Women in the House of Commons

Debate between Virendra Sharma and Jess Phillips

Thursday 7th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Jess Phillips]

Absolutely. All politicians need to be cut a bit of slack, because we are only human and we will all make mistakes. However, if a woman makes a mistake, she is making a mistake forever. That mistake could be what she wore on her feet. Everybody knows what shoes the Prime Minister likes, but what shoes did David Cameron like? Probably boring posh ones, but nobody will ever comment on that. We are held to an entirely different standard.

For me, some of the recommendations in the report are really obvious and easy solutions. I understand that there may need to be a bit of give and take; we did not expect all the recommendations to be accepted, but for some to have been considered would have been nice. I will not speak for much longer because I recognise that we are running out of time, but in the Government’s response, the idea that political parties can solve this problem is either naive or is basically trying to kick the can down the road. Political parties are not good and equal institutions that rely only on fair play. They are places where power, patronage and position mean everything. Nothing more than the past few months has shown me that my political party, as well as every political party in this building, cares more about politics, power and position than it cared about, for example, my friend Bex.

To think that political parties have the will to do this themselves is basically to say that the problem has to go away on its own. They absolutely do not. They care more about by-election results than they will ever care about the problem of sexual harassment, for example. That was felt by everybody on the Committee when every single political party presented to it. Nobody will actually turn on their own in the end. That is why people think we are all the same and why they have no trust in us. I have to say, for the first time, as somebody who believes in this building so deeply, I am kind of with the people on the doorstep who say we are all the same. That is how it has felt for people like me since the sexual harassment scandal started in Westminster.

[Mr Virendra Sharma (in the Chair)]

We are aiming to finish by 3 pm. I am quite flexible, Maria, if you are a little flexible on your side as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Virendra Sharma and Jess Phillips

Monday 17th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

19. What progress his Department is making on its proposal for a new supported accommodation funding model.

[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)]

25. What plans his Department has to help ensure long-term, sustainable and predictable funding for the supported housing sector.

Immigration Detention

Debate between Virendra Sharma and Jess Phillips

Thursday 10th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

I have been exceptionally moved by all the stories I have heard since I joined the debate from Committee, but the story told by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) in particular highlighted some of the effects of detention suffered by young men. However, I want to focus very much on the detention of women.

As I said, I visited Yarl’s Wood detention centre in August, completely freely—I was allowed to go because I did not ask the Government whether I could go, but had arranged to visit residents with a refugee women’s organisation. I went to see an individual who had been detained there and then deported and who, when she returned, was detained there again. When I arrived, I was told that I was not allowed to see her because she had been released—which I was utterly delighted by, to be perfectly honest. I then made a request to visit another inmate. When I was talking to her, I found out a few startling things about the place and about her case.

The woman had been there for four months—long beyond any 28-day period. She had come from Nigeria, seeking asylum due to her sexuality—she told me a horrific story, which does not bear repeating, about why she had to come here. When she arrived, brought here by somebody she trusted, she was kept in a cellar in London for two years and repeatedly raped by men who had paid to have sex with her. This woman is a victim of human trafficking. As somebody with some expertise in this field, I asked her why she had not qualified for the national referral mechanism for human trafficking, which would certainly not have detained her, but given her a 60-day reflection period, along with benefits and support. She said that two inconsistencies in her story meant that she was not believed to be a victim of trafficking and, because she had known the person who brought her here, she had not qualified.

I have met lots of victims in my life, many from this country. Let us imagine having to give evidence—to tell the same story over and over again—in a language other than our mother tongue. Things are going to get confused; and maybe, in a room in Solihull or Croydon, people do not want to talk to the man behind the desk about how they were ritually raped. It was easy for me to do a basic risk assessment for this woman and find that she was a victim of a horrific crime. I am delighted to say that the next day she was released from Yarl’s Wood. I am no conspiracy theorist, but it seems a bit suspicious that every person I have been to see has been released, so I plan on visiting every woman in Yarl’s Wood over the next few weeks.

[Mr Virendra Sharma]

If that is true, as everybody accepts it is, we will ask my hon. Friend to visit all the centres in future.

[Jess Phillips]

I am on quite a lot of Committees, I have two small kids and I do not live anywhere near Bedford, but I will give it a go: I will shut the place by stealth if that is what it takes.

What I saw when I visited Yarl’s Wood was not some horrific sort of gulag; there was a visitors centre on the front of what was clearly a prison, on a really weird and eerie estate, and the staff were all completely lovely. It was more than reasonable of them to let me see another person who I had not been down to visit. I did not see any horrors, but given the stories that the women told me, and because I am trained and have an understanding of what it is like for women who have suffered terrible crimes against their person, I can totally understand why they find detention so difficult.

If the detention system has to continue, there is an absolute need to ensure a gender-specific service, exactly as we would commission gender-specific services in our local authorities. No local authority commissioning framework would ever allow a women’s refuge to be run completely by men. We have to stop detaining women who have been victims of brutal and enduring sexual violence without even offering them proper counselling or any support while they are there. None of these women seems to have had anyone talk to them about these problems.

Furthermore, we have to make sure that 28 days actually means 28 days and that the very first questions asked by those processing any women are what has brought them to this country and whether they have been trafficked. We should be using the very good systems put in place by the Government in the national referral mechanism—although they are good only if they are used. In my opinion, Yarl’s Wood should be closed immediately, because the detention system as it stands is not fit for women.