Easter Adjournment

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

May I wish you, Madam Deputy Speaker, as well as Mr Deputy Speaker, Mr Speaker, the other Madam Deputy Speaker and the whole House a happy and peaceful recess? Like other hon. Members, I will raise a few outstanding issues.

In the last few months, I have been in correspondence with the Department for Work and Pensions, trying to ensure that those held on remand but not subsequently charged do not lose their benefits. That is what the rules say, but a lack of proper guidance for DWP staff means that I have ended up with several constituents who have lost their benefits or been wrongly transferred to universal credit. The Leader of the House may know that once someone has been inadvertently transferred to universal credit, there is no way back. I was promised a meeting with the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley), on 13 January, and I hope that the Leader of the House will take the message back that I would still very much like that meeting.

While I do not want to make prolonged correspondence the theme of my remarks, I turn to the seasonal agricultural worker scheme, about which I first wrote to the Government in April last year. North East Fife is famous for many things, and its soft fruit and agriculture is part of that. I am sure that the Leader of the House, given his other vocation, is aware of that. However, there is no doubt that the labour shortages that we have experienced since the UK left the EU have put farms in my constituency under significant strain.

Last year, the additional contractors appointed to administer the scheme were appointed too late for the season in Scotland, so, by the time additional contractors came into place, the jobs were gone and the work was already happening. I am keen for that not to happen again, but I am concerned that it is. A food security debate is ongoing in Westminster Hall, and ensuring food security is becoming ever more critical. There are not enough placements under the seasonal agricultural worker scheme, associated costs are too high and guidance changes—sometimes it feels like it is changing as we speak—so farmers cannot prepare. Nobody is saying that people in the sector should not have good wages, but the minimum wage requirements that have been put in place for migrant workers are higher than the national living wage. Those farmers have already made price decisions and worked with their supply chains, and they are now being asked to absorb the additional costs. Squeezed farmers are already struggling and that will only put further pressure on food prices for our constituents.

I was grateful to meet Lord Offord from the Scotland Office about that issue. I was hoping that there would be a roundtable and further discussions with the Home Office. The Scottish Affairs Committee visited Perthshire and Tayside at the beginning of this month to look, particularly, at the issue of horticulture, as part of a short inquiry. We wrote to the Home Office two weeks ago to express serious concerns. We all want food on our tables rather than rotting in the fields. We want affordable food as well as support for our families, and we need to ensure that schemes are made fit for purpose as a matter of urgency. I am concerned about what this means for North East Fife.

To follow on from the comments from the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), I notify the House that I have written to the Home Secretary this week to raise my concerns about the appointment of Sir Stephen House as the acting Metropolitan Police Commissioner. Hon. Members may wonder why the MP for North East Fife is concerned about that, but those who have heard me speak in the Chamber know of my background as a police officer. I served in Lothian and Borders police until 2011, but someone does not have to have been in the police in Scotland to understand the legacy that Sir Stephen House left behind in the national police force and Police Scotland. That included the decision to allow armed officers to attend routine incidents, stop and search for juveniles and changes to the call handling system in the new national force, where routine failures led to a woman being left in her car for three days following a crash and subsequently dying. I have to mention the continuous and excellent work that my colleague in the Scottish Parliament, Willie Rennie—the MSP for North East Fife—did with the Bell family in that regard.

I am very concerned, because Sir Stephen was deemed not fit to lead Scotland’s police force in 2015, which was when he retired, and I ask why, even on a temporary basis, he has been considered fit to lead the UK’s largest force. I echo the comments of the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch about the recruitment process for the new commissioner and I hope that that is done as soon as possible. Sir Stephen has been Dame Cressida’s deputy for the past few years and we have all been in this Chamber too many times listening to the Minister for Crime and Policing responding to issues in the Metropolitan police. I hope that the Home Secretary moves that recruitment process forward quickly.

I will end on a positive note, with an odd declaration of interest: as a result of being the MP for North East Fife, I sit on the board of trustees for the St Andrews Links trust, which runs all the golf courses in St Andrews, so I am usually a popular person at certain times of the year. I am delighted to say that the 150th Open will be coming to St Andrews in July, and I do so because, when we get to the next Adjournment debate before the summer recess—I am delighted that that debate will be named after Sir David Amess; it sounds like a very fitting tribute—the Open will have taken place. It is appropriate to mention that because I have raised support for golf, support for golf tourism and St Andrews throughout my time here, and I very much hope that Members across the House who would like to come to St Andrews this July to celebrate that international sporting event will be in a position to do so.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Put me down for two tickets, please.