Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Steve Reed

Thursday 14th November 2024 Commons Chamber

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

I wish His Majesty the King a very happy birthday.

The Chancellor, the Secretary of State and the Food Minister claim that their family farm tax will affect only a quarter of farms, yet after informed questioning by the National Farmers Union, the Country Land and Business Association, the Tenant Farmers Association and Conservative Members, the Minister has now admitted that the Government need to check their figures. Should the cost of the family farm tax to farming families not have been checked before the Budget?

[Steve Reed]

The data from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is crystal clear: three quarters of farmers will pay nothing as a result of the changes. Family farming will continue into future generations, as it should.

[Victoria Atkins]

The Secretary of State perhaps needs to ask his Food Minister why he said at the Agricultural Industries Confederation conference that the Government are checking the figures. Let me help the Secretary of State out. He can explain the veracity and accuracy of his figures next week, when thousands of farmers come to Westminster to rally against the family farm tax, the delinking of payments, the hike in national insurance and other tax hikes on working farms in the Budget. Will he come?

[Steve Reed]

It is very important that the Government listen to farmers, and of course we will do so, but I know that farmers are reasonable people. They will want to look at the facts and, like everybody else, if they drill into the HMRC data they will see that three quarters of them will end up paying no more under the new system than they do today.

Emergency Summit on Knife Crime

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Steve Reed

Friday 22nd March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

What the hon. Lady mentioned are not proposals, but things we are doing. I was delighted to hear from the chief constable of Merseyside and also its police and crime commissioner in the last two weeks. The chief constable was urging the Home Secretary and others to assist with surge policing, and I am delighted that in the spring statement we secured that extra funding for Merseyside.

Last week, the police and crime commissioner for Merseyside gave her views on what can help. The reason we are focusing on the seven metropolitan forces is that they account for a great deal of the knife crime that we are seeing at the moment. If we can share their best practice with other forces that are seeing the county lines phenomenon, that will, of course, help those forces get up to speed quickly too.

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

In my advice surgery last Friday, I met Mr Glenford Spence, whose son had been savagely knifed to death in a youth club two weeks previously. When I asked the Minister in the Chamber what action the Government were taking to prevent that kind of tragedy, she placed particular emphasis on the troubled families programme; what she did not say is that all funding for that programme ends in March next year and that the service heads are implementing proposals to wind down and close those services.

Given the Minister’s recognition of the important part that the programme plays in preventing a further escalation of knife crime, will she confirm to the House now that funding for the troubled families programme will continue after next March?

[Victoria Atkins]

I cannot, in that that is not my Department, so it would not be right for me to make financial commitments at the Dispatch Box. I have discussed this with the Secretary of State in the last 48 hours, and we are very clear about the value that that sort of intervention can and does have for families who need a bit of extra support. If I may, I will ask the hon. Gentleman to contact the Secretary of State for a precise answer to his question about the future of that programme.

Knife Crime

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Steve Reed

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend understands the value that PCSOs can bring to their local communities, not least because they can often be a very good way of engaging with young people who may be at risk, or who may know others who are at risk. He will be pleased that police and crime commissioners have pretty much universally said—there may be one or two exceptions—that they intend to use their increased funding to recruit more officers. Some have also said that that includes PCSOs. We leave it to local police and crime commissioners and chief constables to work out what works in their local area, and I welcome and support those plans.

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

We already know what works in tackling violent youth crime because we have done it before. For instance, the public health-type approach that I and others introduced in Lambeth in 2008, more than 10 years ago, dramatically cut violent youth offending at the time. It included services such as better family support, tackling school exclusions, better youth provision, more community engagement and leadership, support for the voluntary sector and better mental health care targeted at young people. This Government came in and cut the funding for all those services, and now we see more young people dying on our streets. Will the Minister finally acknowledge the scale of the Government’s mistakes in cutting funding, think again about the fair funding formula, which will target precisely those services and precisely those community for further cuts, and urgently restore funding so that we can tackle the complex root causes of violent youth crime?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman is supporting our multi-agency approach under the serious violence strategy. He will, I am sure, welcome the fact that part of the troubled families programme, which he knows funds a great number of vital projects across the country to help those who are most deprived, has been apportioned by the Secretary of State specifically to tackle knife crime. It is exactly that sort of approach that will not just commend itself to the House, but have real, real effect on the ground.