Cass Review

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Emma Hardy

Monday 15th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my hon. Friend for his careful and considered question. I very much hope that the Scottish National party Government will look at the evidence very carefully and find the recommendations to their liking. It is to NHS England’s credit that it has acted so promptly, and I would hope and expect that the devolved nations, let by the Scottish National party and the Welsh Labour party, will follow with similar speed.

As I have had to say, because it is in line with the atmosphere in which clinicians are having to operate, the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021, brought forward by the Scottish National party Government and supported by Scottish Labour, cannot help the considered debate that we wish to have about this very complex subject, and I encourage them to look at that as part of their overall approach.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

I welcome the Cass review and its recommendations. Mistakes have been made that must never happen again, but the polarised public debate that she mentions reflects badly on this House. Does the Minister agree that making jokes about trans people and trans children is cruel, cheapens the debate and moves the focus away from ensuring that all our young people get the help they need when they need it?

[Victoria Atkins]

True leadership is not just about being careful with the words we use. I will not recite the many words that other Labour Members have used about trans issues. They say, for example, that it is factually inaccurate to say that only women have a cervix—[Interruption.] I am not naming them, but that seems an extraordinary things for a Labour Member to say. [Interruption.] They do not like to hear their words repeated back to them, but I will resist that temptation and instead focus on the application of policy.

Trans prisoners, including those who are fully intact and have been convicted of serious sexual offences, are demanding to be held in prisons that match their chosen gender. This Government, including me and many of my predecessors as Prisons Minister, set clear rules to ensure that situations such as the Karen White case are not repeated, so it was very troubling that Opposition Members did not appear to have the same concerns when it came to the placing of a trans double rapist, Isla Bryson, in Scotland. [Interruption.] I am being told that it is not true but, if Opposition Members want to factcheck, apparently it was the deputy leader of the Labour party who said that it does not matter.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Emma Hardy

Monday 20th March 2023 Commons Chamber

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

I thank colleagues across the House for a spirited debate, in which we discussed some profoundly serious issues facing our constituents and our country. Although there may be very different ideas across this Chamber on how to deal with those issues, I am sure that Opposition Members will accede, in an air of understanding how important this is to our democracy, that while we may have different ideas, we all fundamentally want the same thing: to look after our constituents and this great country.

I particularly want to thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have revealed to us their expertise in science. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) on his frankly ingenious use of the phrases “levelling up” and “productivity increase” when it comes to the number of swimming pool lanes in the Marple leisure hub. I also suspect he is the first colleague to get “inflatable flamingo” into Hansard.

The Government have a bold and ambitious plan to grow our economy, which will be driven in part by our taking a seat at the table of science and innovation superpowers. It is a plan for the future, not just in the realm of science and technology, but of our economy altogether. Just as we can improve people’s lives through science, innovation and technology, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State outlined at the start of the debate, we can also create highly paid and rewarding jobs across the UK, and we plan to do exactly that through our levelling-up work and our investment zones.

Of course, the way taxes are levied will be an important part of our success. As the Minister responsible for the tax system, I have asked my officials to keep three objectives in mind: making tax fairer, making tax simpler and making tax supportive of growth. By creating the right incentives through tax, we will harness British ingenuity to make us a science superpower.

We have heard a lot of statistics in this debate. In an effort to share the goodwill and cheer everybody up a bit, I thought I would give some more statistics, to put just a little colour and context on some of the stats we have heard. Since 2010 we have grown more than major economies such as France, Italy and Japan, and about the same as Europe’s largest economy, Germany. On growth, last year we had the highest growth of any G7 economy.

While Opposition Members understandably like to focus on the bad news that this year we are not meeting the hopes we all have in respect of growth, it is important to draw out the OECD’s fuller forecast, which is that cumulative growth between 2022 and 2024 inclusive for the United Kingdom is predicted to be higher than for Germany, Japan or the United States. The World Bank says that, out of all of the big European countries, we are the best place to do business. Surely the Labour party does not disagree with that. Global CEOs say that, apart from America and China, we are the best country in which to invest.

That is precisely why we have announced the full expensing policy, which will support the corporation tax policy and the annual investment allowance for smaller businesses. We have the world’s third trillion-dollar technology economy, after the United States and China. We have built the largest film and TV industry in Europe—again, we had some good news for that industry last week with the tax reliefs that the Chancellor announced. In terms of the personal, a disadvantaged pupil is 85% more likely to go to university now than they were a decade ago.

We have also built the largest life sciences sector in Europe, something my right hon. and hon. Friends representing Cambridgeshire are particularly keen to emphasise every time we meet. The Government recognise the value of small and medium-sized enterprises to the wider R&D ecosystem of the UK and the hugely important role that research and development and innovation plays for the economy and for society.

Even in extremely challenging fiscal circumstances, we must prioritise R&D, and indeed we are prioritising it. That is why we are introducing an enhanced credit whereby, if a small or medium-sized business spends 40% or more of its total expenditure on R&D, it will be able to claim a credit worth £27 for every £100 spent, something welcomed by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton).

[Emma Hardy]

Does the Minister share the concerns that I set out earlier about the fraud involved in the R&D tax relief, which equates to more than £1 billion being lost in fraudulent investments that HMRC is yet to be able to fully claw back for the taxpayer?

[Victoria Atkins]

Not only do I agree with the hon. Lady, but I am going even further than the changes that we have made to the R&D scheme. She will see in the Finance Bill some practical measures to help small businesses ensure that they are not inadvertently—or indeed, sometimes fraudulently—dragged into that scheme. I do not want a pub restaurant claiming that discovering avocado is a research and development issue, so we are absolutely clamping down on that. I know that other hon. Members around the House raised that as well.

To put a little context on the R&D changes, they mean that an eligible cancer drug company spending £2 million on research and development will receive more than half a million back to help it to deliver breakthrough treatments. Of course, R&D is not confined just to life sciences and the tech sector; it is also, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) righty set out, even present in the ceramics industry. I very much look forward to the things he mentioned coming into fruition.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell), the hon. Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith)—I apologise for my pronunciation of her constituency—and others mentioned Horizon. The latest update that I can give the House is that, of course, we have expanded the Horizon guarantee until the end of June this year. I am delighted to say that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Science Minister met the EU ambassador only last week to continue our discussions about that scheme.

In relation to corporation tax, of course, we have one of the most supportive business tax regimes in the world. We have the lowest corporation tax in the G7. The UK’s research and development expenditure credit offers the joint highest uncapped headline rate of R&D tax relief support in the G7 for large companies, and the Government’s announcement of full expensing for businesses from 1 April this year will make a huge difference to businesses.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Sir Robert Syms) noted, that tax cut, which is worth an average of £9 billion a year for every year that it is in place, is focused only on those businesses that invest. That is targeted help for the businesses that will invest in our country—I hope, having noted his comments about the super-deduction, that my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) will welcome that.

I genuinely think that the confirmation of the 12 investment zones is one of the most exciting parts of the Budget. Each investment zone will drive innovation and growth in one of our key future sectors—including life sciences, advanced manufacturing, green industries, digital and technology, and creative industries—and, importantly, will be aligned to local economic strengths, with a total investment of £80 million over five years.

My hon. Friends the Members for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) and for Bracknell (James Sunderland) both put up strong, heartfelt arguments in favour of their areas. I am afraid that I cannot make decisions at the Dispatch Box, but I wish them well in that.

Another exciting development is for my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie), who is developing a real reputation for representing her constituency and the need for nuclear. We are delighted that Great British Nuclear will launch the first stage competition for small modular reactors, which is expected to attract the best designs from domestic and international vendors. I know that she will watch that carefully

My hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup), who brings to the Chamber her expertise not just as a former science graduate but, importantly, as a former Health Minister, welcomed the announcements made last week on medicines and medical technology regulation. The MHRA has some exciting developments coming down the road, including being able to set up new approval processes for the most cutting-edge medicines and devices to ensure that we continue to be a global centre for their development, and a new system that will allow rapid, often near-automatic sign-off for medicines and technologies approved by other highly respected and trusted medicine regulatory bodies around the world.

On pensions, Opposition Members have appeared not to support the Government’s efforts to get more doctors back into the NHS. A fact: the Royal College of Surgeons of England has reported that 69% of respondents to its survey said that they were cutting their hours because of pensions rules. Another fact: the chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners says that this is a “game changer” for keeping police chiefs fighting crime. Another fact: the Association of School and College Leaders said:

“It is in the national interest”.

I take some guidance from the shadow Health Secretary, the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), who said that it will “inevitably save lives” to make these changes. That is why we are doing it. We can introduce it in two weeks’ time, and I very much hope that Opposition Members will support it.

Childcare is another massive policy, but I am very pleased—

Rape and Sexual Violence

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Emma Hardy

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Victoria Atkins)]

I have had the privilege of debating International Women’s Day for several years, but never has one been set in such an atmosphere or against such an international backdrop as the horrific invasion of Ukraine. We are incredibly honoured to have heard moments ago from President Zelensky, who is facing enormous threats to his personal safety and that of his country and fellow citizens. I will address the debate in the same spirit of international unity on this great day when we celebrate and mark our hopes and aspirations for women around the world.

The last 13 days have shown how precious democracy is across the world. We in the United Kingdom have a long and proud history of democracy, but it is something that we must protect, cherish and nurture. We in this Chamber are the personification of the importance of democracy in our country. It is through contributions made here, and through the work of Back-Bench MPs and Ministers, that we deliver change through democratic processes in our great country.

We are already hearing of terrifying incidents of violence against women and girls in Ukraine. Of course, we have seen the absolutely heart-rending experiences of women and girls fleeing their home and their country to seek safety and sanctuary elsewhere in Europe. We stand with them and with all women and girls who are living through conflict in this terrible time. I take in genuine spirit the tone in which the debate has been raised and I invite, as we have as a Government, scrutiny of the measures that we are taking to address violence against women and girls.

We have taken a hard and honest look at how the entire criminal justice system deals with rape and serious sexual violence. We have acknowledged that in too many instances, it has simply not been good enough. Since the publication of the rape review last year, however, we have learned lessons and we have brought and are bringing measures into place to build change.

When these devastating crimes happen, we want victims to come forward and feel confident to report them and to seek justice. That involves many stages of the criminal justice process from the moment a report is made to the police to the conclusion of the case. On the global stage and on British streets, we are working tirelessly every day to ensure that women and girls feel safe and that they know that they can trust the criminal justice system to punish perpetrators. We are breaking biases, supporting victims and making the changes that the public expect.

[Emma Hardy]

As I raised with my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves), when rape convictions are completed and somebody is found guilty, the victim is sometimes unable to get criminal injuries compensation because she may have prior convictions that are unrelated to sexual assault, as happened to my constituent. I have raised that in Parliament before and I was promised a meeting with a Minister, which has not yet been forthcoming. In the spirit of co-operation, I hope that on the issue of sexual violence, the Minister will look again at eligibility for criminal injuries compensation.

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Lady has raised an important point and I undertake myself to meet her to discuss this—very much so.

This Government have taken decisive and measurable action in the last 12 months to make our system stronger. I stress the word “measurable” because this is how we are going to drive change across agencies over the coming months and years to address the issues highlighted in today’s debate. We are focusing on preventing these horrendous crimes from taking place in the first place. We published the tackling violence against women and girls strategy last year very much in response to the 180,000 accounts that we received from women and girls, and men, who wanted to share their thoughts and experiences of violence against women and girls.

We have already put a range of practical steps in place, including, only last week, the public communications campaign “Enough”, which I encourage all Members across the House to share on their social media channels and networks to get the message out about the unacceptable attitudes that we do not want to see in our country in the 2020s.

We have also funded local projects and initiatives across England and Wales to the tune of more than £27 million to improve the safety of women in public spaces through the safer streets fund. I know this is a matter of interest to various colleagues. We, of course, have the roll-out of statutory relationships, sex and health education in schools, because we understand that we need to ensure that children and young people are taught at the earliest age possible and in an age-appropriate way what healthy and respectful love looks like.

In the last year, we have also published the end-to-end rape review report and action plan and we have looked at every stage of the criminal justice system. The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves), understandably, says it took a long time. It did, because this is such a complex area, and everybody in the House will appreciate that we do not want to suffer unintended consequences, no matter how well meaning measures may be in the first place. With that approach, we outlined in the action plan a robust and ambitious programme of work.

In December, precisely because we are determined to have an attitude of non-defensive transparency about what is happening at various stages across the criminal justice system, we published our first six-monthly progress report and quarterly scorecard for adult rape cases. I am never very sure about that precise word, but it is the word we have come up with for the time being. It is about increasing public transparency of performance across the criminal justice system at every stage by grabbing data from the system from the moment a crime is recorded by the police to the completion of a case in court. The metrics have been selected to cover priority areas such as victim engagement, timeliness and the volume of cases reaching court.

The hon. Lady raised the point about equalities. Believe you me, this is something we are very conscious of. She will, I hope, understand—I do not say this by way of complaint; it is just a fact—that, because different parts of the CJS collect their data in different ways and measure different things, we have had to group together. She will have seen from the scorecards how carefully we have had to use the measures in various parts, because there is not a single line of measurement that runs through every stage of the CJS. We will get there, but at the moment it is taking a bit of time to collect that data. On the point about equalities, it is one of those measurements that we do not have yet. That is not for want of attention or effort, but it is taking a bit of time to try to address some of the very real equalities measurements. She will know, I hope, that, as part of the scorecard process, I personally not just chair meetings with leaders across the CJS, but listen to survivors groups, because they are the people who can very much guide us on some of this work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Emma Hardy

Thursday 17th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend raises a point that concerns many in the House and outside. I am currently doing a piece of work on online offences and look forward to the development of the online harms White Paper, because I suspect that many of the answers we all seek will be in that documentation.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

T6. Endometriosis UK found that 476,000 British women had to visit their GP more than 11 times for a positive diagnosis, and that their pain was often dismissed as being psychological. What steps is the Minister taking to eliminate gender bias in the diagnosis of health conditions?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Emma Hardy

Monday 15th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

TransPennine Express recently locked a gate that is a major access point to the Hull Paragon station, and prominent disability campaigners have been protesting about that. It has locked the gate because it believes that that is the best way to deal with the rising problem of antisocial behaviour. Does the Minister agree that the company should be letting the police tackle the problem of antisocial behaviour and not discriminating against disabled people? Will Ministers join me in sending a clear message to TransPennine Express to open the gate?

[Victoria Atkins]

I hope the hon. Lady will forgive me if I am not familiar with the precise railway gate in question. However, she will know that the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 provides at least six powers for not just the police but local authorities to tackle antisocial behaviour. It might be that the train company would benefit from a bit of discussion with not just the police but local authorities to see whether they can come up with a better solution.

Antisocial Behaviour: Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Emma Hardy

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) on securing this debate about a matter that I know is of huge importance to her and her constituents—particularly those who are suffering in the way she so eloquently described. She made a wide-ranging speech, and I will try to respond to as many of her points as I can. I hope she understands that I do not have the details of those that concern other Departments immediately to hand, but I will ask the relevant Minister to write to her about any points to which I do not manage to respond.

Anyone who represents a constituency knows just how terrible antisocial behaviour can be. The hon. Lady will never hear me diminish its impact. Individual incidents sometimes have the most extraordinary effect on communities. So-called low-level behaviour may not seem that significant, but if it develops into a pattern of behaviour it becomes incredibly wearing for those who have to live with it day in, day out. Antisocial behaviour can be anything from people running amok, swearing at people or frightening residents to drunken and drug-related harassment, intimidating behaviour, and noisy and abusive neighbours. All those things can have a profound and debilitating effect on the people we were elected to serve.

That is why the Government gave the police, local authorities and local agencies a range of flexible powers to keep the public safe through the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. We fully agree that antisocial behaviour is not just a policing issue, important though policing is in this context. Solutions must often be part of a holistic approach that draws in local authorities and other agencies. We expect those agencies to respond and use those powers flexibly to protect their communities from all types of antisocial behaviour. However, where antisocial behaviour tips over into far more serious offending that is clearly criminal—the hon. Lady will know that serious violence and other forms of criminal behaviour fall within my portfolio—we expect the police and others to use the full force of the law to bring people to justice through the criminal justice system.

The 2014 Act provides six flexible powers, which are designed to enable the police and local authorities to respond quickly to antisocial behaviour in their communities and stop it reoccurring. Those powers include court orders to stop the behaviour of the most antisocial people, powers to close premises that are a magnet for trouble, and powers to stop antisocial behaviour in public places. They also include measures such as civil injunctions, which are interesting because they do not just prohibit people from engaging in certain behaviour but can place positive requirements on perpetrators to address the underlying causes of their antisocial behaviour.

Sadly, there are themes that run through the backgrounds of many of the young people who fall into my portfolio. Domestic abuse is a particularly strong theme, and I am concentrating on protecting direct victims of domestic abuse and on the ramifications for young people who are vulnerable to being ensnared by criminal gangs of witnessing domestic abuse in the home and being desensitised to violence outside the home. The Government and I are looking at many themes to address the background factors that feature in the lives of many young people who behave in an antisocial or indeed criminal way.

Other types of order, such as community protection notices and criminal behaviour orders, are directed at the most harmful behaviour. Local authorities also have the power to impose public spaces protection orders to protect public spaces from antisocial behaviour and nuisance, and the police can use their dispersal power to direct any individual who engages in antisocial behaviour away from a particular place.

[Emma Hardy]

Those powers have been used effectively in Hull, but the Minister will recall—I have spoken about this previously—that they just move the problem somewhere else in the city. We can use only so many of those orders, and they just seem to make the problem appear somewhere else. It is like a game of whack-a-mole—we do not seem to be able to whack them all down at the same time. I was heartened to hear her mention looking at the causes of domestic violence. I wonder whether she will say a little about what we are doing to prevent antisocial behaviour from happening in the first place—not just to deal with it when we see it through criminal convictions, but to look at its causes and how we can stop them.

[Victoria Atkins]

I was about to come to that, so I apologise for incorporating my answer into my speech. We want to give people on the ground the ability to use those powers as they feel is appropriate in their local community. The hon. Lady will understand that the challenges in her inner-city area are very different from those in my area of Lincolnshire, which is just down the road from her area but is very rural. Although we have antisocial behaviour, I suspect it takes a different form from that in a city centre, given the local geography and so on.

The Government want to give local people the powers to respond in the most effective way in their local area. Indeed, in December last year we published refreshed guidance on the use of those powers by councils, police officers and so on—we understood that some councils were using PSPOs in particular in a way that was perhaps not intended by Parliament, so we refreshed the guidance to help local councillors. A couple of months ago I spoke to local councillors at the Local Government Association to help them with that.

The hon. Lady asked me about a community response. She will know that as part of the serious violence strategy we are pulling together across all Government Departments, along with local government colleagues, the Mayor of London, police and crime commissioners and Mayors across the country, to try to have a more joined-up approach to serious violence. That will have a beneficial effect on lower-level offending behaviour as well, because if we can help young people with issues at home, mental health issues and so on, as she described, that will have an impact on their behaviour generally. That is why I am delighted that not only are we helping the Vulcan Learning Centre, a local charity in Hull, through the knife crime community fund, which will help local children who are perhaps falling into crime. There is also a bigger, national effort through the early intervention fund for young people announced in the serious violence strategy as well as the endowment fund that the Home Secretary announced last week—£200 million that will be invested in long-term projects to help young people across the county. A great deal of work is going on.

The hon. Lady rightly mentioned concerns about children who are not in full-time education but are perhaps in alternative provision. The Government have commissioned a review by Edward Timpson, the former Care Minister, who has a great understanding on a personal and professional level of the issues facing looked-after children or those in alternative provision. He is looking at alternative provision through the schooling system to see what is working, what is not and what we need to improve. Again, through my work in other areas, I know that that can have an enormous impact on children’s behaviour and their ability to lead productive lives.

If I may, I will let the hon. Lady know about the ability of victims of antisocial behaviour, or someone acting on their behalf, including a Member of Parliament, to request a formal antisocial behaviour case review—I do not know whether she is aware of this—which is called a “community trigger.” I like talking about it, because colleagues should be aware of it and they can use it if requested by their constituents. It enables victims of antisocial behaviour to ensure that their voice is heard when they believe they have not had a satisfactory response to repeated complaints of antisocial behaviour, and it forces agencies to act. The relevant bodies in a local area must agree on and publish their case review procedures. Therefore, if she believes that the relevant agencies in her constituency have not acted on reports of antisocial behaviour in Hull and the East Riding, that is a possible solution for her constituents. I note that her police and crime commissioner cited tackling antisocial behaviour as a priority in his policing plan, so perhaps she can ask him what he is doing to fulfil that pledge to the electorate.

The hon. Lady mentioned the police station in Hessle. Again, that is a decision taken by the PCC, so I hope she will forgive me if I do not comment on it. She also mentioned funding, and I think she said that we “relish” austerity. We really do not. I am always careful not to revisit history in too much detail because, apart from anything else, we should be forward-looking, but the situation in 2010 was that as a country we had run out of money and we had to start to live within our means. That meant we had to take very serious, tough decisions on funding. She will know that the then Home Secretary—now the Prime Minister—insisted that police funding be protected from 2015 onwards, and that last year, as part of the preparations for the police funding formula exercise that happens at the end of every year, the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service spoke to every constabulary in the country to ask them what they needed. Through that process, with the help of PCCs, we are able to put a further £460 million into policing this year. I am pleased that that means an increase of £4 million for Humberside constabulary, and it has managed to add 153 officers to its cadre since March last year.

[Emma Hardy]

I am sure the Minister recognises, as everyone out there does, that the number of criminal incidents is increasing, and the cuts have not stopped yet. She talks about the Government giving with one hand, but they are surely taking with the other, because there is still another £14 million to £17 million of savings to be found in the next few years. That will result in job losses for our PCSOs, which will have an impact on antisocial behaviour. I am sure she recognises that.

[Victoria Atkins]

I invite the hon. Lady to speak to her PCC—she is not just entitled to do that; it is part of all our duties to hold our PCCs to account. As of March last year—the last figures I have available—her police and crime commissioner had reserves of £34.3 million. To put that in context, the reserves as a percentage of total cash funding for 2017-18 were 20%, which is 5% higher than the average for England and Wales. She could ask her PCC what he is doing with that money.

[Emma Hardy]

The Minister has been generous in giving way. In fact, I meet with the PCC regularly and talked to him about the reserves only last week. They are currently being used to try to increase the number of police officers we have, to mitigate the cuts seen since 2010. I am sure by next year the reserves will not be there any longer.

[Victoria Atkins]

That is a matter for the police and crime commissioner. We brought in police and crime commissioners in 2012 precisely to give a local person the power to hold the police and chief constable to account and to spend the police budget in ways they feel are priorities for their local electorate.

As I say, we are injecting more money into policing this year. The Home Secretary has very much listened to the chiefs and police and crime commissioners across the country. We know that policing is changing and that pressures on the police through different crime types are developing. Ten years ago, online child sexual exploitation did not feature, but now, sadly, as the Home Secretary laid out in his recent speech, it is an incredible pressure on policing.

I am conscious of the time, Mr Hollobone, and I do not know whether the hon. Lady wishes to sum up. If she does, I will sit down in a moment. Again, I invite her and colleagues around the House to speak to their local councils about innovative ideas on how to engage young people and help young people who are at risk of falling into trouble.

Yesterday, we had the first of the Home Office’s national programme of engagement events on the serious violence strategy here in London. We had a fantastic turn-out from councils across the capital, including the deputy Mayor for policing in London. I listened carefully to the chief executive of Islington Council, who gave some really interesting ideas on what it has done to protect youth services—what it is doing is really innovative. I urge all colleagues to engage in that conversation with their local councils, because there are some really innovative ideas.

Surgical Mesh Implants

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Emma Hardy

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Emma Hardy]

I absolutely agree and thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that.

Currently in the UK, there are about 100 types of vaginal mesh implants. Carl Heneghan, professor of evidence-based medicine at the University of Oxford, has raised concerns about the evidence that mesh manufacturers need to provide before their products are approved and made available on the NHS. It is extremely worrying that the Pelvic Floor Society, which is associated with the surgeon Mr Dixon and was set up as a world expert group, is partly sponsored by mesh manufacturers. The BBC spoke to the Pelvic Floor Society on camera during the “Inside Out West” documentary and was told that it had discovered complications only in 2014. However, minutes of a joint meeting of the southern, midland and northern groups of the Pelvic Floor Society in October 2012 say:

“We need to ensure that all individuals are appropriately consented for the risks of mesh placement; Long term Shrinkage, Mesh erosion, Mesh failure. We need to have a prospective registry for”

laparoscopic ventral mesh. Why, if the industry knew about these problems in 2012, are they only coming to light now? That is further proof that the Government must do something about this.

One thing that could be done is to follow the recommendations of the all-party parliamentary group and bring forward publication of the NICE guidelines on mesh for stress-related urinary incontinence. Currently, NICE says that it plans to publish revised guidelines in 2019, but we think that is too long to wait. We want NICE to urgently prioritise them. Mesh as a first-line treatment for incontinence and prolapse should be suspended until the NICE guidelines are revisited.

In May this year, the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport, Shona Robison, confirmed that the Scottish Government had suspended the treatment for people with pelvic organ prolapse. Until we have a proper understanding of just how many women are suffering from mesh injury, we think the surgery should be suspended, but in all cases, not just for pelvic organ prolapse.

Professor Carl Heneghan says that some of the devices used in mesh treatment have not been clinically tested or trialled and that the number of people affected by mesh injury means that this could be one of the biggest medical scandals of our time. Suzy Elneil, consultant urologist at University College London, has also warned about the number of women affected by mesh injury. She is one of the few qualified surgeons in the UK who can remove mesh once it has been fitted and she tells me that she sees about 15 women a week who are suffering following mesh surgery. Consultant gynaecologist Dr Wael Agur from the University of Glasgow was once an advocate of mesh surgery, but has changed his mind since seeing at first hand the evidence of mesh risks. He agrees that there is significant under-reporting of mesh complications and says that, as a result, the MHRA has only a fraction of the knowledge of adverse events associated with mesh.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

I apologise for arriving late to the debate, Mr Owen. I congratulate the hon. Lady on holding this important debate. The point that she makes about long-term complications is just as important as that about the short-term complications. My constituent developed fibromyalgia as a result of the complications arising from her mesh surgery for stress urinary incontinence. Does the hon. Lady agree that long-term conditions such as that must be taken into account?

[Emma Hardy]

Absolutely. Studies need to go far beyond the two years.

I am delighted that Labour has called for a public inquiry into the use of mesh. As my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) rightly said, it is extremely worrying that mesh surgery has been introduced so widely, with so little evidence and with limited trials to support it.

I call on the Government to do four things. First, they must commit to a full retrospective and mandatory audit of all interventions that involved mesh, followed by a full public inquiry. Secondly, they must suspend prolapse and incontinence mesh operations while the audit is being carried out. Thirdly, they must bring the NICE guidelines for mesh in stress-related urinary incontinence forward from 2019 to 2018. Fourthly, they must raise awareness among the general public and GPs.

Mesh implants have affected thousands of people all over the country. For some, the consequences of operations will be life-changing and devastating. A Government commitment to taking these actions will not undo the suffering and pain that these people have endured, but would go a long way to making sure that nothing like this happens again.