NHS Dentistry

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Angela Eagle

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I am going to make a little progress, but I promise to give way later.

The whole House understands that the pandemic placed a long-lasting and heavy burden on NHS dentistry. [Interruption.] I hear groans from Opposition Members, but they cannot ignore the fact that some 7 million people did not come forward for appointments during that long period of the pandemic because dentists had to shut, and we were unable to accommodate those needs within the system because of the severe strictures under which we were all placed as a society. We shepherded the sector through the pandemic with £1.7 billion of direct support to compensate for NHS activity that could not be delivered. As we recover from the pandemic there are no quick fixes, but our recovery is well under way. Let me give the latest statistics, because the hon. Member for Ilford North missed them out in his speech. The Government delivered 6 million more courses of NHS dental treatment in 2022-23 than in the previous year. [Interruption.] In the two years to June 2023, the number of adults seeing a dentist increased by 1.7 million compared to the number in the previous year, and 800,000 more children saw a dentist in the year to June 2023.

Opposition Members cannot have it both ways. While I was reading out those statistics they were saying, “You cannot make those comparisons because of the pandemic”, but that is the point: people did not come forward during the pandemic, so, as we must all know from experience in our own constituencies, there is a backlog that dentists around the country are having to work through—and they are making progress.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

rose—

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[Victoria Atkins]

As I have explained, in relation to dentistry but also in relation to wider healthcare, the long-term workforce plan, which was requested by NHS England and by clinicians, is the means of laying those foundations for the future of the NHS. I will now give way to the hon. Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle).

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I thank the Secretary of State. I wanted to intervene earlier when she was talking about the pandemic. In my constituency many people were thrown off their dentists’ lists during the pandemic, often with no notice, and then found that they could not register anywhere else. That is what happened, I believe, all over the country. Can the Minister explain what she is going to do about it? It was not that people were not visiting their dentists; they were denied access.

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Lady has raised an interesting and important point, because, of course, dentists are independent contractors to the NHS, and I have to work with the levers that are available to me. As I have said, we have already invested £1.7 billion to try to help with the recovery, and the House will, I hope, look forward to our dentistry recovery plan when it comes to other ways in which we can improve that. The important point, however, is that because those dentists are independent contractors, we must work with the profession to encourage them back to the NHS to offer the services that we all want to see.

Finance (No. 2) Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Angela Eagle

Committee stage
Thursday 18th May 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments, with which I agree. I will not pretend that the Labour party is in politics for different reasons from us. I genuinely believe that most Members of Parliament are in politics to do good for their local residents and for the country as a whole. The point of contention is on how we achieve that.

I am interested in the contrast between the submission of the hon. Member for Ealing North and the submission of the hon. Member for Wallasey. She represents part of Liverpool, and I grew up in the north-west, so I know Liverpool and Manchester very well. I think we would all agree that Liverpool and Manchester have seen a revitalisation over many decades. It takes a village to raise a child, as the old saying goes, and I fully accept that the previous Labour Administration may have done a great deal to help those areas. Going back a long way—a little before my time, perhaps—Lord Heseltine played his part in helping both Liverpool and Canary Wharf. We are trying to revitalise areas in the same way that Liverpool, Manchester and Canary Wharf, and indeed many other areas, have been revitalised.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

The Minister would be very, very unpopular in my constituency if she referred to it as Liverpool. I represent the Wirral, which is over the river, where the Mersey ferry goes when it ferries across the Mersey. People can still listen to Gerry singing “Ferry Cross the Mersey” on the ferry as it goes from Liverpool to the Wirral. I appreciate her comments, but the people of the Wirral regard themselves as a bit different from those in Liverpool.

[Victoria Atkins]

I apologise to the hon. Lady. I meant to refer to the wider area. I thoroughly respect the independence of the good people of the Wirral.

We saw the regeneration and revitalisation of the great city of Liverpool in the wonderful displays at last weekend’s Eurovision celebrations. The regeneration of that great city has, of course, had a much wider ripple effect.

We want to channel the focus and private sector investment to which the hon. Lady rightly refers in revitalising these areas. We want to do that in a way that takes notice and full advantage of the opportunities of the 21st century. The Chancellor set out the sectors that we will concentrate on, because we want to build that investment for the future. There is some extraordinarily good news in our economy in terms of innovative technologies, life sciences and advanced manufacturing. Indeed, I saw in a WhatsApp group only this morning that Rolls-Royce has just unleashed its latest aircraft engine, to great acclaim, here in the UK. That is an extraordinary achievement, which we want replicate across the country. That is the thinking behind investment zones.

When the shadow Minister talked about these exciting proposals, he said nothing about the principles of the investment or the enormous opportunities for communities outside London. I know that he is a Member of Parliament for London, so perhaps he does not have the natural affinity with constituencies outside London that Conservative MPs have, and which I certainly have as a proud Lincolnshire MP. We really want to focus on the excitement for what we can achieve around the rest of the country. The shadow Minister, however, just focuses on process.

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[Victoria Atkins]

Thank you, Mr Stringer

I thank the members of the Office for Tax Simplification for their contribution to the tax debate over the years. I had the pleasure of meeting some of them just after I was appointed. As I said to them at the time, although the OTS will longer exist once the Bill has passed, their expertise will none the less not be lost to the Government, and I very much look forward to working with its members in different ways over the coming months and years.

The closure of the OTS does not mean that simplifying tax is no longer a priority. In fact, I have set three criteria for tax policy across the Treasury and HMRC: for any document or proposal that I am given, officials must tell me, first, how it meets the expectation that it will make tax fairer; secondly, how it meets the expectation that it will make tax simpler; and, thirdly, how it meets the expectation that it will help to support growth. Having that in the document—I have said this many times, because it was a very early commitment that I put down—has really helped our discussion of those principles when forming tax policy.

As I have mentioned in Budget debates and so on, one of the tensions between those first two criteria is that to make a tax fairer, sometimes we end up making it more complicated—for example, when we talk about tapering schemes, as we are doing in the Bill more widely. We have a scheme whereby we are tapering the rise in corporation tax for businesses that have smaller profits. That makes it more complicated but also fairer, so there is sometimes a trade-off between the interests and wishes of those involved in administering tax or helping taxpayers. With the best will in the world, the OTS, as an arm’s length body set up to comment on simplification alone, could not help with those sorts of balancing acts, which is why the Chancellor has set a clear mandate for officials in the Treasury and HMRC to focus on simplicity in tax policy design as part of our decision-making process.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

There is clearly a difference between the accrued complexity across a particular tax from end to end, which can gather barnacles over time, and a ministerial decision on whether to opt explicitly for a bit more complexity to achieve fairness, which is not a design issue but a political choice. Surely the Office for Tax Simplification was good at looking at the former, while leaving decisions on the latter to those who ought to be making them: the Ministers in charge at the time.

[Victoria Atkins]

Of course, pretty much every decision that comes across my desk is political in nature. Officials have very much taken on board their responsibilities in this regard.

The hon. Member for Ealing North asked about a letter sent to me in April from important tax specialists and organisations. In fact, I met them last week to discuss that very letter. I wanted to meet the organisations to discuss, for example, how to make tax simpler for the lowest paid in society and how we can try to help tax agents to navigate their way around the tax system, because that will help not just taxpayers but also, importantly, HMRC. We really have begun to embed this in our decision-making process.

The reason we want to make this change is that people were concerned that there was a tendency to rely on the OTS to look at simplification because that was its job, and we wanted to bring it very much into the Treasury. Of course, that does not mean that there is never going to be any commentary or analysis or observations about simplicity. My goodness me, I do not think anyone could claim that the world of tax lacks analysis, commentary and often criticism—hopefully constructive—of the tax system. I do not perhaps have quite the same concerns about us being accountable for the political decisions we make.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Atkins]

If I may, I will make some progress, because I want to deal with new clause 1 and amendment 2, which are important.

On new clause 1, the Chancellor committed to Select Committee colleagues that he is asking officials about tax simplification ahead of every Budget and fiscal event. That will mean that hon. Members will have the opportunity to scrutinise the Government’s progress. In the last Budget, we were able to bring forward measures such as the cash basis for business, which will help enormously by helping more than 4 million sole traders to calculate and pay their income tax. We also introduced the permanent £1 million limit to the annual investment allowance, which will simplify the tax treatment of capital expenditure for 99% of businesses. There are also other measures.

In relation to the point about measuring and metrics in simplification, the Government are genuinely considering how to develop a suite of metrics to measure progress on simplification, working with businesses and representative bodies to ensure that measures reflect the real-world experience of taxpayers.

On amendment 2, it is right that the Chancellor has responded to the Committee, having written on 20 March to explain the rationale for the decision. I hope that helps to answer some of the questions that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife may have had. I refer again to the point that simplification is a vital principle to bear in mind when looking at the tax system, but it is not the only one. As the hon. Member for Wallasey rightly says, I have to make political decisions on a host of matters.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I agree about that and I am glad to hear that the Minister is making decisions on a host of issues, although politically we may not always have the same approach to them. She was talking about there being plenty of commentary on tax issues. There always is, but the point about the Office of Tax Simplification was that it was not doing it from a set stance. For example, one will get plenty of commentary from accountants about particular things, and it will tend to be mainly about the interests of the people who use accountants—their clients. That comes from a particular space, as a user of the tax system, or someone that helps comment or advise on the tax system. The Office of Tax Simplification could look at a tax from its start all the way through its process—look at what it was intended to do and whether it would be possible to administer it in a different way, for simplification purposes, without coming from a particular viewpoint. If the OTS goes, I do not think there is anybody out there now that will do that in a neutral way. As such, a lot of the commentary that one gets on the tax system comes from a very particular, interested place, which often gives a bigger voice to small groups of taxpayers than to larger numbers of taxpayers. Is the Minister not worried that by making this decision, she is going to lose objective oversight of a system that is not coming from a biased place, but is looking purely at the criterion of simplicity?

Finance (No. 2) Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Angela Eagle

Committee stage
Thursday 18th May 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Victoria Atkins]

I must direct the hon. Lady to the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, who is now leading on that. He has overall control of the programme of rehousing for Afghan refugees, and the Homes for Ukraine scheme—obviously that is a very separate system. The scheme is one of the tools available to the Government, which is why we are making the stamp duty changes to assist local authorities in their efforts to find homes for refugees. It will not be the only way in which we find accommodation for those families; there are other ways, including the military helping with accommodation for those who formerly served or helped the armed forces when they were in Afghanistan. It is one tool, and we want to make it as easy as possible for local authorities to use. I encourage the hon. Lady to speak to the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, who is leading on the issue.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Another question occurs to me: is the scheme only for Afghans and Ukrainians, or does it accommodate other homeless people who are fleeing conflict? It is clear that those who have fled Afghanistan and Ukraine are in a pretty unique position, with special schemes attached. Could the Minister put it on the record that the exemption may then also help others who are in a similar situation, but not in those categories?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am very happy to. The scheme is certainly not restricted to Ukrainian and Afghan refugees. It is designed to meet all local authority social housing needs. It is a measure to help alleviate overall social housing pressures on local authorities, precisely because we realise that the enormous generosity of the United Kingdom in helping Ukrainian and Afghan refugees has put increased pressures on local authorities when it comes to social housing. We want to ensure that this is sorted out for local authorities, as part of our humanitarian response to those crises—we are also long enough in the tooth to understand that there may be other humanitarian crises in the future.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 313 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

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[Victoria Atkins]

Out of an abundance of caution, I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my ministerial interests. I am recused from this subject matter in a ministerial capacity.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I wonder which sugary drinks the Minister is addicted to—perhaps she will tell us when we are not sitting in public.

We are dealing here with a technical change to the successful sugar tax, if we can call it that. Again, when we are dealing with Ministers whose job is to get money into the Exchequer, it is strange to have to congratulate them for the declining level of soft drinks industry levy receipts. The tax has successfully delivered on the intention behind the policy, and receipts are down by £21 million for April 2022 to March 2023. That is an awful lot of ruined teeth and extra weight avoided, often for children, whose life chances can be negatively impacted by becoming addicted to sugar.

The consensus among public health officials is that the sugar tax has caused a decline in sugary drink sales, and the total amount of sugar in soft drinks sold by retailers and manufacturers decreased by 35.4% between 2015 and 2019, from 135,500 tonnes to a mere 87,600. That is a success as far as things go, but perhaps the Minister might assure the Committee that the Government will take credit for the success and that they intend to continue to push for lowering even further the 87,600 tonnes of sugar that are currently put in drinks, because there is uncertainty about the Government’s direction.

Two previous Prime Ministers have challenged the existence of sugar taxes. The right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip said that, on the current evidence, it is ambiguous whether they work, but I have just raised some evidence that shows unambiguously that they do. Similarly, the Prime Minister’s immediate and very short-lived predecessor, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), said that

“taxes on treats hit those on the lowest incomes.”

If I may say so, they might also account for the development of a trend that is quite shocking when one thinks about it. There is now a positive correlation being between poor and being obese.  As a society, we ought to tackle that, partially by using such methods, so that we can ensure that the correlation does not survive. We could bring to bear a range of other measures to ensure that happy outcome, but they would be completely outwith the scope of the Bill, so I will not talk about them.

We must, however, congratulate the Government on their introduction of sugar taxes. Since the current Prime Minister’s position is unclear, because he has both supported and rejected furthering a sugar tax, will the Exchequer Secretary tell us what the Government’s position is? Is he willing to stand up and take unambiguous credit for the success of the sugar tax and confirm to us that the Government’s intention is to continue making progress in this area in an appropriate way, with more than just technical changes for drinks fountains?

Finance (No. 2) Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Angela Eagle

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th May 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey, I think for the first time. I have a great deal of sympathy with what hon. Member for Aberdeen North has just said, and I look forward to what the Minister has to say about it. It may well be that an innovation that has worked well in other Committees should spread to the Finance Bill. In the absence of any progress on that, I refer the hon. Member for Aberdeen North to the work of the Treasury Committee, of which I am a member, alongside one of her colleagues. We do extensive work pre and post Budgets and take a great deal of evidence. While it is not the same as having oral evidence to this Public Bill Committee, it is a pretty good alternative, and at the moment it is all we have.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Victoria Atkins)]

May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey? I am delighted if this is the first Finance Bill over which you are presiding. I should declare that I used to prosecute tax fraudsters for His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, but I have not done so since being elected to this place. I ought also, while we are in housekeeping mode, welcome all Committee members to this scrutiny. It is an important part of our legislation-making process. Particular thanks go to my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes who—I hope he will not mind my sharing—got married at the weekend and so is perhaps the first parliamentarian to spend his honeymoon in a Finance Bill Committee. My sincere apologies to Mrs Mangnall.

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[Dame Angela Eagle]

I am not suggesting any policy—far be it from me to do so from this side of the House. I am a mere Back Bencher, and it is not for me to make tax policy from the Opposition Back Benches. I am merely pointing out some problems that the choices that the Government appear to have made with this stealth tax are causing real people out there.

The problems are exacerbated by high marginal rates, and by very difficult and bad incentives that are quite hidden. That is why I am raising some of them here—I am attempting to draw attention to them to see whether the Minister has a response. If the Government are working on those areas, I am trying to find out what they aim to achieve by doing things this way. That is precisely what these Standing Committees are about—one gets to talk in more detail about choices that are made.

The hon. Gentleman must not imagine that I am putting forward a completely costed, different alternative, because this is not the place or time to do that. I am pointing out some of the problems, about which there is cross-party concern. I am not even making highly party political points. Far be it from me to do so—it is too early in the morning for me to do too much of that—but there are issues that we need to surface so that we can hear the Government’s official response.

I fear that we are driving into a cul de sac that will cause more problems than it solves, particularly in the interaction of the income tax system with a range of benefits, not only for the very low paid, but for medium earners. That is not being properly talked about, so by raising the matter at this point in the Bill, I am trying to get a handle on the Government’s thinking. I look forward to listening to what the Minister has to say about it, and perhaps even intervening further if she says something that piques my interest.

[Victoria Atkins]

In that case, I will try to be extremely dull. I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Lady for her questions. If I may take issue with her challenge that this is somehow hidden or a stealth tax, we debated these thresholds in the previous Finance Bill in the autumn. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor was very clear in his statement and in the following debate, as well as during the consideration of the Bill, about the difficult decisions, and we very much include the threshold decisions in that category. We were up-front and transparent about what we had to do to address some of the underlying issues we face in the economy.

I do not for a moment underestimate the hon. Lady’s intentions in raising the matter, but I must push back on the idea that this is somehow being hidden. Indeed, I remember being asked about it on many occasions both in this place and, dare I say it, on media rounds—understandably so, because this matters to people.

There is one point of agreement across the House, however, and that is the impact of inflation on people’s take-home pay. That is why the Prime Minister has set it as his first of five priorities to halve inflation by the end of this year, because it hurts all of us, but it hurts the poorest in society the most. We have heard the ongoing debate about food inflation, and none of us wants to see the difficult situations that people on the lowest incomes are finding themselves in. That is why the Treasury is doing everything that we can to support the Bank of England, which is of course operationally independent, in lowering the rate of interest.

The hon. Member for Ealing North asked me about the OBR. I am happy to quote the Chancellor, who has said in relation to the OBR’s figures overall that we respect them. It is an independent forecaster, whose job it is to make a forecast. As we all know, however, and as we have seen very recently with the Bank of England, forecasts are exactly that—forecasts. They can change, so we are working to support the Bank of England in its work. We respect the OBR, but fundamentally we are trying to ensure that the lowest paid receive as much of their income without having to pay any tax as we can afford as a country.

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[Dame Angela Eagle]

I assume that those figures are for now. Is there a calculation of where fiscal drag will have left them after 2027-28? The figures will undoubtedly go down, especially if inflation persists for any length of time. It is 10% now, which means that anyone who is within 10% of the next threshold will go over it this year.

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Lady has hit on exactly the point. We have to be so careful with forecasts, because there are so many variables. As she has identified, inflation is one of them. Please do not think that I am speculating about what may or may not be in future fiscal events, but if there are changes to the rate of national living wage, for example, that will have an impact. There are many variables, and that means that our figures are both costed from a Treasury perspective and examined by the OBR. We very much stand by the figures set out in the autumn statement and as part of Budget considerations in the spring.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

The Office for Budget Responsibility has said that the frozen thresholds will drag 2.1 million people into the higher rate of tax, raising £26 billion a year, which is the equivalent of 4p on the basic rate. One presumes that that is net of all the other things that the Minister is talking about.

[Victoria Atkins]

The shadow Minister asked that question. We respect the work of the OBR, and of course we understand that it is an independent forecaster. However, as I said, we have never shied away from the fact that this a difficult set of circumstances. I know it is not for the hon. Lady to set tax policy on behalf of her Front-Bench team, but my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury posed an interesting question: what is Labour’s alternative? Outside observers may wish to take that into account.

We believe in sound money, and the rate of debt interest that we are paying each year—some £120 billion—is money that we would much rather spend on our NHS, police and defence. However, precisely because of our extraordinary efforts to protect our constituents throughout the pandemic, to help Ukraine and to provide support through the cost of living crisis that has emerged from that, we are having to take these difficult decisions in a fiscally responsible way.

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[Dame Angela Eagle]

I think that this measure will be welcomed across the Committee. As the Minister said, no one will vote against it. All of us know locally, from our constituency advice surgeries and our general work, the pressure that the entire care system is under. We know many of the things that are wrong with it and difficult in it, and how crucial it is to try to get it right, not least for the life opportunities of those people who are caught up in the system.

In the context of a welcome change, could the Minister explain the decision to index to CPI rather than RPI? The retail price index takes into account the costs of rent or housing in a way that I would have thought was directly relevant in this context. Why was it decided to use CPI rather than RPI for future indexation?

[Victoria Atkins]

We use CPI across the board. What we have tried to do is bring the value of the QCR back to its intended level. As I said, it had not changed since 2003. Index linking protects its value to foster carers in the future, so that a future Finance Bill Committee does not have to consider a similar uprating in the future.

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[Dame Angela Eagle]

I thank the Minister. It is obviously a good thing that there will be indexation. In fact, I was talking about the lack of indexing when we were talking about the freezing of tax thresholds earlier, so I understand that point.

However, I am asking a very technical, specific question about why the Government are using CPI rather than RPI. RPI includes the cost of housing, and the cost of rent, or whatever, for the place where the caring is being done seems to me to be a relevant cost in this context. Indexing to RPI would actually be a better way of representing and indexing those costs going forward. I am asking: why CPI, rather than RPI?

[Victoria Atkins]

It is because that tends to be our measure across the board. I take the hon. Lady’s point about housing, but if someone needs help with the cost of housing, depending on their income levels, there are other ways in which they can get help from the state for that. This relief was specifically to reflect the extraordinary public service that families across our constituencies provide in helping those most vulnerable of children.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 28 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill

Clause 29

Estates in administration and trusts

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

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[Dame Angela Eagle]

We often plead for financial services legislation to be made simpler, but from listening to the debate, it seems that we have not quite succeeded yet. I have a few questions, but the changes seem to be sensible; they ensure that there is no game-playing when it comes to reinsuring those bits of business that might need to be transferred from an ailing or failing insurance company to something stronger, so that those who rely on payments for their pensions or other costs can be assured that they will not lose out.

Have these technical changes been proposed as a result of an issue in the insurance world? Do insurers who wish to join larger companies or pass on some of their insurance policies want to do so because they thought that they had a tax advantage, and have buyers not been wanting to buy because they think that they might be left holding the baby, and face a big tax issue? Is this a structural problem, or does the Treasury see this as a potential problem that it wants to iron out before it manifests in the market? I suppose that is the question I am asking. If we are talking about a problem that has been holding up the efficient working of the market, what will the effect of the change be? Will it be beneficial? Has the Treasury modelled it, so that it knows the implications of the change? I am trying to get a handle on whether this is a theoretical issue, or whether there is an actual problem that has led to these changes, which seem sensible, if complex.

[Victoria Atkins]

First, in answer to the hon. Member for Ealing North, the Exchequer impact is plus-£15 million for 2022-23—all the figures are positive—plus-£50 million in 2023-24, plus-£55 million in 2024-25, and the same for 2025-26 and 2026-27. That is how long the measure has been scorecarded for. The hon. Member for Wallasey asked whether the risk was possible or actual. We legislated before significant further risk could arise on the adoption of the new accounting standard, IFRS 17.

Clause 30 addresses a possible tax mismatch in the BLAGAB reinsurance rules. Clause 31 addresses a matter brought to HMRC’s attention by the insurance sector, which has a long-standing concern that the current scope of the legislation, which treats certain sums received under a reinsurance contract as taxable income, may be unnecessarily wide and is blocking commercial transactions. In relation to the hon. Lady’s laments about the simplification of financial services legislation, I speak with the scars of having tried to prosecute insider dealing cases in my time, so I can understand why she asks about that.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 30 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 31 to 33 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 34

Corporate interest restriction

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Online Homophobia

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Angela Eagle

Monday 1st July 2019 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I start by thanking Bobby Norris for raising the important issue of online homophobia. I thank the more than 152,000 people who have signed the petition so far. I understand that it is still open.

I thank the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) for opening the debate in such a thoughtful way and I thank all colleagues who have contributed this afternoon. They have given different accounts, some very personal, of their own experience or that of their constituents of online homophobia. The hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) spoke movingly about Bobby and others putting their heads above the parapet. I feel honour-bound to reflect on the fact that she herself has done the same. I thank her sincerely for all that she has done in the pioneering fashion that she has described.

The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) rightly talked about the diversity within the phrase “LGBT+” to describe a wealth of experiences, a richness of life experiences, some happy, some not, but I thank him for making that very important point. As has been mentioned, this debate is timely because we are on the cusp of one of the world’s largest Pride events this weekend in London, and last week we remembered that it is 50 years since the Stonewall riots, an event that sparked a global advancement of LGBT+ rights around the world. We have come a long way in those 50 years, but these debates and discussions today show how much further we must go.

To be clear—I do not think it is necessary, but I want it on the record—homophobia, online or offline, is wrong. It is a prejudice all too often accompanied by behaviour that has no place in a modern, vibrant and inclusive Britain. Unfortunately, homophobia rears its ugly head, including, as we have heard today, online, where it can be particularly pernicious and pervasive. The hon. Members for Cambridge and for Wallasey set out some stark statistics, including the terrible one highlighted in the Stonewall research that showed one in 10 people surveyed had experienced online homophobic, biphobic or transphobic abuse or behaviour in the past month. I have seen and been appalled by such abuse. Indeed, Mr Norris shared on his Instagram account on 15 June a particularly disgusting message that he received. I will not dignify either the messenger or the message by reading it into the record of our democracy, but if Mr Norris and others face such hateful language, with all the terrible repercussions that it can have for someone, particularly if they are in a vulnerable place at that point in their life or perhaps do not have the network of support that we would all wish for loved ones, it can have, as we have heard from the hon. Member for Wallasey, very serious consequences.

The internet, as in life off the internet, should be a place where all people feel free to socialise, share information, do business, share photos, and enjoy the massive benefits of the online space. My hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) brought an international perspective to the debate with his work for the Council of Europe. He talked about the treatment of people within our community, our neighbourhoods and our society, who may love someone of the same sex or gender and about other manifestations of LGBT inclusivity, and rightly pointed out the dire experiences that people overseas, particularly in places such as Russia, can share. I am sure we are all with him in agreeing that we would like other countries such as Russia to follow our lead.

For the purposes of the debate I shall set out the current legislation, given that the petition asks us to make online homophobia a specific criminal offence. There are already criminal offences to cover some of the horrific forms of abuse that we have heard about. For example, there are harassment offences in the Public Order Act 1986 and the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. There are offences covering “grossly offensive” material in the Malicious Communications Act 1988 and the Communications Act 2003. There is also an offence of “stirring up” hatred based on sexual orientation in the Public Order Act 1986. Where such crimes are motivated by, or demonstrate, hostility towards a victim based on sexual orientation, or perceived sexual orientation, they are hate crimes. The hate crime legislation, which also covers race, religion, disability, and transgender identity, allows for increased sentences for those convicted of such an offence.

However, I absolutely understand the concerns that have been raised today, not least the fair observation that all of the legislation that I have cited was passed before the internet, as we know it today, came into being. I suspect that were we to have this debate in 10 years’ time, the internet would be very different from today. That is precisely why the Government asked the Law Commission to take forward two important reviews. The first review looks at the current legislation on abusive and offensive online communications to ensure that laws are up to date with technology. The Government announced the commencement of phase two of the Law Commission’s work last week. It will build on the analysis in its scoping report, including considering the potential for improving existing communications offences, and whether the law might more effectively address co-ordinated harassment by groups of people.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

The Law Commission does important work in trying to bring together sometimes fragmented laws and updating them, but the review is not due to be published until 2020. There is a tradition of Law Commission reports sitting gathering dust on shelves and never being acted on, so will the Minister say something about the Government’s determination, if such there is, to act on the Law Commission’s report? Will she consider bringing forward its work so that we can be in a position to legislate faster than the current timetable allows?

[Victoria Atkins]

I absolutely understand the hon. Lady’s impatience with the timetable. I think I am correct in saying that she was in government herself when some of the legislation we are looking at came into force. I remember the 1997 Act coming into force when I was a practitioner trying to make sure that that law was applied in the criminal courts. I appreciate that my answer will not satisfy the people who have contributed to the petition, but we have to get this matter right. We have asked the Law Commission to look at the issue because it is a very complicated area of law. The hon. Lady will know—this draws me on to the second review—about the debate on whether misogyny should be listed as a hate crime. In this Chamber almost a year ago I was open to the concept or the idea that that form of hatred, particularly, as has been said, the intersectionality with homophobia, biphobia and transphobia, should be looked at carefully to ensure there are no unintended consequences of any legislation that we bring to this House in future. We must get it right. As has been noted in the debate, the ways in which people of ill intent target the people to whom they wish to be hateful shows that we need to be considered, thoughtful and careful in the way in which we approach it.

The second review that we are conducting is a full review of hate crime legislation. As I have said, we are looking at the coverage and approach of the current hate crime laws, including whether misogyny should form part of it, to ensure that the legislation continues to protect the existing characteristics covered, but also whether we need to update the law in this really important area, given all the factors that have been raised in the debate, to ensure that the law reflects the lived experience of our fellow residents.

The petition raises questions not only about our criminal laws, but about how we stay safe and are kept safe online, which is one of the biggest debates of our time. The challenges presented by the internet—the wild west, as it has been described—along with the freedoms that it brings about have to be carefully balanced.

We are clear that we want the United Kingdom to be the safest place in the world for everybody to be online. That is why the Government published the “Online Harms” White Paper in April. Through it, we plan to make technology companies more responsible for their users’ safety, including through a new statutory duty of care, which will be overseen by an independent regulator. The White Paper sets out plans to hold companies to account for tackling a comprehensive set of online harms, from which we will expect technology companies to take reasonable steps to protect their users.

[Geraint Davies in the Chair]

We have said that technology companies must do more, and they need not wait for the legislation following the White Paper to do so. The platforms must have clear and accessible terms and conditions about what is and is not acceptable behaviour, and they need to enforce them in a fair and consistent manner.

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[Victoria Atkins]

That is a very interesting point. The hon. Gentleman will recall that we recently introduced the Data Protection Act 2018, bringing into force the GDPR rules of Europe. Worldwide, Governments are now much more mindful about data. However, this is a fast developing area, and one which I will ask the Security Minister and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to look into, as part of their consideration of the consultation as a whole.

Reports to the police, which I will come on to in a little while, were rightly mentioned, but I am mindful that not everyone wants to involve the police. If someone receives a hateful tweet or Instagram message, they may not want to involve the police for a host of reasons. That is why it is critical that tech companies have proper measures in place to clear up their own backyard. Many platforms have been making progress across a whole range of harms for which the Home Office has responsibility, but frankly it is not enough. That is why we introduced the White Paper.

Colleagues have understandably raised anonymity, which is something that we considered carefully as the White Paper was being drafted. If people feel strongly about the anonymity of users, I ask them to contribute, if they have not already, to the consultation on the White Paper. It closes at midnight tonight, and it will be interesting to see the results.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Can the Minister take a view? I certainly believe that we should get rid of anonymity online. Rather than have me respond to a consultation, surely she can take such a declaration on the Floor of the Chamber, and add it to the total that will be counted at one minute past twelve tonight.

[Victoria Atkins]

I do not pretend to know how the consultation responses are counted; it may well be a dreaded algorithm. I know that officials will look carefully at the Hansard report of the debate. If the hon. Lady cannot contribute online, certainly Members’ views can be added to the result of the consultation. [Interruption.] A number of arms are going up in the Chamber, for the benefit of Hansard.

I understand the points that have been made about the need for action now, as well as in future. That is why we have set out, under the hate crime action plan, a number of commitments that the Government are taking forward that will support a robust criminal justice response for those who feel able to seek the help of the police, or who find themselves in a situation where others call the police on their behalf. I am very struck by the recent horrific attacks in London, Merseyside and Southampton that others have mentioned. The police are doing all that they can to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Of course, I always encourage anyone who feels able to report their experiences to the police to do so, partly to ensure that they get the right support. There are many excellent support and advice centres for victims of homophobic incidents, particularly the charity Galop, with which the Government work closely. However, I take the point about the reaction of the police when someone is able to report an incident to them. That is why we are funding a police online hate crime hub to improve the police response to victims of online hate crime. We are raising awareness of hate crime through a public awareness campaign, which people may have seen last autumn and again this spring.

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[Victoria Atkins]

Yes, I am very happy to do so. We are funding the police online hate crime hub, which is an expert police team that helps forces across the country to respond to hate crime cases effectively. We are also working with the police to ensure that that support reaches the areas that need it, because I appreciate that some forces may need to improve their performance. Indeed, the police inspectorate recently inspected some police forces. Some already do bespoke training and upskill experts in their own forces. Gwent has been held up as a strong example of that.

We need to ensure in our awareness campaign that members of the public understand, first of all, what hate crime is, the forms it can take and, as has been mentioned, that the use of certain words and language may well be incredibly offensive and abusive to people. It is about having that understanding of one’s own conduct as well. We are pleased to support a number of community projects focused on tackling LGBT+ hate crimes, including working with Barnardo’s, Stop Hate UK and the football initiative Kick It Out. We continue to take that and other work forward, working closely with the Government Equalities Office and a range of stakeholders, including Galop and Stonewall.

I conclude by reiterating the Government’s unwavering support in the fight against homophobia in all its forms. No one should have to face abuse, discrimination or harassment based on who they love. The Government are committed to eradicating bigotry and abuse, and I think that the House agrees with the plea of the hon. Member for Cambridge for us to be civilised in our debates. The sketch writers may have a field day tomorrow with us all agreeing that we should be nicer to one another, but I think—[Interruption.] There seems to be disagreement across the Chamber.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Obviously we should all be nicer to one another, but the plain fact is that a lot of people are having their mental health badly affected because there are some very nasty people out there. That can be solved only by taking it much more seriously and much more urgently than I am afraid the Minister seems to be indicating that the Government are going to.

[Victoria Atkins]

I simply do not accept that. I was trying to end on a collegiate note, precisely because of the experiences that have been reiterated and addressed in the debate. I simply do not accept that I am not taking the matter seriously. I was simply agreeing with the hon. Member for Cambridge on how we should use our language, and that trying to be decent and civilised in our interactions will go some way towards making it clear to those who do not use decent and civilised language and behaviour that that is simply unacceptable. I hope that that is a point on which we can all agree.

Merseyside Police Funding

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Angela Eagle

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Victoria Atkins]

We have been conscious of the impact that the rule changes would have on constabularies. That was discussed in 2016, I think, and there was an expectation that forces would be able to go some way to ameliorating the increase. Following the conversations that the Policing Minister had with chief constables, we have secured more money from the Treasury to try to cover the majority of that pension increase. I accept that a proportion still falls on local forces, but we have managed to secure some assistance towards the overall cost.

I will ask the Policing Minister to write to the hon. Gentleman about next year. We are working towards the comprehensive spending review and I imagine that the message from this debate and others will be heard loud and clear by the Policing Minister and, importantly, by the Treasury.

I return to the fact that we have tried to increase police funding; last year, we increased it by up to £460 million. Contrary to allegations from Opposition Members, I have always been clear that it has been with the help of police and crime commissioners that we have helped, as a society, to inject that further money into policing.

Similarly, this year, we are injecting up to £970 million more, again with the help of police and crime commissioners. That is why I am pleased that the police and crime commissioner for Merseyside has conducted her consultation, won the support of more than 74% of respondents for her proposals, and can raise council tax by £2 per month on band D households.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Will the Minister recognise, on the record, that by doing things in that way and by bringing local taxpayers into the formula, she is saying to my constituents and the constituents of all hon. Members on this side of the Chamber that people in the poorest areas, who are least able to cope with tax increases, have to pay them because they happen to live in an area with greater demands on policing? Why is that not the national Government’s duty? Why should our constituents have that unfair burden put on them?

[Victoria Atkins]

That is where the hon. Lady and I part in our political philosophy. There is no such thing as Government money; it is taxpayers’ money, collected centrally, that is paid to police constabularies. None the less, we have been careful to protect and increase Government grants where we can.

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[Ms Angela Eagle]

I am sure we could have many a philosophical discussion about what taxpayers’ money is, but that would be for another time. Even with that difference of view, will the Minister not admit that using the council tax system puts a greater burden on the people who are least able to pay, because of the regressive way that council tax is worked out? We have many constituents in band E properties who are, by definition, asset poorer and generally poorer than those in higher council tax bands, but she is suggesting that there should be a redistribution from people in better-off areas to those in poorer areas, who will be forced to pay more. How is that fair?

[Victoria Atkins]

There is still funding from central Government. We are concentrating on the direct funding formula for the force, but there are other ways in which police forces receive money to target particular needs in their communities. For example, with the issue of serious organised crime, which has been raised today, I am delighted that Andy Cooke, the chief constable, is in fact the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on serious organised crime. He brings his expertise to that role.

Through the funding settlement, there is a national grant of £90 million to tackle serious and organised crime. Regarding the local area, I think the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) said that there was not a penny being put towards serious organised crime—I hope she will forgive me if I have misquoted her, but it was something along those lines. We are funding a serious organised crime community co-ordinator in Merseyside and Cheshire, as one of five pilot areas with a specific focus, and through this pilot programme we are looking to increase significantly our focus on diverting people away from serious organised crime and on building resilience.

In addition, the North West regional organised crime unit is providing specialist serious organised crime policing capabilities and advice to its six host forces, which include Merseyside. We want very much to help local PCC funding across those forces by supplementing their funding through core grant funding, as we did last year. The hon. Member for Garston and Halewood specifically raised the point about cyber-crime. The North West ROCU has been allocated £434,000 of specific funding for cyber protect and prevent officers, and an international standards officer, so there is funding from sources other than the grant.

Gender Pay Gap

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Angela Eagle

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend raises a sensitive issue in her usual sensitive manner. Of course I will look into it. So many issues can impede the career path of a woman or, indeed, a man. It is in the best interests of businesses to find the flexibility to be able to encompass such sensitivities as and when that flexibility is needed. Flexible working really does pay in results for businesses.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

It is now over 40 years since a heroine of mine, Barbara Castle, introduced the Equal Pay Act. She did so with great support from the labour and trade union movement, because the principle that women should be paid the same for doing the same job as men was believed then. Forty years later, we are really no nearer to achieving that pay equality. Although it is important that we have seen transparency, it has laid bare the size of the task. Allowing enforcement mechanisms so that the existing law can actually be enforced is crucial, so that women who are illegally sacked for being pregnant can use the law to get proper redress and so that we can drive out this direct discrimination, which has been illegal for years. Does the Minister understand that?

[Victoria Atkins]

I commend the hon. Lady’s passion on the issue. Of course, equal pay has been the law for 40 years. Paying people unequally for the same or similar work is unlawful. We are currently seeing the impact that inequality has on workforce morale in various organisations, let alone the anger that individual women feel when inequality comes to light. The gender pay gap provisions obviously deal with the pay gap—unequal pay for the same or a similar job is dealt with under separate legislation. I think that Wendy Olsen’s report in 2010 defined the second highest factor impeding women’s participation in the workforce as “unknown”, which we know is direct and indirect discrimination, so we need to ensure that women are aware of their rights. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has the powers set out under the Equality Act 2010, and we will be looking at how powerful and effective those powers are.

[Victoria Atkins]

Yes, this is the first year. As of this month, we are having a conversation about the pay of more than 10,000 private sector businesses and more than 1,600 public sector organisations. We are also reviewing their data, which simply was not there a year ago, let alone 10 years ago. Although I absolutely understand the impatience in the Chamber to get this issue sorted as quickly as possible, we have to be realistic. Rome was not built in a day. We need to be sure about action plans.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

It’s the law.

[Victoria Atkins]

I completely agree; it is the law. But we need to review the action plans and the evidence. We have to give ourselves a bit of time to see what the data says and what lessons we need to learn from that data.