Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Hughes and Helen Jones

Tuesday 17th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his continuing interest in this issue. As well as the working group he mentioned, which found that there were gaps in the availability of services and commissioning, the Government have strengthened the non-statutory services and put more money in to make sure they are able more competently to deal with this. The figure I have is £7 million—that was an announcement we made in December—which includes increased funds for the existing female rape support centres and greater support for organisations supporting victims in areas where there is a high prevalence of child abuse, such as Rotherham. Secondly, as well as the new offence of sexual communication with a child, we are legislating to remove references to child prostitution and child pornography from the Sexual Offences Act and making sure that the offence of loitering or soliciting for the purpose of prostitution applies only to adults. We have to protect children.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that many of the victims in these cases have been profoundly damaged by their experiences and need a great deal of support, including mental health support. Will he ensure that prosecutors do not deter them from accessing that support, as has often happened in the past, but work to ensure that they are supported through the ordeal of going to trial, because that is not only beneficial to them, but ensures that more cases can be prosecuted?

[Simon Hughes]

There are two points. First, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and all Ministers are very clear that when vulnerable individuals go into the criminal justice system we must identify whether in fact the issue that needs to be addressed is a mental health issue or is a drugs issue or something else. So we try to prevent people from going through the criminal justice system because it is not user-friendly, particularly for young people. If there is no alternative, we need to make sure that steps are taken, for example that youngsters do not have to come to court but can appear from a distance, such as by video-link, and that they are supported through the whole of that process, not just through the court case but a considerable time thereafter.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Hughes and Helen Jones

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes]

On behalf of both parties in the coalition, the answer to the hon. Gentleman is yes, we want maximum scrutiny of all those who have contracts with the public sector, and of at least as good a standard as legislation imposes on public sector authorities. The question of who gets the contracts—the PAC question—is a different question for different Ministers on a different day, but with the same commitment to openness on behalf of both parties in the coalition.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

But does the Minister, who after all used to be a Liberal, agree that what he is proposing simply does not give the same rights to the public as they would have had with a public body under freedom of information legislation, and that the community rehabilitation companies this Government have set up, with the hundreds of millions of pounds of public money that is being given to them, should be subject to FOI in exactly the same terms as a public corporation, so that we can see not only how they are spending that money, but their links with others in the justice sector?

[Simon Hughes]

The community rehabilitation companies are part of a programme to do what the hon. Lady’s Government never did, which is to ensure that those who are in prison for a year or less come out and have support in a way that will reduce reoffending. The answer on accountability is, yes, they will be as accountable and transparent—

[Helen Jones]

indicated dissent.

[Simon Hughes]

Yes, because those with contracts with the public sector will have an obligation, in contract, to have the same duty at least as the public sector, and if they fail, they will be held to account.

Finance Bill

Debate between Simon Hughes and Helen Jones

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Helen Jones]

I could not have put the point better than my hon. Friend has.

[Simon Hughes]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Helen Jones]

In a moment—I will make a little progress first.

Something interesting is happening on the Government Benches. We used to hear from the Con bit of the Con-Dem alliance simple, open hostility to the public sector and the welfare state. Now, most of them are becoming a little more sophisticated and wrapping it up a little better. The Chancellor says constantly, “The things I’m having to do are dreadful. I don’t really want to make these cuts. However, if I could cut benefits more, it wouldn’t be so bad.” It is an interesting exercise in shifting the blame. The implication is that responsibility lies not with the Government’s decisions, but with those in receipt of benefits.

[Helen Jones]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I shall talk about the effect after giving way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Simon Hughes]

I did not want to lose the hon. Lady’s point about jobs. She is being neither entirely fair nor entirely accurate. If she reads the Office for Budget Responsibility report at the back of the Red Book—the independent assessment—she will see it clearly stated on page 82 that

“the more rapid increase in employment is sufficient to lower unemployment, so that the ILO unemployment rate falls to 6 per cent in 2015. Claimant count unemployment continues to fall throughout the forecast period.”

The projection—not Government or party political—is that over that period unemployment will go down and employment will go up.

[Helen Jones]

If the hon. Gentleman is so confident about that, perhaps he will get his right hon. Friend the Chancellor to publish the Treasury forecasts that he is currently failing to publish. The OBR figures are based on forecasts of growth that I do not believe we will achieve because, to be frank, those forecasts have never been achieved in 40 years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Jones]

My hon. Friend is right. The Bill goes with the destruction of the regional development agencies, which were vital to regions such as mine. As my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) said earlier, it goes with huge cuts in programmes such as Building Schools for the Future, which were vital to the construction industry in our area.

[Simon Hughes]

As one of the three MPs representing the borough of Del Boy, may I say to the hon. Lady that we on these Benches are clear that the bankers’ bonuses need to be curbed and reduced further and we will continue to press for that? The people who contributed hugely to our present troubles should pay the price to a much greater extent than anybody else.

[Helen Jones]

I am grateful to hon. Gentleman for intervening, because I want to say to him that his party is in government. If the Liberal Democrats want to do something about that, they can, but they have singularly failed to do so.

Let us consider the people who are paying the price of this Finance Bill—those who will be affected by the rise in VAT and who are already being hit by the cuts announced by the Government in their Budget. The Chancellor talks a lot about those on benefits. The implication, unstated but always there, is that they are all scroungers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most people who will be hit by the cuts that he has announced are from hard-working families on low incomes. He has already announced that those on family incomes of a little more than £15,000 will see their tax credits cut. By 2012-13, anyone with a family income of more than £30,000—£15,000 each—will lose their tax credits. Child benefit has been frozen, which is an effective cut of £116 a year, but those people will have to pay the VAT increase that the Government have imposed on their spending.