standards. I spent 25 years in local government, and we had systems, processes and accountability. That seems not to be the case in this example. The coroner is a public service that people need when they are at their most vulnerable. I hope that the Minister can respond with a plan of action for us and our constituents.

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[Caroline Dinenage]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for bringing that to my attention. I am absolutely clear that the needs of bereaved people should be at the very centre of all coroners’ services. That was supposed to be the main aim of the coroner reforms that we implemented in July 2013.

The West London coroner’s office in Fulham is very busy. It covers a large geographical area, as we know. In 2014 the office received 3,437 reports of deaths and 383 inquests were held. However, that is no excuse for poor, inefficient, rude and insensitive services, or, in some cases, a lack of communication, particularly at such a difficult time when people are grieving. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton is not the only Member whose constituents have been unhappy with the level of service they have received from the West London coroner’s office, particularly with regard to the responsiveness of the office. Several Members have written to me detailing individual cases of constituents who have encountered delays, lack of engagement and rudeness from the coroner’s office, and other Members have raised that today.

My officials and the Chief Coroner’s office have also been alerted to problems. These include bereaved families not being able to access death certificates in a timely manner; delays in holding inquests, which is particularly stressful for bereaved families when they are already going through a very upsetting time; and not having staff at the end of the phone to deal with queries and concerns when they are needed. I understand that a number of complaints have also been lodged with the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton has written to the council’s chief executive on this matter as well.

Earlier this year, the Chief Coroner went to Fulham to visit the senior coroner and his staff. Along with him were representatives from the local authority, which provides the funding and infrastructure for the local coroner service, and also representatives from the Metropolitan police, which provide the coroner’s officers, who are the front-line staff who deal with bereaved people. The senior coroner, the local authority and the police all have a role to play in improving the service. They discussed the issues together and looked at ways to resolve them, and an action plan was agreed. I am pleased to note that, as a result, we are beginning to see signs of a more positive picture emerging from west London. The office has reached its full complement of administrative and investigative staff, including a coroner’s officer manager and six new coroner’s officers. There is now a new way of managing the telephone system so that administrative officers deal with all phone calls in the first instance to relieve the burden on the coroner’s officers, thereby allowing them to focus on progressing cases. However, I take on board the recent instances that the hon. Member for Ealing North has raised about his own experiences with the telephone service. I have made a note of them and my officials will certainly deal with that, because that is not acceptable.

Members will be pleased to hear that west London has now reduced the backlog that it inherited. The senior coroner inherited 400 outstanding inquests when he took up post. That has now been reduced to 70 cases and it is anticipated that these final historic cases will be cleared by the end of February, which will allow staff to focus fully on new cases. The senior coroner has attempted to clear the backlog by making sure there are two courts running in parallel with his assistant coroners hearing cases alongside him.

As the Minister with the coroners portfolio, I share the wish of all Members in the Chamber to resolve matters as quickly as possible. As they have already articulated, the process is not straightforward. The Ministry of Justice has overall responsibility for coroner policy and law, but the responsibility for the delivery and funding of coroner services is a local matter for the appropriate local authority, in this case the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. It is for it to decide how to run and fund the coroner services.

[Ruth Cadbury]

The Minister has outlined where the funding lies and where responsibility for the overall policy and strategy lie. Where does overall responsibility for the monitoring and reporting of performance of coroners’ courts lie?

[Caroline Dinenage]

That would lie with the coroners themselves and with the Chief Coroner, whose post was created in 2012. We now have a Chief Coroner who is responsible for overseeing all such matters, but where there are cases that need to be investigated, it is up to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office. It is currently investigating the conduct of the West London senior coroner, including the case that the hon. Member for Ealing North referred to earlier. That case has been transferred to the inner west London coroner, Dr Fiona Wilcox, who will now be dealing with it. In cases where performance has not been as expected, it is up to the JCIO to carry out investigations.

[Ruth Cadbury]

The Minister referred to standards. Is there a set of standards for how coroners have to deal with cases? What are the measures against which we know that delivery is getting better or worse, or is adequate, satisfactory or inadequate?

[Caroline Dinenage]

That was all included in the coroner reforms. If the hon. Lady gives me just a little time, I am about to talk about them.

As I said earlier, bereaved people must be at the heart of the coroner service, and that was the key aim of the reforms in the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. The coalition Government implemented those reforms, including the rules and regulations that underpin the Act. The provisions came into force in July 2013 and introduced the role of the Chief Coroner. In September 2012, his honour Judge Peter Thornton QC was appointed as the first Chief Coroner. He has already played a central role in providing guidance for coroners on the new national standards for coroners set out in the legislation. Coroners are now required, for example, to conclude an inquest within six months of a death being reported to them, or as soon as practicable afterwards. They are also required to report coroner investigations that last more than 12 months to the Chief Coroner, who is in turn required to report on that to the Lord Chancellor and to Parliament in his annual report.

For bereaved people and families, the most significant development under the 2009 Act was perhaps the “Guide to Coroner Services” booklet, a document published by the Ministry of Justice that sets out the standards of service that people can expect from coroners’ offices and what they can do if they feel that those standards are not being met. It is vital not only that coroners know what the standards are, but that bereaved people understand how a coroner’s investigation is likely to proceed. The guide is accompanied by a shorter leaflet that sets out the key aspects of an investigation. We have sent hard copies of the guide and the leaflet to every coroner’s office in England and Wales so that they can be given to every bereaved person or family. The guide is also available on the gov.uk website.

Women and the Economy

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and record numbers of small and medium-sized enterprises are gaining public contracts. We cannot have our young women growing up in a country where they get paid less because of their gender, rather than how good they are at their job. One of the most important ways to ensure long-term economic security is to break down the barriers that still hold too many women back, which is why we have given working parents greater choice by enabling more than 20 million employees to request flexible working; why we have introduced shared parental leave; and why we will extend shared parental leave and pay to working grandparents. This will support parents with the cost of childcare and help the 2 million grandparents—unsung heroes such as my mum—who give up work, reduce their hours or take time off to help with childcare.

At the same time, nearly one quarter of women between the ages of 50 and 64 provide unpaid care for a relative or friend. We have invested £1.6 million to help carers who wish to stay in work to balance their different roles. We are doing this using flexible working and innovative technology, and there are now nine pilots around the country exploring ways to help carers manage their paid work while looking after their loved ones.

One of the most important issues affecting parents—both men and women—is childcare, which is why we are investing more than £1 billion more each year in free childcare places, including by doubling the free childcare entitlement from 15 hours to 30 hours a week for working families with three and four-year-olds in 2017. In addition, from early 2017, we will offer tax-free childcare to provide up to £2,000 of childcare support per child per year for working families with children up to 12 years old. This will take the total Government spend on childcare from £5 billion in 2015 to more than £6 billion by 2020.

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

Is the Minister aware that the Government’s funding offer for the additional 15 hours is inadequate and at best confusing, and that there is a risk that most childcare places will be underfunded and that many might be lost as a result, thus reducing the availability of suitable childcare?

[Caroline Dinenage]

Of course, we are raising the funding, but I will not take any lessons from Labour. I might be slightly older than many here, but I was a mum putting two children through childcare under the Labour Government, and I watched childcare prices become the most expensive in Europe. I was one of those women working to pay my childcare bill.

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

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) for opening today’s debate. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond),as I hope to work with her on the new all-party parliamentary group on women and work.

Women form over half the UK population, yet their contribution to the economy is sadly not equal, and I fear that, thanks to the decisions of this Government, they will form an even smaller contribution to the economy. The right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), under whom I have the honour to serve on the Women and Equalities Select Committee, said that we cannot address many of the issues raised in this debate without a stronger economy. My question is, how will the Government ensure that women benefit equally from the economic growth that they predict? Far too many women feel that they are not benefiting from whatever growth may be taking place now.

According to the Women’s Budget Group, pursuing deficit reduction on the back of women—particularly lone mothers and single female pensioners, who are the most affected—is just plain wrong. If the Government had the slightest interest in fairness, they would conduct a detailed impact assessment and a review, and, if they were prepared to do so, they would revise some of their decisions as a consequence.

Why does there need to be a women’s perspective on the economy? Let us look at pay. My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston once told us about a meeting that she had had with a group of women in Camden who had recently been granted the living wage—the true living wage. One of the women had said that those extra few pounds an hour enabled her to save a bit of money each month, and that she hoped eventually to save enough to go on holiday with her family. Those extra few pounds meant a great deal to her, because she had never had a holiday before.

Moreover, the little impact of the payment of a living wage by that woman’s employer was not only good for her and for her colleagues, but good for the company for which they worked, because the resulting increase in staff satisfaction led to higher retention rates. The company had generally found that 40 vacancies needed to be filled, but this year they needed to fill only two. Moreover, the change benefited not just that woman, her colleagues and their families, but the local economy where she lived, and the economy of whatever area she visited when she went on holiday, which may have been a part of the United Kingdom that depends on the pounds that are spent by holidaymakers.

The fact that a large section of our workforce are on low incomes that the Chancellor’s changes will not address is not only bad for women, but bad for children, bad for business and bad for the economy, both local and national. As the economy is the underpinning element of the debate, I shall now quote from an important document. It states:

“Ensuring that women achieve their full potential will have a significant impact on our economy:

Equalising women’s productivity and employment to the same levels as men’s could add almost £600 billion to our economy. This could clear a third of our national debt.”

Who said that? In fact, it was in the foreword to the Government’s consultation paper on the gender pay gap, which was written by the Minister for Women and Equalities, the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan).

I am pleased to note that the Government have taken some lessons from the last Labour Government, including the lesson that, for most women—especially women on low pay—childcare is a barrier to labour market participation. However, if Members want to hark back to the awful days of previous Governments—as some did earlier—I am happy to oblige. My children were under-fives under the last Conservative Government, in the mid-1990s, and we had to pay our childminder out of our after-tax income. At that time, many women, especially lone parents, were effectively excluded from the job market. The Labour Government introduced tax credit, childcare vouchers and the Sure Start initiative.

We welcome the spirit of the current Government’s Childcare Bill, which offers five hours a week more childcare than the Labour manifesto, but, unlike the Labour offer, the Conservative offer was initially underfunded, and there are still a great many questions to which the Government must respond if they are to persuade us that that childcare will be flexible and affordable.

[Ian Blackford]

rose—

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[Seema Malhotra]

rose—

[Ruth Cadbury]

rose—

[Harriett Baldwin]

I will make some progress. We want to make sure that the pay gap narrows further and faster. From next year, we will require large companies to publish differences in pay.

Employment Tribunal Fees

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Justin Madders]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention; his record on representing working people is one of note. He is absolutely right that everyone who takes part in the system contributes already through their taxes. As I will go on to demonstrate, there is little sign of any wider benefit to society. In fact, it could be argued that the fees are creating more problems than they solve.

Between October 2013 and September 2014, there were 32,671 fewer single claims brought by individuals than in the previous 12 months. That is a decrease of 64%. Over the same period, the number of multiple claim cases—those brought by two or more people against the same employer—was down by 3,527. That is a decrease of 67%. Comparing different periods can produce different figures, and an awful lot of different comparisons can be made. Indeed, some comparisons show up to an 80% drop in claims lodged. Whatever the comparisons or periods used, there is an average drop of around 70% in the number of claims lodged. It is therefore indisputable that there has been a significant drop in the number of claims since the introduction of fees.

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. I held a debate in this room a few weeks ago on women and low pay, an issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) just raised. The tribunal process is an important mechanism through which women can secure equal pay in their place of work, because if the claim is successful, their employer is instructed to carry out an equal pay audit. The financial barrier, however, means that many women are not getting to that stage, and therefore fewer equal pay audits are being done than could be done. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) agree that tribunal fees represent a barrier to equality in the workplace for not only the women making claims, but those in workplaces where claims could be made but are not?

[Justin Madders]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s excellent contribution in the debate she referred to. She is, of course, right that there are significant issues of barriers to justice, and of employers not learning lessons about inequality; that needs to be put right. She makes a valid point about equal pay audits. Tribunals have additional powers beyond simply awarding compensation. We hear a lot of rhetoric from the Government about cutting down on the compensation culture, but tribunals have important powers that go beyond compensation. They also, for example, have the power to make a statement of an employee’s terms and conditions. That is absolutely basic, bread-and-butter stuff that we should expect to happen in an employment relationship, but occasionally it is necessary for an employee to go to a tribunal to get that basic statement of terms and conditions.

We can bandy the figures around in a number of ways, but the common thread is that there has been a 65% to 70% drop in the number of claims lodged. It is little wonder that, with such overwhelming evidence, Lord Justice Underhill stated the following when he considered in the High Court Unison’s judicial review of the fees regime:

“It is quite clear from the comparison between the number of claims brought in the ET before and after 29 July 2013 that the introduction of fees has had the effect of deterring a very large number of potential claimants.”

That is a very clear statement.

There has no doubt been a reduction in the number of claims made. Have employers suddenly started treating their employees better? [Laughter.] I do not think there is any suggestion among Opposition Members that that is the case. It is worth remembering that since the introduction of fees, the general trend has been an increase in the number of people in work, so the proportion of people in employment who are bringing tribunal claims is actually decreasing even more than is suggested by the raw data.

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[Mr Vara]

I maintain that it is too simplistic to say that the fees were responsible for the drop. If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me for just a moment, I will explain the other reasons that may have contributed to the decline in the numbers. As I have already mentioned, ACAS’s evaluation of the service suggests that the early results are promising. It is noteworthy that the trend was that the number of claims was declining before fees were introduced. It is likely that that was related, at least in part, to the improving economy, which has delivered higher levels of employment. The economy and employment have continued to improve, and it is therefore likely that we would have continued to see a trend of falling claim numbers, irrespective of whether fees were introduced.

[Ruth Cadbury]

The Minister says that there was a decline for other reasons. The figures that we heard earlier in the debate were of 60% drops and even a 90% drop in certain types of cases. Was the level of drop in claims that the Minister saw of that order?

[Mr Vara]

I am giving a general analysis of the number of claims that were made to the employment tribunal. The trend of the total number of claims was declining. The hon. Lady seeks to talk about specific types of cases, and I am not going to go into that. I am talking about the general trend, because the debate and the numbers given so far have been broad and have related to the total number of applications received to employment tribunals.

Draft Maximum Number of Judges Order 2015

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Maximum Number of Judges Order 2015.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Davies. I anticipate that this sitting will be brief.

The effect of the draft order is simply to increase the number of Court of Appeal judges by one. The number is set by statute under section 2 of the Senior Courts Act 1981, which currently provides for a maximum of 38 Court of Appeal judges. In March 2015, Lord Justice Pitchford, an existing Court of Appeal judge, was appointed by the Home Secretary to lead an inquiry into undercover policing and the operation of the Metropolitan police’s special demonstration squad. The inquiry, which began on 17 July, was established under the Inquiries Act 2005 and is anticipated to conclude around the end of 2018.

Having been appointed as such, Lord Justice Pitchford remains a Court of Appeal judge and remains counted in the current complement of 38. However, he is unable to fulfil any duties in the Court of Appeal while he leads the inquiry. To ensure that the total number of Court of Appeal judges available for deployment remains at current levels, it is necessary to increase their number by one. There is no method for revising the number of Court of Appeal judges other than by this order. This is a reasonable amendment that aims to maintain the complement of Court of Appeal judges while one of their members is engaged in other important work.

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

I note that only eight women are Court of Appeal judges. I do not know how many are black and minority ethnic, but only 7% of judges across all courts and tribunals are BME. Might this be an opportunity to address some of the diversity issues among the judiciary?

[Mr Vara]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. We are very keen that there should be proper judicial diversity. The judiciary should include women and people from diverse ethnic and social backgrounds. I think that the hon. Lady would agree that it is nevertheless important that we have people with the right qualities, but I entirely agree that we should do everything possible to increase diversity. There is a set procedure for appointing a Court of Appeal judge. I am sure that when they consider who to appoint, they will bear in mind what the hon. Lady has articulated and what I know is felt across the political divide. She makes a good point and I thank her for that.

British Airways (Pensions Uprating)

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green]

I thank the hon. Gentleman and I very much hope that, seeing the strength of feeling around the House tonight, BA most certainly will realise that it must play fair.

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

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and on her new appointment today. Does she agree that as BA was controlled by the Conservative Government in 1984, when the undertaking was given, it is reasonable for BA pensioners, of whom I have a lot in my constituency, to expect some support from the current Conservative Government in order to ensure that undertakings given should be honoured? As she said, many of these people are on low incomes.