Public Services

Sandy Martin Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), although I am not sure that many Members on the Government Benches will agree with his assessment of the Queen’s Speech.

The Queen’s Speech presented to Parliament this week was an opportunity for the Government to get on with their domestic agenda, focusing on public services and aiming to deliver what the people want us to do. For too long, hour upon hour of Government time—in fact, almost 500 hours—has been eaten up by furthering of the Brexit debate. That time could, no doubt, have been spent on other things, but we continued on around the Brexit merry-go-round while so few recognised that the country wanted to move on. Although the previous Session was dominated by Brexit, we must not forget that more than 70 Bills received Royal Assent in that Parliament—in stark contrast to the 26 passed in the Scottish Parliament. My constituency of Angus had the fourth highest leave vote of any constituency in Scotland, but when I am out on the doorsteps, as I have been almost every weekend since I was elected, people say they want us to get on and get Brexit sorted. They also want to leave the constitutional debate in Scotland to one side—perhaps even for a generation.

Monday’s Queen’s Speech focused absolutely on public services—the issues that matter to everyone’s everyday lives. Although some measures will not affect Scotland, as the chair of the all-party group on eating disorders I was pleased to see a renewed focus on mental health. I recognise that efforts will predominantly focus on those in detention in hospitals and police custody, but we must always increase our ambitions in this policy area. We must never forget that there will be people in this Chamber, across the estate and in every workplace, school and university who are suffering from mental health issues. I want ours to be a more open society so that people can recognise that the support is there if they are willing to come forward and get it.

The Queen’s Speech also mentioned the pension schemes Bill, which I warmly welcome because several hard-working plumbers in Angus were in a defined pension scheme and faced potential financial ruin. They entered into a multi-employer scheme without ever imagining that they would face demands for six or seven-figure sums. I have worked hard to represent their views in this place. That Bill will give those in such difficult situations further support by requiring a statement from trustees on their funding strategy. Although that may not help those in my constituency, it will ensure that similar situations do not arise again.

Two important Bills mentioned in the Queen’s Speech that do affect Scotland are the fisheries Bill and the immigration Bill. The fisheries Bill will enable us to depart from the European Union and allow the fishing industry in Scotland to prosper in a sea of opportunity. No Scottish Member of Parliament can deny that leaving the common fisheries policy will deliver for our fishing industry. It is incumbent on both the UK Government and the Scottish Government to improve infrastructure and support the industry as it enters a new and exciting era.

Of course, the fishing industry will also require labour, which leads me to the immigration Bill. Along with the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), I welcome the two-year graduate work visa announcement, and also the review of the £30,000 annual salary cap—both issues on which Scottish Conservatives spoke up at the time. I want the immigration Bill to ensure that we can bring in the skills and labour that we require as we depart from the European Union. Migrants contribute so positively in Angus and throughout the country. Whether it is in fish processing in Arbroath, manufacturing in Montrose or the agricultural industry throughout my constituency, including the soft fruit industry, they contribute to our local area and to our society. They and their families are welcome, and they are welcome to lay down roots in this great country.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Lady not recognise that the previous Queen’s Speech included the Immigration Bill and the Fisheries Bill, which could easily have been enacted without having to have this Queen’s Speech? Not only that, but an enormous amount of time and effort had already gone into the previous Fisheries Bill, which fell because of the Prorogation of Parliament.

[Kirstene Hair]

Hopefully, when the legislation comes back to the House, we will be able to fast-track it through this place. We will have even better legislation because we will have had that debate before.

A positive immigration scheme is exactly what we want and exactly what Scottish Conservatives have been standing up for. We must never forget that migrants are absolutely welcome to our country and add very positively to our local communities. I welcome the fact that there will be no discrimination based on where they come from, but instead an open and fair system, as operates so well in other countries around the world.

What is most important about the Queen’s Speech is that when the Prime Minister came into office, he said that his focus was on healthcare, policing and education, and now, only weeks later, we see a bold and robust Queen’s Speech that will deliver in all those areas. That is what all those who vote us into this place want to see: they want to see us deliver in the areas that matter to them. That is in stark contrast to Nicola Sturgeon, who this week stood up at her Aberdeen conference, spoke for 45 minutes and did not once mention healthcare or education. Education was supposed to be what her record would be judged on, yet there are now 3,000 fewer teachers than there were in 2007, the SNP has binned the education Bill, and Scotland is way down in the international standards. But of course, that can all wait because independence comes first.

The UK Government have done well to build our economy. We have the lowest levels of unemployment and the highest levels of employment since the 1970s. It is unfortunate that a report out in Scotland today from the Fraser of Allander Institute shows that Scotland has seen one of the biggest increases in unemployment in four years and a decline in employment over the past three months. It is important to recognise that we cannot blame that on Brexit, because we have seen a completely different picture in the wider United Kingdom.

Before I finish, let me mention briefly the importance of the Union, which was also mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. The Union is the reason I am here, and it is my absolute priority to stand up for it as a Member of Parliament. It is what my constituents want me to stand up for, and that is what I will do. We know the importance of the dividend we get from being part of the Union, whether that is in respect of finances, security or defence. It is incredibly important that we continue to stress that message loud and clear. While the SNP wants to create barriers at Berwick, we want to ensure that we strengthen our ties with the rest of the United Kingdom.

The Queen’s Speech was a clear statement of intent from the Government that the domestic agenda is absolutely imperative—from being tough on crime to levelling up NHS funding, and from ensuring that we have a fishing industry that is ready to prosper to an immigration Bill that will ensure we have the labour we require. These are truly the issues that the people of our United Kingdom care about, and that is—as we must always remember—the reason we are so privileged to sit here.

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[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) and all the other excellent contributions from Members of this House over the past seven hours.

Having a secure place to live is absolutely fundamental to the ability to lead an enjoyable, law-abiding and productive life, yet there is nothing in this Queen’s Speech to deal with the housing crisis. Britain’s housing crisis is at the root of the failure of this wealthy country to be the country people want it to be—not just the most vulnerable but a growing proportion of working people who can hardly afford their private sector rents and do not expect ever to be able to afford to buy their own house.

If a person is homeless, they will have far worse health and will cost the NHS far more than the average housed person. A homeless person is less likely to hold down a job, will have to rely on benefits and will not be paying taxes. Homeless people are more likely to fall into addiction to drugs or alcohol or both and to commit petty crimes to feed their addiction. Then, if they are convicted and imprisoned, they are far more likely to be thrown back out on to the streets than in other European countries. It is no coincidence that the lack of a comprehensive and coherent housing regime for ex-offenders goes hand in hand with one of the highest rates of reoffending in Europe. Unless we are willing to house ex-offenders, we are most certainly not being tough on the causes of crime.

Councils across Britain are spending more than £93 million a year on emergency bed-and-breakfast accommodation for homeless households—nearly 10 times more than in 2010. The massive increase we have seen in homelessness under this Government is a direct result of their policy decisions—in particular, the freezing of local housing allowance since 2016. Now, in 97% of England, including Ipswich, even if someone receives the maximum LHA, it will not cover all their rent and they will have to make up the difference using money meant for food, heating or clothing.

Being made homeless is a devastating event for families. Being placed in so-called bed-and-breakfast accommodation seriously limits a family’s ability to live their lives. Children cannot study; parents cannot relax; very often visitors are not allowed; it is like being in prison.

I am immensely proud that Ipswich Borough Council has built its own temporary accommodation for more than 80 households, in two main purpose-built units, built since Labour took control of the council in 2011. They are high-quality, safe flats with support and counselling, and staff are on site 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, giving residents help to get back on their feet and find permanent housing. That is clearly better than leaving families to rot in bed and breakfasts. I found it particularly shocking that Conservative councillors in Ipswich tried to stir up local opposition to the more recent of those units being built. Campaigning against accommodation for homeless families is, alas, not the only action that Conservatives have taken against Ipswich Borough Council’s attempts to deal with our housing crisis.

When families are homeless, what they need is a permanent home. Unless and until we build at least 1 million homes with affordable rents and a landlord who is democratically accountable to both the tenants and the wider community—in short, council homes—far too many young families will continue to struggle, with huge proportions of their income disappearing into ever increasing private rents, or end up camping in their parents’ homes, often having to share a bedroom with their children or sleep on a sofa in the living room.

Labour will build those homes. Labour councils such as Ipswich are already building some of those homes, but the current Government are not facilitating that building programme—far from it. Not only have they kept housing allowance down, reducing the rent income available to finance more building, but they have now increased the Public Works Loan Board rate by 50%, which will knock a huge hole in the business plans of all the councils that are trying to build homes. What was the point of removing the HRA borrowing cap with one hand, if they then make it too expensive to borrow with the other?

Even when Ipswich Borough Council has found the land and the finance to build some of those homes, the Government have found other ways to stop it. There are 97 families in Ipswich who do not have the good-quality, affordable rented homes that they would have had if my Conservative predecessor had not called in the development of that estate because he thought there was too much affordable rented property. Even now, the most recent proposed council housing estate in Ipswich will have fewer homes for rent and will have to include houses for sale that are almost certainly too expensive for the families who most need them, just to meet the private sales quota set by this Government.

Housing is a human need. The Government will never be able to deliver all the other public services people need if they do not also deliver good-quality housing for all. It is disgraceful that there is nothing in this Queen’s Speech to deal with it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sandy Martin Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

9. What recent assessment he has made of the capacity of police forces to investigate serious violent crime.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

13. What recent assessment he has made of the capacity of police forces to investigate serious violent crime.

[The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Mr Nick Hurd)]

As the House has heard, the Government attach high priority to bearing down on the cycle of serious violence and have recently committed an additional £100 million to support police services in that effort.

[Mr Hurd]

I have a great deal of sympathy for the hon. Lady and the situation in her constituency—I, too, have suffered a recent murder in my constituency—but it is a misrepresentation of the Government’s position to say that we have just embarked on a journey of underpinning our strategy through a public health approach. What we have announced today is the launch of a consultation on a statutory duty to co-operate.

[Sandy Martin]

In addition to our need for police officers, public interface, intelligence gathering, evidence processing and so on depend on police staff. Does the Minister accept that the 30% cut in Suffolk police staff and the 72% cut in police community support officers since 2010 have reduced the capacity to investigate serious crime?

[Mr Hurd]

I have candidly recognised in the House that our police system has been under pressure, which is why we have increased public investment. As a result, police and crime commissioners across the country are recruiting, at the last count, around 3,000 officers, plus additional staff. I am mystified as to why the hon. Gentleman voted against it.

Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill

Sandy Martin Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Friday 15th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

I know my hon. Friend is always vigilant, rather than suspicious. Having sat through many Committees over many years in this House arguing the toss over whether the word “may” should be replaced by the word “must”, I have to say that I am not concerned about the wording of the Bill. I have had many conversations with the Ministers responsible, and the Government are absolutely committed to delivering on the undertakings in this Bill. It had to be put together in such a way to give some leeway to Ministers to be able to produce the right legislation at the right time. That involved a degree of discretion, which I know my hon. Friend and others in both Houses were concerned about. A number of undertakings were therefore added to the Bill and were given orally, not least a sunset clause, so that this clause, which I know my hon. Friend has had concerns about in the past, could not be used for other purposes as something of a Trojan horse. I entirely appreciate his observation, but I do not share his concern that this will not actually be produced. I think it will be produced in a fairly short space of time. Goodness knows, we tried for long enough to get mothers’ names on marriage certificates.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Fairly shortly after being elected, I was approached by several opposite-sex couples who are determined to have a civil partnerships, and tens of thousands of people around the country would like to have such a civil partnership. Does the hon. Gentleman share my confidence that, were the Government to try to renege on it at this very late stage, such demand would be enough of an incentive to make sure the Secretary of State actually followed through on this?

[Tim Loughton]

As I will come on to say shortly, there have been some ups and downs with getting this Bill through. Back in October, on the civil partnerships clauses, the Prime Minister herself, in an article in the London Evening Standard, made it clear that Government policy was now firmly in favour of extending civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples. That was a clear undertaking, which was almost unanimously supported by Members of this House and very largely supported by Members of the other House. We have factored in the legislation in such a way that it can be brought in this year, which is really important and means it will also comply with the Supreme Court judgment. If there are people who have not entered into a civil partnership—presuming there are those who want it, and I know there are—before the end of this year, I shall be more than a little peeved, but I shall also be greatly surprised. That is not a problem I anticipate.

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[Kevin Foster]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we need to get the message out there. Ironically, people think that it is somehow easier to be a common law wife or husband, when it is actually easier to be viewed as married in a religious sense than it is in the legal sense.

There is a story that I will not go into in too much because it involves the last week of my mother’s life, and there are difficult memories, but I will mention it briefly. My mum was in a hospice, and a little blessing service was held, at which Hazel and I were present. It was referred to in some of the coverage that our engagement ring was my mother’s ring, which she gave to Hazel that day. Had the priest run through the vows there that day, Hazel and I would have been a married couple in the Christian religious sense. Under the law, the marriage would not have had any legal status because we would not have complied with the terms of the Marriage Act 1949; we would not have posted banns, given notice or obtained a special licence. However, in a Christian sense, we would have been a married couple, had she run through the vows that day. People forget that it is easier to be viewed as married in a religious sense than it is in a legal sense. And, as my hon. Friend says, there is no such thing as a common law wife or husband in the legal sense.

[Sandy Martin]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Kevin Foster]

I will in just a moment.

My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) asks how we can get this message out there. We are doing it through debates such as these, but we are also creating an option for people who want to have a legal relationship but not necessarily a religious one. Agreeing with the Lords amendments today is certainly a good way of doing that, and we must ensure that, as the legislation is brought in, the Government conduct a clear information campaign to make people aware that this will be a partnership with legal status, rather than just living together and hoping that that will count.

[Sandy Martin]

The hon. Gentleman has just answered the question I was going to ask. However, does he agree that getting the message through to all the people who believe they have a common law marriage that they need to do something about it is possibly one of the most effective parts of what we are doing here today?

[Kevin Foster]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his welcome intervention. I hope that that is indeed the case.

Some of this grows out of the time when it was very difficult to get divorced. It was expensive, and the legal system reflected a different era. This is about simplifying the options. It is also about same-sex couples. Sadly, for too many years they were denied the opportunity to have their relationships—often close, loving relationships that had lasted for many decades—recognised under the law, whereas an opposite-sex couple could quite easily get married purely for convenience or to avoid certain tax liabilities. We have rightly moved the law forward in that regard to give people options and opportunities. People now have a choice if they do not necessarily want to see themselves as married but want a form of legal recognition for their relationship.

Sadly, there have been too many cases over the past 30 or 40 years involving same-sex couples who have had a close and loving relationship, and when one of them passes away, the relatives have suddenly developed rather Victorian attitudes to such relationships when they realise that there might be a few quid in it for them. Those relatives often launch legal actions that the deceased partner would certainly not have wanted to see, because they would have wanted their property dealt with in a very different way. We must get the message across that there is something about being married or being in a civil partnership that gives people legal recognition and puts their status and wishes beyond doubt.

Knife Crime

Sandy Martin Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Since the tragic murder of 17-year-old Tavis Spencer-Aitkens in my constituency, I have been meeting local community groups to see what we can do to try to prevent young people from getting involved in gangs, gang violence and drug dealing. There is a move to glamorise this lifestyle through social media, so I hope the Secretary of State can imagine my horror at discovering, just over a week ago, that films are still available on social media—showing violence, drug taking, making money out of selling drugs and, indeed, abusing young women—starring members of the gangs who are themselves currently on trial for murder. What can the Secretary of State do? Does he agree with me that he needs to work with other members of the Cabinet right across Government, and that convening Cobra will enable that to happen? We cannot afford to have this sort of glamorisation of a gang lifestyle still available on social media.

[Sajid Javid]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of this issue and the need to work across Government. He asked about social media and the way in which some parts of it glamorised violence. I, too, have seen some of the material to which he referred, and far too much is available on social media. Some of it is generated in the UK and some abroad, but it all glamorises this type of violence.

What are we doing about it? Last year, I funded a £1.4 million project on social media capability, run from London, to look at what can be done to try to tackle some of this material online, but we need to do much more. We need new powers to do that, which is why I am working with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on a new online harms White Paper. The intention is to give the state more powers to tackle exactly what the hon. Gentleman was discussing.

Macpherson Report: 20th Anniversary

Sandy Martin Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Douglas Ross]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s points. I say this to her gently, but she might be even more impressed when she hears some of my speech, now that she has entered the Chamber.

I agree with the point about unconscious bias, but the point I was coming to was about training. Whether training is for unconscious bias or to improve officers’ interactions or responses to racial incidents, it cannot simply be a tick-box exercise. We cannot simply say, “Go online, enter this portal, and at the end of it”—maybe five or 10 minutes later—“click the ‘submit’ button and suddenly you are racially trained,” or, “You are trained to deal with racial incidents,” or, “You are trained to deal with communities from BAME backgrounds.” I have a serious concern that those at the top of the police in all parts of the United Kingdom think that they are achieving what we want them to because they can say, “100% of our officers are trained in x,” or, “We have ensured that this is done at the policing training college,” in Tulliallan in Scotland or elsewhere.

If that training does not having a lasting impact among new recruits or officers, it is quite simply a waste of time, because we are not getting to the root of the problem and ensuring that we can enhance opinions. We have to look at the training element of all this, rather than trying to tick a box and saying, “It’s done. Move on and concentrate on the rest.” Again, we heard in evidence to our Select Committee that some tutors at those colleges were basically saying, “Do this bit and then we can get on to the exciting part of policing.” That is basically saying: “You don’t have to worry about it. You just have to do this to pass and then you move on to the rest.”

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a really good training process will have enough leeway to ensure that people who do not make the grade do not end up as police officers and that in order to do that we need the resources to recruit slightly more police officers than we actually need?

[Douglas Ross]

That takes us to another level. In order to say to someone that they are not allowed to be a police officer because, in our interpretation, they have failed a test, we need to have a far more rigorous test. It cannot simply be this multiple choice exercise, which is completed online and submitted, and if a person gets above or below 50%, they are accepted or otherwise. If someone failed, and the tutors did not believe that they had met the racial training, we would have to look at why. Why would someone want to be a police officer and, when they get into a position of great power, use that power against the communities that we should all be there to support? I worry about that, but we do have to consider seriously how we train and recruit officers.

I know that Members representing English and Welsh constituencies discuss police numbers, but it is not an issue for them alone; we have the same in Scotland. Although I am grateful that the SNP Scottish Government agreed with the Scottish Conservatives in 2007 to increase the number of police officers in Scotland by 1,000, it was an agreement that the two parties had to make to get the budget through at a time of a minority Scottish Government. That was a very important policy for the Scottish Conservatives to get enacted. We are always looking for more police officers, especially in my area, which is not in the central belt of Scotland. Moray, which was formerly policed by Grampian police, could always do with more officers to ensure that we can see more on the beat.

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[Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova). Her concluding remarks about the importance of giving our young people hope, and showing that we have made progress and learned the lessons of the past, is essential. I will talk about both the positives and the negatives as we assess the situation in our country, particularly with respect to the police and whether we have learned and implemented the lessons.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris). I was brought up in north Nottingham, so it is a privilege to hear his remarks. He and the members of the Home Affairs Committee do a good job in reminding us that we must continue to pay attention to these critical issues.

Inevitably, hon. Members on both sides of the House have paid tribute to Baroness Lawrence and Dr Lawrence, without whom this country would not have focused on these important lessons. Their bravery, courage, determination and persistence deserve huge tribute, and I know they have done it as a tribute to their son. We should thank them today.

As the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) said, Baroness Lawrence wants to know where the positives are, and it is important to mention some of the positives. Our country, particularly the capital, has seen so many murders by stabbing, and we are seeing some of the lessons learned from the Macpherson report applied to those appalling murder investigations.

In my constituency, two young men from black and minority ethnic communities have been murdered with knives in the past two years. I have witnessed how those murder investigations have been conducted, and lessons have been learned, and we have seen that in practice. Of course, I wish that there was no need for murder investigations at all, but they have improved by reaching out to the affected communities. Communities have been given confidence that that there is genuine independence, that investigations are reviewed, and that there is a team approach as opposed to things coming down to one individual, which was part of what went wrong in the original investigation into the Stephen Lawrence murder. There has been some improvement, but of course we just wish there were not so many murders to be investigated.

The role of the family liaison officer came from the report and is incredibly significant, and some of our amazing FLOs do important work in managing the grief of a victim’s whole family.

[Sandy Martin]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that much of the focus on the problems of gang violence and young people being targeted by criminals has fallen on the police force? However, an awful lot could and should have been done with youth and social services that might have helped to prevent some of the violence that we are seeing now.

[Sir Edward Davey]

I absolutely agree, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.

Some of the changes that we have seen are the mechanical and policy changes that were the least we could have expected. In reading the material 20 years on, my concern is that we still need some deeper changes, and they relate to culture and attitudes. We had a good exchange about training off the back of the speech from the hon. Member for Moray, and one problem with training is that it can be a tick-box exercise and does not go deep enough and get to what is in people’s hearts and minds. That applies not just to the police force, but to wider society.

I genuinely worry that the reason why we are not making progress in the police force is because we are not making progress in society, and I have to say that I feel that there is more racism today than there was a few years ago. I think we are going backwards, and that relates to how race is being portrayed in the media and—I am not going to bring Brexit into this—to some of the issues that may have contributed to Brexit. Some of those things have unleashed feelings and voices that I do not think we heard a few years ago, and that is regressive. As we mark this important anniversary and look to the police to do a lot better, we need to do better as a society. This is a deep issue.

While there has, of course, been progress and while we have seen some recommendations implemented, I am afraid that we have gone backwards in several areas. That is the truth. I look forward to the Home Affairs Committee’s full report so that we can compare and contrast it with the report published on the 10th anniversary, and I wonder whether it will be as positive. According to the crime survey for England and Wales, only 50% of Black Caribbean people agree with the statement “police would treat you fairly” compared with 68% of white people. That is quite a big difference, and that is based on people’s experiences.

Stop-and-search is being used more now than it was back when Stephen Lawrence was murdered, and parts of this House are putting pressure on Home Office Ministers to go back to using more stop-and-search as if it is the answer. We have huge amounts of evidence to suggest that stop-and-search is not going to find the criminals. If we are going to stop and search people, it is much better if it is intelligence-led, based on information that comes from the community and is gathered by community police officers and others working in the community, so that it is effective. I pay tribute to the Prime Minister—I do not always do that, as the Policing Minister will know—for being brave on this issue when she was Home Secretary. She made clear that stop-and-search was not the tool that the police force should use, because there was so much discrimination coming from it and so much ill feeling, given the much higher proportion of black people being stopped and searched. As we have this debate, we should remember Stephen Lawrence and be very careful before we reach for the stop-and-search tool as some sort of solution.

New technologies are being used that this House has not yet turned its attention to. At the moment, facial recognition techniques are not regulated, and this House has not debated the civil liberty issues around them. I am worried about that, because in the United States, where they have been used, there has been bias against black and ethnic minority communities in the way that those technologies appear to work. If we are going to update our understanding of racism in policing, we need to ensure that we apply the lessons of the past to the technologies of the future, so that they are properly regulated and not discriminatory.

In my intervention on the hon. Member for Nottingham North, I mentioned the real concern that at senior ranks—superintendent and above—there appears to be a disproportionate number of black and ethnic minority police officers being disciplined. That is a worry, because there seems to be no reasonable explanation other than attempts by other officers to get in the way of those officers’ careers. That is pernicious. I have not done a full study—that would require a lot of evidence, because it is such a serious allegation—but it needs to be looked at.

I hope the Minister can assure us that his Department and the police are taking those issues seriously, because if we do not ensure that black male and female officers are treated fairly and perceived to be treated fairly, we will not deal with this. We will not get the recruitment and retention. We will not get enough representation at a senior level, which is fundamentally the only way to solve this issue, and we will not give all our communities trust and confidence in their police force.

There has been progress, but I worry that it has stalled, and as it reflects wider society, it may even have gone backwards. We all know about and have debated at length in this Chamber in recent weeks and months the many challenges facing our country, our society and our police forces, but this issue has to come back on to the agenda, because it has slipped down, and it is our duty to ensure that it gets back up there. We must ensure that senior police officers, chief constables, the Met Commissioner and all those whose day-to-day responsibility this is understand and hear a message from this House loud and clear, cross-party, that we want them to take this even more seriously than they have in the past, that progress is too slow and that we want them to go further and faster.

When we talk to black and ethnic minority communities about the police, they often say that they are over-policed and under-protected—I am not the first to use that phrase. We cannot accept that combination. We cannot allow a group in our population to feel that they are targeted and yet not protected. Figures show that they are often more likely to be the victims of crime. I go back to the appalling knife crime we are seeing, particularly in the capital. It is black and ethnic minority young people—often, young men—who are most likely to be the victims, and they therefore deserve more protection and more attention in a very sensitive way.

I hope that, as a result of this debate, the House will come together and send a clear signal to Ministers and to police authorities across the country.

Draft Domestic Abuse Bill: Territorial Extent

Sandy Martin Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his history lesson on Ireland and Northern Ireland. He makes the point eloquently that we cannot pick and choose between devolved matters. The mention of the Good Friday agreement reminds us all, if we need reminding, about the particular sensitivities in Northern Ireland, how we have reached where we are today and its broad history. We of course very much hope that those who can get around the table will do so, so we can sort out those and other matters.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Was the Bill vetted by the Cabinet Office in relation to the confidence and supply agreement?

[Victoria Atkins]

I do not understand what the hon. Gentleman is trying to get to. I have already said that the Bill, like every piece of proposed legislation, has to go through what is called “write round”. That is where every Government Department, including the Cabinet Office, considers a Bill. I am very conscious of my responsibility as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office and that we share the Bill with the Ministry of Justice. That is how the Bill has been developed. The consultation last year was clear in its scope and we are bringing the Bill forward in good faith.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sandy Martin Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

T2. What progress has the Minister made in compensating Windrush victims who have been made homeless and jobless by the Government’s hostile environment project?

[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. He will know that Martin Forde QC recently asked the Government, and we agreed, to extend the consultation period for the compensation scheme so that we can make sure that we get the best responses possible and so that he can engage more widely with the community. In exceptional circumstances, the Home Office has already made payments to some individuals.

Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill

Sandy Martin Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 26th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

May I pay tribute to the Minister who has just spoken, the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mrs Wheeler)? Her speech was a masterpiece of clarity, conciseness and succinctness on a Friday morning on which there is important business to proceed with.

We had a very thorough and constructive Committee stage. I thank all the Members who took part in it, as well as the Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins). She is not in the Chamber today, but she has been part of the Bill process. I welcome the Minister for Immigration, my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), who I hope will deftly manage the Bill without incident on its passage through these important stages. I am sure she will want to carry on the continuity of support that the Government have given, because there is very widespread support from both sides of the House for all four major parts of this Bill. Virtually all of them are now Government policy, so there is no reason why they should not want it to proceed. I anticipate that today should be a breeze, and that we can get on to the Third Reading of my Bill and swiftly go on to the Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Bill, which so many of us support. We offer our good wishes to the Bill’s promoter, the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson), who cannot be in the Chamber today.

Since the Committee sitting on 18 July, there has been a crucial change regarding the extension of civil partnerships, which is why the new clause and the amendment are necessary. That change is of course the announcement by the Prime Minister through the medium of the media—namely, the Evening Standard, on 2 October —when the Government confirmed that, for the first time ever, gay and straight people will have the same choices in life, which will be achieved by new laws to extend civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples. There are now some 3.3 million such couples cohabiting in the United Kingdom. That was welcome news, and I was expecting a call beforehand from the Government to discuss how we could collaborate on my Bill to bring about that Government policy in the speediest and most effective way.

The change was of course spurred on by the ruling of the Supreme Court on 27 June, in the case of Steinfeld and Keidan, which revealed that the Government were in breach of the European convention on human rights. That followed a nearly four-year battle by Rebecca and Charles, which was almost as long as my own campaign in Parliament on this subject. I have proposed amendments going back as far as the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, I had a subsequent private Member’s Bill and of course there is the ballot Bill that we are debating today.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tim Loughton]

Of course I will give way—not too often.

[Sandy Martin]

May I offer the hon. Gentleman my congratulations on achieving this step forward? As he will remember, I intervened on him on Second Reading about the necessity of treating everyone equally according to the law. Obviously, everyone could be treated equally badly; I am glad that everyone is now going to be treated equally well.

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Gentleman quite rightly spoke very eloquently and with his own personal experience in support of this part of the Bill on Second Reading, for which I was very grateful, and that was very effective.

As I say, I was not warned about this advance in Government policy by the Prime Minister, and I have not really been briefed since about exactly what it amounts to. At the moment, I have no idea whether the Government will now accept this new clause, will vote against it, or will allow debate to go on—perhaps beyond 2.30 pm today. Frankly, if there are objections from the Government, I hope they will be based on fact, not conjecture or some of the scare stories about what my new clause might actually achieve. However, I have been involved in some very helpful discussions with the lead officials in the Government Equalities Office on civil partnerships legislation, and of course the continued support of the excellent lead official from the Home Office on this Bill, Linda Edwards.

The problem the new clause addresses is that at no point have the Government indicated a timeline or a method for bringing the extension of civil partnerships into effect. Delay and obfuscation was a major criticism in the ruling by the Supreme Court earlier in the year. More than three months after the Supreme Court ruling, the Government have simply indicated that they will address the inequality by extending civil partnerships, rather than abolishing them. Abolishing them was never a practical option, but that confirmation is very welcome.

Four months on, the Government have not indicated a timeline, despite the urgency factor pressed by the judges. If we read the Supreme Court ruling, we can see that it absolutely highlights the fact that the Government could have acted before now. On several occasions, it refers to this private Member’s Bill and my previous one as a way of rectifying this matter. It actually criticises my private Member’s Bill for not being tougher in proceeding with a change in the law on a timeline, rather than just agreeing to have a report, which I had to do to get the Bill through Second Reading and into Committee.

My Bill, with the addition of this new clause, is actually very helpful to the Government on a number of fronts. It confirms in law that civil partnerships will be equalised and that the breach with the convention will be rectified. It gives a clear cut-off date for the Government to get on and do it, and it would be effective before the end of next year. If this change goes through, a couple who have been looking to have a civil partnership rather than a marriage—for all the reasons we have debated at length—could make plans from the end of next year to make that a reality. Many people have waited years, and the Government have been on notice about this for years. This is now the time to end the delay.

Crucially, the new clause makes no prescription about the method, wording and reach of the legislative change that is required; that is entirely up to the Government. I know there are some technical matters still to be settled, and I do not want to dictate to them how we achieve that. That is why this is a very flexible amendment to what is a very flexible Bill.

I am afraid that the Government have had plenty of time. Back in the Second Reading debate on 2 February, the then Minister stated at the Dispatch Box about this Bill:

“There is a sense of urgency—very much so.”—[Official Report, 2 February 2018; Vol. 635, c. 1122.]

Yet, since that time, the Government have not been able to report on the progress of the review work that was announced then, and they did not do so in Committee in July either. Indeed, I gather that the Government Equalities Office was given the go-ahead to undertake much of the review work only in the past few weeks.

I remind the House that that is on the back of two full-blown reviews in the past few years of the whole subject of extending civil partnerships. This must be the most over-reviewed piece of legislation that this House has seen for some time. Why has it all moved so slowly, not least since the Supreme Court ruling that made it inevitable that the law would have to change—and change quickly? I pay tribute to the Equal Civil Partnerships campaign and to the now well over 130,000 people who have signed its petition for a change in the law. They are understandably growing impatient, and despite the Government’s announcement, they are sceptical in thinking that the legislative changes will be kicked into the long grass.

I gather that the Government plan to bring forward primary legislation in the next Session. That has been indicated in a written ministerial statement released only this morning—at the last moment. I am always rather sceptical of ministerial statements from the Dispatch Box or in written form at the eleventh hour. However, even if there is primary legislation in the next Session, it might be 2021 before a couple could actually take advantage of a civil partnership, and that is only if it is in the Queen’s Speech and survives the vagaries of the parliamentary timetable, which is likely to be under huge pressure during the next Session from potential emergency Brexit-related legislation.

I am afraid, however, that is just not good enough for me, for campaign supporters—including those with life-limiting conditions who are desperate to formulate a relationship while they can—or indeed for the Supreme Court. My Bill is the cleanest and quickest way to change the law, to satisfy the Supreme Court and, most importantly, to address a significant pent-up demand from couples who have waited for this change and the chance of equality for a long time. I cannot understand why the Government have not more proactively used my Bill as a vehicle for achieving that right from the start.

Ministers have put it around that the new clause is flawed and unworkable, but neither is true. I have discussed its wording and terms at length with Clerks of the House and lead officials from the Government Equalities Office, and because of flexibility in the wording of the Bill and new clause, the timetable can be achieved by using a truncated six-week review process. Indeed, the Scottish Parliament is currently undertaking its own review into the extension of civil partnerships, and I am sure that it would not mind if we just nicked that. A ready-made “one we made earlier” is on the table, and with a little tweaking it could go into the consultation process in a matter of weeks. A statutory instrument could then be designed in the new year, to be drafted by parliamentary counsel and put before Parliament ahead of the summer recess. I know that will be tight and demand a lot from officials—frankly, those officials would be better placed if they had been allowed to get on with the work when the writing was on the wall some time ago. However, it can be achieved in a way that enables the law to allow opposite-sex couples to enter a civil partnership before the end of 2019. That is what the new clause would do. The statutory instrument route gives greater flexibility on a subject which, frankly, we have debated almost to death. It is less vulnerable to the vagaries of the parliamentary timetable than primary legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Nokes]

This is a subject on which we conduct long conversations, reviews and consultation across the Government, and the fact that the review has started does not mean that it should stop, but we do want to conclude it. It is important to us to have those views.

The Government are keen to progress the review and to do so as quickly as possible. The planned consultation is not some sort of prevarication; it is a necessary step to help us to ensure that when we introduce legislation it is fit for purpose and does not slow down its parliamentary passage. Officials are already starting to identify all the matters on which we want to consult. I hope that we will soon be in a position to say more about our proposed timing for that consultation, but we wish to conduct it as soon as possible. I stress that the consultation will be about how we make the provisions to ensure that civil partnerships work as intended for opposite-sex couples, not about whether we intend to extend them in that way.

[Sandy Martin]

Will the Minister accept that it is not just about how; it is also about when? Given that there is a High Court ruling against her, she needs to move quickly.

[Caroline Nokes]

It is about how and we are proceeding. We are determined to do it. The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the court judgment. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda says we are doing nothing. In fact, the reality is very much that we are seeking to move forward on this as quickly as we can, but we do think that consultation is important.

However other people may view civil partnerships, our intention is clear. They are intended to have at least one thing in common with marriage: to be a formal bond between couples in a loving relationship. I do not wish to digress too much, but a couple of hon. Members raised this point. I am aware, however, that there are those in this place and the other place who wish to see civil partnerships extended to sibling couples. We do not consider that to be a suitable amendment to either my hon. Friend’s Bill or to a future Government Bill to extend civil partnerships. In the context of today’s debate, I merely note that the addition of substantive amendments on civil partnerships to my hon. Friend’s Bill would make it an easier target for amendments on siblings that would then wreck the Bill, and all its valuable provisions on marriage registration and pregnancy loss would be jeopardised. I note that there is already a Bill in the other place that proposes the extension of civil partnerships to sibling couples. We consider that that Bill, rather than this one, offers an appropriate opportunity to debate the merits of how cohabiting sibling couples should be protected in older age.

The amendment put forward today introduces a wide-ranging delegated power. This causes us concern for several reasons, as I mentioned earlier. We are not yet in a position to know precisely what will be required legislatively, which is why it would be too risky to take a power to change the law by secondary legislation when we are not yet able to explain how we intend to use that power.

Ending Exploitation in Supermarket Supply Chains

Sandy Martin Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

During the Second Reading debate on the Agriculture Bill, I asked what was the point of seeking to protect our environment, animal welfare, human health and workforce rights through high standards imposed on our food creators in this country if we then allow food produced under less stringent regimes to undercut those high standards, and end up importing all our food from abroad.

Today is Anti-Slavery Day, and the Modern Slavery Act 2015 was enacted when our present Prime Minister was Home Secretary. If we are to give any traction to the laudable aims of that Act, we need to ensure that food producers, wherever they are in the world, cannot profit financially from slavery. I well recall the shock that I felt when we saw the news that Chinese cockle-pickers had been swept out to sea and drowned in Morecambe bay. Those people were virtually unpaid, and their lives were recklessly endangered, and ultimately squandered, by gangmasters who had no compunction about breaking immigration law, health and safety regulations and minimum wage law, all in the cause of providing cheap cockles for whichever market they were selling to.

That was a headline case, but there have been plenty of stories of workers from other countries being exploited by gangmasters working in this country. Fruit pickers, vegetable pickers and other seasonal agricultural workers have been prominent among them, and that still goes on. There are workers who are nominally paid the minimum wage, but are charged for their journey to this country and their journey to work each morning, and charged over the odds for squalid housing. All those sums are deducted from their wages at source by the agents who have recruited them and are hiring them out to the organisations for which they are working.

If we are to protect people working in this country from exploitation—if we are to ensure that everyone working in this country is paid a decent day’s pay for a decent day’s work—the Government must do far more to enforce the minimum wage by not just advising employers that they are breaking the law, but prosecuting and punishing them. Far more resources need to be put into investigating suspected offenders. There should be proper support for the victims of slavery and wage exploitation to encourage and enable them to act as witnesses, and there should be no easy ways to avoid the minimum wage by charging inflated rents for accommodation that is tied to employment, or exorbitant sums for transport to work.

I want our standards in this country to be something of which we can be proud, but if that is to happen, we need to ensure that we are not exporting slavery and exploitation to the third world by importing cheap goods produced under slavery conditions. Clearly the British minimum wage does not apply in other countries, but there are minimum conditions that should apply. If food is being produced through the use of indentured labour—labour provided under duress by prisoners, child labour, or even outright slavery—we have no business importing it and therefore giving financial support to the gangsters who are using those methods.

This is where the purchasing power of the supermarkets is so important. There is no excuse for them to pretend not to know or care about the conditions under which their food is produced. The big supermarkets in this country have ample resources with which to check the provenance of the food that they sell. We expect them to show due diligence throughout the supply chain in order to ensure that the food is safe to eat, and if they are doing that, they ought also to show due diligence in ensuring that it is produced fairly, without undue exploitation of the workforce.

I do not eat shellfish, but if I did, some of the stories that I have heard of exploitation in the far east, with young people being tricked, or even kidnapped, and then held as slaves to fish for shellfish on offshore platforms, would be enough to put me off. British people do not want to eat food that has been produced through the use of slave labour. British people do not want to see their fellow humans being exploited in this country either, and we want to know that those who work will be paid fairly for it.

It is time that the supermarkets realised that these things are important to their customers, and carried out thorough due diligence on all the products that they sell. I believe that they should be required to do that so that when we buy food in this country, we can know that it is not only safe, but ethically produced.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patricia Gibson]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The debate around how we change the culture of our cheap clothing and cheap food is about making sure that our consumers are as well informed as they can be when they go out to do their shopping, whether to buy clothes or groceries. When the public see the cost behind the cheap price, many are moved to change how they shop and what they buy.

Across 12 common products including tea, orange juice and bananas, UK supermarkets receive almost 10 times more of the checkout price than the small-scale farmers and workers who produce them. The UK supermarkets’ market share rose from 41% in 1996 to nearly 53% in 2015 and, as the hon. Member for Bristol East demonstrated, this represents a race to the bottom in terms of what is paid to suppliers.

Oxfam and the Sustainable Seafood Alliance Indonesia examined the working conditions in prawn processing plants and exporters in Thailand and Indonesia respectively, which supply some of the world’s biggest supermarkets, including the six UK supermarkets. Workers described forced pregnancy tests, unsafe working conditions, poverty wages, strictly controlled bathroom and water breaks, and verbal abuse.

Supermarkets should lead the way ethically if positive change is to happen in our food supply chains. That is why Oxfam’s new supermarkets scorecard, which rates and ranks the most powerful UK supermarkets on the strength of their public policies and practices to address human rights and social sustainability, should be welcomed. These challenging benchmarks, based on robust and international standards, and widely recognised best practice on transparency, accountability and the treatment of workers, small-scale farmers and women in supply chains, will allow our consumers across the UK to make more informed choices. They will help to effect change in supermarkets’ practices and encourage them to address the suffering in their supply chains. As we have heard, when consumers have more information, that affects how they purchase and what they buy.

[Sandy Martin]

Does the hon. Lady agree that while it is true that supermarkets should, ethically, carry out this due diligence, something in legislation requiring them to do so would be more powerful?

[Patricia Gibson]

Absolutely. In the past, what has worked best is a carrot-and-stick approach. The Government can lay down regulations and insist by law that certain things are done by supermarkets in the supply chain in this country, but the power of the consumer cannot be overestimated. This is a two-pronged approach, therefore, and we need both these approaches.

We need firmer regulation to protect the rights of farmers and workers. We have modern slavery legislation, but it is important that we continue to be committed to challenging all practices that put people at risk of suffering within our supply chains by convening other nations against modern slavery, as the UK has done at the UN for the last two years.

Engagement with the ongoing independent review of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, ensuring the promotion of transparency within global supply chains, and a commitment to the UN guiding principles relating to business and human rights are essential. Supporting the UN binding treaty on business and human rights is required, too, and I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say today. As the hon. Member for Bristol East said, many who fear a race to the bottom in food standards and who raise concerns about these matters think they will only be exacerbated post Brexit.

We can do more to mitigate and ease the suffering on a global scale in our supermarket supply chains. We should do what we can, and as a matter of urgency. I am sure that today’s debate has raised the profile of this issue, and I hope that consumers will begin to exert pressure of their own in the choices they make, but we need to do more to ensure that supermarkets themselves are confronted with the part they play in this suffering and abuse of workers and small-scale farmers in some of the poorest countries in the world. That is how real change will come, but the UK Government must play their part, and I am keen to hear the Minister’s response as to how her Government will address the very serious issues raised today.

Police: Financial Sustainability

Sandy Martin Excerpts

Wednesday 12th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I understand the point my hon. Friend makes about the police remuneration board. It is hard not to. I have made very clear—more importantly the Home Secretary has made very clear—the personal priority we attach to police funding. We recognise, in a way the NAO report underestimates, and understand the pressures on the police system. Demand on the police is rising. Crime is changing and becoming more complex. We must respond because public safety is the No. 1 priority of any Government.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

My local police force, Suffolk constabulary, is the third lowest funded police force in England per head of population. About 300 officers have been lost in the last eight years, which is a large proportion for a small force, and about a third of support staff have also been lost. Violent crime, and especially drug-related violent crime, in my constituency of Ipswich has mushroomed and we have seen multiple gang stabbings in the last year. Can the Minister see that there is a connection and will he speak to the Chancellor to secure the funds that the service he is responsible for needs?

[Mr Hurd]

The hon. Gentleman and I have had a number of exchanges over the last year about Suffolk policing, and I have had many conversations with the Suffolk PCC, which reinforces the point that we feel the NAO report attaches insufficient weight to the local accountability mechanisms that we have in place. There are very few PCCs who have not made representations to me about the pressure on their system and the argument for more resources or fairer allocation of resources, and the Suffolk PCC would be pre-eminent in that. I have made it clear, and the Home Secretary has made it clear, that we are determined and—more than words—that the Home Office, in a way we have never done before, is working closely with the police to build the evidence base that is going to be needed in a very competitive CSR to ensure that our police system has the resources it needs, because public safety is the No. 1 priority of any Government.