Oral Answers to Questions

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

Yes; I have already read the report. It makes a number of important recommendations, which we will respond to fully in due course; and yes, joint working is happening between the Home Office and the Department for Education, the Department of Health and the Department for Communities and Local Government, as there are clearly a number of problems that need to be solved and they cross the governmental spectrum. We need to solve all of them before we can get a full grip on this issue.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

The fee for a firearms or shotgun certificate for a new applicant is £50. That has not changed since 2001, but research shows that the cost to the taxpayer of granting such a licence is £189. Does the Minister agree that there is absolutely no case for subsidising those who wish to obtain those licences for recreation and leisure purposes, and that they should be charged more?

[Damian Green]

I am conscious that the Association of Chief Police Officers has made representations about the cost of gun licences, and the Government are looking at the issue very carefully.

Abu Qatada

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The suggestion that we have suddenly discovered how difficult it is to deport Abu Qatada is wide of the mark. That has been absolutely clear from the beginning. What I myself have made clear from the beginning is that we need to follow the processes of law. It has taken time and it will continue to take time, but I believe that it is the right thing to do, and that it will mean that we can eventually deport him.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on seeking a solution to this vexing situation. Do the fair trial guarantees in the comprehensive mutual legal assistance agreement with Jordan match the standards for fair trial under the English court system? If so, does that not constitute a huge improvement for those who face trial as British subjects in Jordan?

[Mrs May]

Obviously, the mutual legal assistance agreement, which when ratified will become a treaty, provides for people other than Abu Qatada. It is a general agreement on fair trial arrangements, the exchange of information and other issues. It provides that in all cases, whether for somebody being deported to Jordan from the UK who is not Abu Qatada or for deportations the other way round.

Child Sexual Exploitation

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend was involved in bringing that about. It was difficult to define what amounted to child sexual exploitation. Although technology is a wonderful enabling tool, its emergence also enables people such as groomers to do evil things by it. We have to keep up with such people. On my visits to CEOP and Scotland Yard, I saw police officers trawling through all sorts of extraordinary, horrific imagery on their computers. It is often the case that paedophiles and traders in extreme pornography who take advantage of children are technologically one step ahead of law enforcers. We must never shirk from making sure that, technologically, our law-enforcement agencies are up to speed in doing their job, because paedophiles are really clever at using technology to peddle their vile trade.

Are we safer in 2012? I believe that we are, but we still have a long way to go. I believe that the modern equivalent of the abuse that took place in north Wales children’s homes in the ’70s and ’80s, and other similar events that are now being revisited, is child sexual exploitation gangs. Most of those that have come to light so far happen to involve British Pakistani men, but we will also see other gangs with different cultural backgrounds around the country. It is child sexual exploitation of a different sort from, but on a similarly serious scale to what happened in those children’s homes. It is not happening in children’s homes any more—we have well-regulated, well-inspected, better-equipped people—but it is happening outside children’s homes in too many cases. That is why we must be absolutely vigilant and make sure that we learn the lessons of Rochdale, Derby, Bradford and all the cases that have and are still to come to light. The knowledge that my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon has of the cases that may come to light in her own part of the world will bring further gasps at the fact that such savagery can actually take place. This will continue to happen.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

I would caution against ever making an assumption that children are safe in any environment, even if we set up safeguards for them. We should never assume that sexual abuse cannot take place in a children’s home from now on. It is the power relationship that creates safety for perpetrators of sexual abuse. Would the hon. Gentleman like to comment on that?

[Tim Loughton]

I entirely agree. I used the word, “safer.” No child can be guaranteed to be absolutely safe and I would not be surprised if further stories come out of sexual exploitation of children in care homes. That is why the work that I commissioned in July to set up working parties to look at the quality of children’s residential homes, the safety of children who are increasingly being placed well away from their own homes, and better data-sharing between the police and the local children’s services department about homes, is vital. No child can be deemed to be absolutely safe—I hope that I have made that absolutely clear.

Is what happened in a north Wales children’s home less likely to happen in our children’s homes now? I believe it is, but we cannot guarantee that it will never happen. That is the comparison that I wanted to make.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

The hon. Lady makes a valid point. It is important that young people should have that confidence, which perhaps plays into the one observation that I want to make: an assault on childhood innocence, particularly that of young girls, is widespread in our country. It can be found on television, advertising and, overwhelmingly, in magazines that are on sale at eye level—not our eye level, but children’s eye level—in every supermarket in the land.

In 1996, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff) promoted a private Member’s Bill to require these girly magazines to place on their front page their target age audience. Unfortunately, the Bill fell, but I salute my hon. Friend for his work. I tried to follow it up when I came back to the House in 1997. I had a meeting with the editors of magazines such as More! and various others. Some of those magazines had features such as “position of the month”. It was sexually mechanical and devoid of moral content. I told the editors, who were overwhelmingly female, that I had a young daughter—she was young at the time but is rather older now, although I do have a young granddaughter—and when I asked them whether they would like their daughters to see such things, they all shuffled uncomfortably in their seats.

I will pay them this tribute: they have improved. I had a look around Sainsbury’s in Farnborough to check out what the magazines were up to and I think that they have got better, but they are still overwhelmingly sex-obsessed. What are young girls to think—what are young men supposed to think—except that this is the way of life and that if they are not behaving like that or like celebrities, they are old-fashioned, fuddy-duddies, not cool and behind the times?

Even this week’s OK! magazine has a headline with somebody called Harry Styles—I am afraid that he has passed my attention, but he seems a reasonably good-looking young lad—saying, “I jumped into bed with my mate’s mum”. The story is not what one might imagine it to be—it is rather more boring and less dramatic than it might appear—but it is on the front page and designed to titillate. The obsession with exploiting the vulnerability of young people—predominantly young girls—leads to situations, examples of which have been provided by so many hon. Members today, whereby they can be exploited by men. We all know—certainly us blokes here—what men are like. That is the atmosphere in which the kind of events that were happening in Keighley go on. I salute my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins) for being so bold in what he said—I am sure that Ann Cryer would have approved thoroughly.

I submit—this is the essence of the argument that I am putting to the House—that one cannot look at the things that have gone on in north Wales and Rochdale without putting them in the wider national context. We must not just blame those whom we pay to look after these young people or the leaders of the local authorities, but must look at ourselves, the adults who buy this lurid dross and the people who produce it. We must ask ourselves what sort of society we are creating for our young people. It is hardly surprising that in our society young people, and young girls in particular, are vulnerable.

[Tessa Munt]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the problem goes beyond the magazine racks of supermarkets and other shops on our high streets? Anyone can see the early sexualisation of young people in the sort of clothes that are on sale. It is possible to find bras and bikini sets for young girls of seven or eight. That is equally inappropriate.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I do not think that I will find many opportunities to agree with her, but I am delighted to have done so on our first encounter. Of course, mothers are under pressure and may not themselves have had the benefit of being brought up in loving families.

Family life is important in this debate. Mention has been made of the abuse that goes on in families. When I was chairman of the Lords and Commons family and child protection group, we produced an excellent report on the cost of family breakdown entitled, “Does your mother know?” The evidence shows overwhelmingly that children who are brought up in loving families and married households tend to thrive more than those who are brought up in other family units.

In conclusion, I have been delighted to listen to so many Members from all parts of the House make common cause on a matter of great importance to the people of our country. I hope that Parliament will continue to do whatever it can to protect young people. However, let us be absolutely clear that criticising state agents in the form of local authority employees and others is not sufficient; the root cause of this problem lies at the heart of our society and the way in which we behave as a nation, and it must be tackled.

Alcohol Strategy

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Friday 23rd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Does the hon. Lady want an answer to her question or not? By setting a minimum unit price, we are tackling the cheap alcohol that is sold and the bulk discount sales of alcohol, which mean that people pre-load at home. They are often drunk when they leave home. They go to their town centres and sadly, they create the drunkenness, the brawls, the fighting in the streets, the mayhem that mean several things. It means that the police have to spend money and deal with those issues. It means that accident and emergency departments in our hospitals are having to deal with people in drunkenness; every year, 1.2 million admissions to accident and emergency units are alcohol-fuelled. It also means that many law-abiding citizens just do not feel able to go into their town centres at night, particularly on Fridays and Saturdays, and I think it is time we did something about it, and that is what this Government are doing.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

I welcome this consultation as an opportunity to tighten up on irresponsible sales. Does the Secretary of State agree with landlords such as Juliet Watchman of The Bell Inn in Shepton Mallet, who makes the point that if she behaved as local supermarkets did and sold lager for 34 pence per pint and cider at 48 pence per pint—pocket-money prices—or sold to those who are already heavily under the influence of alcohol, she would have her licence revoked by the local authority, and that this is a massive opportunity for landlords, the police and hospitals to contribute to the consultation?

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend. I commend the landlady of The Bell Inn in Shepton Mallet for taking that responsible approach to the issue of alcohol. We certainly look forward to receiving responses to the consultation from people such as her constituent and others. There are responsible landlords out there who are running pubs in difficult circumstances. We know; we have all seen many pubs in communities closing. We want to ensure that those who drink responsibly and those who deal responsibly with their clients, as many landlords and landladies do, are able to carry on doing so, and that we hit that end of the market that is being fuelled by this very cheap alcohol, often sold by supermarkets.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

My constituent, Eleyda Rodrigues Torres, who is from Cuba and has been married for several years to an Englishman, has indefinite leave to remain in the UK. She made an application for a residence card last July, but catastrophic failures at the Border and Immigration Agency mean that 13 of her primary documents have been lost, including her passport, NHS letters, bank statements, with all the implications for fraud—

[Mr Speaker]

We need a question, in one sentence.

[Tessa Munt]

Will the Secretary of State meet Eleyda and me to explain what investigation is taking place—

[Damian Green]

If documents have gone missing, I obviously apologise to the hon. Lady and her constituent. I will happily talk with her to solve the problem as soon as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The questions must be heard and Ministers must be heard.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

The Home Secretary is aware that women prisoners will only ever move between women’s prisons, and similarly young people will only move through young offenders institutions. What discussions has she had with her counterparts at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Ministry of Justice to ensure that we look at prison education for women as a cluster and for young people as a cluster, instead of relying on local arrangements?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue, and behind it lies the important issue of the number of women who go to prison. For many women, an alternative arrangement might be more appropriate, which is something Baroness Corston raised in her report on women in prison. I will certainly take on board my hon. Friend’s point and ensure that it is put to the Secretaries of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and for Justice.

Violence against Women and Girls

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention, not least because I know that she has a great deal of expertise in this area, and of course I absolutely agree with what she says. It is also interesting that young women themselves tell us that they want things to change. Around 52% of young women who were polled said that ending domestic violence against women and children is the issue that they care most about. That is according to research carried out by Girlguiding UK in conjunction with the Fawcett Society, the British Youth Council and Populus.

All over the UK, women’s organisations are doing innovative work with these young people, often with only minimal resources. For example, Rise, a charity based in Brighton and Hove, delivers a personal, social, health and economic preventive education programme on healthy relationships to schools across the city. It is also currently working to integrate the Women’s Aid “Expect Respect” programme into work that is currently taking place in primary schools. Rise also delivers “Break for Change”, a groundbreaking group for young people who are aggressive in their relationships. That group is for the young people’s carers, too. The Home Office itself is currently running a campaign called, “This is abuse”, which is aimed at tackling teenage relationship abuse.

However, work to prevent violence against women and girls cannot be left to occasional campaigns or women’s organisations working in partnership with good schools where they can. It must be an absolutely integral part of education and policy that is delivered in every single school.

Unfortunately, it appears that the Department for Education is dragging its feet on this issue. The commitment to teaching sexual consent in personal, social and health education is welcome, but it needs to go much further and include all forms of violence against women, including teenage relationship abuse, forced marriage, FGM and sexual exploitation. It should also be linked to work on gender equality and work that challenges gender stereotypes.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

I just wanted to draw on some of the experience that I have gained from the Education Committee. As I understand it, only three hours of teacher training time is dedicated to behaviour and discipline in schools throughout a two or three-year degree course. There is very little hope that we can even start to explore the issues affecting young women who face violence and give them any sort of strategy if the teachers have absolutely no awareness of behaviour and behaviour training. There needs to be a concerted effort from the Minister’s Department to work with the DFE to deal with that problem.

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. I did not know that particular piece of information and it makes me even more alarmed than I was when I first stood up to speak. It shows that this is part of a much bigger issue, which is about ensuring that our teachers are properly equipped to pass on that vital training.

It is interesting that Education Ministers have signalled that they want these issues to remain outside the statutory curriculum, running the risk that many young women and men will never be exposed to education designed to reduce gendered violence. Cuts to specialist local-level posts, such as domestic violence co-ordinators and teenage pregnancy co-ordinators, risk exacerbating the problem even further.

In its report, “A Different World is Possible”, the End Violence Against Women Coalition recommends a “whole school approach”, with heads taking a lead, teachers been trained on the issues and all students receiving comprehensive sex and relationships education on consent, equality and respect. That is already a top priority in Brighton and Hove—it builds on work by a number of the agencies that I mentioned earlier. The local authority’s strategy states:

“Evidence shows that to be effective in domestic violence prevention work, addressing the issue in PSHE and SRE lessons or in assemblies has limited impact and value, if the messages promoted are not supported by other initiatives and the broader ethos of the school.”

I therefore ask the Minister to call on her colleagues at the Department for Education to clearly identify one single Education Minister to lead on preventing violence against women and girls. I also ask her to tell us what contribution she has made to the Department for Education’s internal review on PSHE, and whether she has argued the case for sexual consent and all forms of violence against women to be a compulsory part of the curriculum.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister hosted a summit on tackling the commercialisation and sexualisation of children and announced a range of policies, many of which I warmly welcome. However, amid the messages about consumer and parent power, there was an element missing: empowering young people themselves to be media literate and to cope with the bombardment of often inappropriate images. Although I recognise that the measures announced will go some way towards cutting down on the images that young people are exposed to—outside schools, for example—we can safely say that this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Like any parent, I absolutely understand the desire to protect our children, and one of the best ways of doing so is through specific education that allows young people to be more in control of their sexualisation, rather than being dictated to by the media or by advertising. There is no plan as yet, however, specifically to address that in schools.

Earlier, I noted that central Government cuts might undermine efforts being made to tackle violence against women and girls, and I am particularly concerned about cuts to legal aid. Informing women of their legal rights and giving them access to legal representation is one way of empowering them and of trying to protect them against violence. It can give them the information they need to stand up to their abuser. There are serious risk implications, therefore, for women who cannot access legal aid. By reducing women’s ability to access legal aid, the Ministry of Justice risks damaging work at the Home Office on preventing violence against women and girls, and I would love to know whether the Minister shares my concerns about that.

I also wonder whether the Minister is dismayed by the Home Secretary’s proposal to change the eligibility requirements under paragraph 289A—the domestic violence rule—of the immigration rules. That would mean that all applicants under the domestic rule must be free of unspent criminal convictions. That actively undermines the Government’s commitment to eliminate violence against women. Will the Minister contribute to the UK Border Agency consultation, and remind the Home Secretary about the coalition Government’s obligations and commitment to protect all women from domestic violence?

The Equality Trust points out that 24% of women in Britain are worried about rape and that all kinds of violence are more common in more unequal societies. It stands to reason that preventing violence against women and girls is closely linked to tackling inequality and other social injustices. As just one example of what happens if we fail to do that, Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, tells me that more than a third of girls in the youth justice system have experienced abuse and a quarter have witnessed violence at home. Of the more than 4,000 women currently serving a prison sentence, more than half report having suffered domestic violence and one in three have experienced sexual abuse. For the vast majority of those very vulnerable women, prison is not the answer, and that is why both I and the Howard League for Penal Reform support community solutions for non-violent women offenders. I am keen, therefore, to see the Government’s target interventions to ensure the prevention of violence against women and girls address intersections of gender with other social inequalities.

I stress that the Government’s work on preventing violence against women and girls needs to encompass an international perspective. Here, too, we see evidence of a lack of leadership and concerns about co-ordination. There are now a number of very welcome Government strategies that reference international violence against women and girls, so oversight of all the different processes is vital and, for maximum impact, the different strategies and policies across Government should be coherent and mutually reinforcing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)]

rose—

[Tessa Munt]

rose—

[Mr Virendra Sharma]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lynne Featherstone]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that men are part of our strategy and funding. I will take a quick intervention from the hon. Member for Wells, but I want to answer the questions asked by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion.

[Tessa Munt]

The problem is particularly acute in rural areas where there are serious stresses. I am in contact with the Farm Crisis Network, which is aware that people in isolated situations also face domestic violence, and there is practically no possibility that they can get to a rape crisis centre, which might be 25 miles away. Does the Minister have any thoughts on that?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that point.

I agree with the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion that prevention, which is one of the four key planks of our strategy, is extremely important. I assure her that my Department and I will bring as much pressure to bear as possible in discussions for the Department for Education to get a shift on with its consultation on personal, social and health education, which just finished and will be published in November. We regard it as vital, although we do not necessarily regard it as vital that it be statutory. We await the results of the consultation. I agree that young people’s attitudes and behaviour are vital, and that teachers need training in order to intervene successfully.