Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tony Baldry and Andrea Leadsom

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman will surely be delighted at the news from the IFS and other forecasters that real wages are now rising at a higher rate than inflation, and it is thanks to our long-term economic plan that inflation is so low. We have had council tax cuts and fuel duty freezes, and we have done everything we can by raising personal tax-free allowances to enable people to benefit from a recovering economy, but we can only do it by sticking to a long-term economic plan.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Am I right in thinking that universal credit will replace working tax credits and child tax credits, making 3 million households better off by an average of £177 per month and improving work incentives by allowing people to keep more of their income as they move into work?

[Andrea Leadsom]

Yes, my right hon. Friend is exactly right. Universal credit is a major reform that will transform the welfare state in Britain for the better. It will replace the current complex system of means-tested working-age benefits, including tax credits, and make 3 million households better off by on average £177 a month.

Local Government and Faith Communities

Debate between Tony Baldry and Andrea Leadsom

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Andrea Leadsom]

Yes. The hon. Gentleman is, of course, quite right that CAP and other faith-based groups work right across the United Kingdom, and they help people from all backgrounds—people of faith and people of no faith. Absolutely no distinction is made between people; everyone benefits from the services. However, the reason that such groups are set up is because people of faith want to help the needy. He specifically mentioned food banks, which do a superb job across the country, and many of them are led and supported by people of faith.

A charity closer to home that I fully support, and of which my husband is a trustee, is the Northampton Hope Centre. It was set up in 1974 by a Christian gentleman who handed out food to rough sleepers—food that he had paid for himself. As more volunteers began to help him, the borough council began to provide small grants to help to pay for the food. By 1984, there were 30 volunteers—mainly Christians—and a daily food service for rough sleepers was provided all year round. In 2006, the charity officially took the name of the Hope Centre to reflect its broader range of support and services, which now included providing training and activities alongside food, showers and clothing. In 2008, the Northampton Hope Centre won the Queen’s golden jubilee award for voluntary services to the community.

Today, the Hope Centre helps those suffering from drug or alcohol addiction, mental illness, crippling debt and family disintegration. It offers a wide range of support, including food, clothing, showers, shelter, social activities, therapeutic workshops and skills development. It aims to encourage its users to recover their independence. Each user’s journey is individual and the Hope Centre aims to support each person at their own pace while creating or finding pathways for people who have all but given up hope of a better future.

The centre’s budget this year is in the region of £400,000, of which only £15,000 will come from public funding. If any Members are around this Friday and find themselves with a spare hour in Northampton, I urge them to pop down to the Hope Centre, where Terry Waite will launch the new “hope café”. One of Northampton’s most exciting initiatives in recent years is the establishment of a street pastor service, which puts compassionate people of faith in the town centre on Friday and Saturday nights, offering practical help to often vulnerable people. I blogged about this in 2006, under the heading “Flip-flops and lollipops”, because, as it was described to me, the street pastors would go out and help young people who were often extraordinarily drunk, providing lollipops to the young men, who would rather suck a lollipop than get in a fight, and flip-flops to the young women, who often lost their high heels on their first steps on the journey of inebriation. It is a practical service that offers sound support and counselling.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that no greater love can a parliamentary colleague have than to spend a Saturday night/Sunday morning with my hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) and their street pastors, as I did a couple of Saturdays ago? The street pastors provide a fantastic service in those towns. They are the only people around, other than the police and the ambulance service, actually caring for people. Large numbers of volunteers provide a fantastic service.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I agree with my hon. Friend, who makes a good point. It is right to pay tribute to the street pastors, who form a valuable support group for the police on a Saturday night when, too often, trouble in our streets is common.

I set up a project in 2006 with Richard Johnson, a Christian, who runs a fantastic youth centre in Uganda. He and I set up links between Northamptonshire and Ugandan schools and now each year groups of students from Northamptonshire travel to Uganda for a conference with Ugandan students. They spend their week based at the Discovery Centre in Jinja, Uganda. That has been an astonishing success, building new friendships between teachers and pupils across the miles, and new opportunities for the schools in both countries to take part in a huge range of different cultural activities.

All faith groups, whether they are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, or any other, set great store by their support for their communities. It is important that we in Parliament ensure that their voices are heard. Over the years, over-sensitivity to cultural issues and a growing, muscular secularism has meant that the amazing work done by people of faith, often for the most vulnerable, goes unnoticed. Of course, people of faith are not doing this in return for gratitude or recognition, but we should make space in public life for those of faith.

I support many of the report’s recommendations and call for three specific things. First, I should like local authorities deliberately to work more closely with faith groups, taking advantage of the support they bring to local communities, to attempt to simplify processes and jargon, and share best practice between local authorities. Secondly, I should like local authorities to look from a plural rather than a secular perspective at the services faith groups offer in their communities. The leader of Churches Together in Northampton, Ted Hale, tells me that he and many others work for non-Christian organisations such as Arthritis Care and Age UK, and so on. It is often people of faith who run such organisations.