Prayers

Debate between Sarah Champion and John Bercow

Friday 16th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During Wednesday’s Opposition day debate on the impact of the Government’s autumn statement on women, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury disparaged and undermined the work of the House of Commons Library. I am sure, Mr Speaker, that you agree with me that the Library is the very heart of our Parliament. It is non-political and non-biased, and it presents research for us all to use. In the same debate, he went on to discredit the research of the Women’s Budget Group—an independent network of economists and academics.

Although I recognise that all research methodologies should be open to robust scrutiny and discussion, there is a pattern emerging in the Library’s gender impact analyses of successive Budgets and autumn statements. The Treasury appears to undermine the Library’s work by calling into question its integrity and objecting to its analysis, yet the Treasury has continually refused to carry out its own gender impact analysis of its economic policies, as is prescribed in the Equality Act 2010.

Mr Speaker, will you advise me please on how best to proceed with this matter to ensure that the Chief Secretary retracts his statement, makes an effort to engage with the Library to discuss and understand its methodologies, or apologises to the Library and the Women’s Budget Group for undermining their sterling research?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order, but I fear that she invests me with powers I do not possess. Every Member is responsible for the veracity or otherwise of what he or she says. If any Member feels that he or she has made an incorrect statement in the House, it is open to that Member to correct it, and it should, indeed, be corrected. Where there are matters of debate and argument, I do not think that it is appropriate for me to intrude.

Suffice it to say that I think the hon. Lady has found her salvation and, no doubt, done what she thinks is right by the fine employees of the Library by raising this point of order, which is now on the record and which, I trust, will be seen by the very Library staff whom, if I may say so without excessive pun, she has just championed.

Closure of St Paul’s Place BIS Office (Sheffield)

Debate between Sarah Champion and John Bercow

Friday 29th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It was also orderly.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I do not recognise any of the criticisms that are being laid on my party about Sheffield. We are very proud of it, which is why we are here today. I would like the Minister to explain simply why taking jobs from Sheffield to London is in any way supporting the region or the Government’s ideal of a northern powerhouse.

Serious Crime Bill [Lords]

Debate between Sarah Champion and John Bercow

Monday 23rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Thank you for removing the time limit, Mr Speaker, not only because the voices of victims and survivors do not get enough air time in this place, but because, as those who have spoken before me have shown, there is a lot of passion about this topic and an awful lot of commitment to it.

I welcome new clauses 8 and 3 and Government amendments 13 to 17, which aim to remove the term “child prostitution” from legislation. Victims and survivors I have met say that the term makes them feel incredibly dirty and as though they colluded in the crime in some way. However, the amendments remove the term from only three of the 16 relevant pieces of legislation. If I pass the list to the Solicitor-General, will the Government make a serious, long-term commitment to remove the term from each of those pieces of legislation? I would be very grateful for that.

I want principally to speak to new clause 19 and follow on from the contribution of the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), who spoke eloquently and has done most of the preparatory work. I have met the Solicitor-General, spoken at Committee stage and exchanged letters with him. He has expressed the view that, if child abduction warning notices were to become statutory, that would cause an unnecessary replication of sexual risk orders, which are being introduced by the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. However, given that the legislation has not yet been enacted and guidance not yet published, I cannot be entirely satisfied that SROs will close the gap that has been identified in child protection.

One concern is that the application of SROs to low-level grooming activities seems to depend on an officer taking a very wide interpretation of an

“act of a sexual nature”.

Unless the guidance is very specific and the training given to police very thorough, I am not convinced that officers will feel confident to use SROs on, for instance, a 20-year-old who is hanging around with a 14-year-old.

My cross-party inquiry with Barnardo’s last year found that police officers were clearly familiar with the use of child abduction warning notices, and everyone we interviewed asked that they be made statutory. My fear is that, rather than reducing bureaucracy, the Solicitor-General will create more by having another power, as opposed to strengthening the existing one.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Lady for her extreme succinctness.