Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Vicky Ford

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

The UK and Baltic states are close partners in international efforts to tackle disinformation. The UK’s counter-disinformation and media development programme is providing funding in this financial year across the Baltic states. The programme builds collective resilience to Russian information operations through strategic communications, exposing disinformation and supporting independent media and civil society.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

10. What diplomatic steps she is taking to help de-escalate the crisis in Tigray following the declaration of the state of emergency in Ethiopia.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Vicky Ford)]

We remain deeply concerned about the situation in Ethiopia and continue to engage with and call upon all parties to press for a ceasefire. Since the state of emergency was declared, I have spoken with African Union High Representative Obasanjo, making clear our support for his mediation efforts, as well as with President Kenyatta of Kenya and AU Commissioner Bankole. I recently urged the Ethiopian State Minister Redwan to engage with these mediation efforts. Our Foreign Secretary spoke to the Deputy Prime Minister Demeke on 5 November and our ambassador has spoken with the President, Prime Minister Abiy and leaders in Tigray, consistently calling on all parties to stop fighting, declare a ceasefire and allow humanitarian aid to flow.

[Wera Hobhouse]

The conflict in Tigray has dramatically escalated in the past year. My constituents in Bath who have family detained in the capital in Ethiopia have not heard from them for the best part of this year. Can the Minister outline what efforts have been made with the international community to ensure that all those who are unlawfully detained across Ethiopia are released?

[Vicky Ford]

As I have said, the situation is incredibly challenging. When I spoke to Minister Redwan, I urged him to end the mobilisation of civilians and ethnically targeted arrests. There is a growing risk of uncontrollable ethnic violence, which is doing huge long-term damage to the social cohesion of the country. As I said in my statement on 24 November, we may see the conflict move closer to Addis Ababa, and we are strongly urging all British nationals to leave now while commercial flights are readily available.

Childcare

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Vicky Ford

Monday 13th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Vicky Ford]

I thank the hon. Member for her great interest in this subject. We see the number of providers joining and entering the market through the Ofsted register, and we have looked at the providers joining and entering based on areas of deprivation. As I said, those leaving the market are less likely to be providers in disadvantaged areas of the country. Only 12% of those leaving the market were in the most deprived areas.

In the last statistics in March 2021, there were reported to be about 1.3 million places in childcare settings. That has stayed stable over the past five to six years, despite the fact that year on year, for the past few years, we have seen on average a 3% drop in the number of children being born. We have regular contacts with local authorities, and we are not hearing about systemic failures in any local area or about parents not being able to access childcare. They may not be able to get exactly the place or the flexibility they would most like, but there is not a systemic shortage.

High quality childcare, delivered by trained, dedicated staff makes a real difference to children’s outcomes. I include and value childminders when I talk about high quality, dedicated staff.

[Wera Hobhouse]

We have said here a number of times that one in 10 childcare workers lives in poverty. Does the Minister think that is acceptable?

[Vicky Ford]

I think it is extremely important that businesses involved in the childcare sector pay the national minimum wage. The 8p and 6p an hour by which, as I said, we have increased the average early years funding, have been more than enough to meet the increases that have been announced in the national minimum wage. That was certainly true in those 8p and 6p increases that we gave last year.

What is really important is the quality of our childcare. Parents not only want childcare, but they want to know that their children are loved, safe and well educated, so high quality childcare is important. We have achieved so much here. The last time we assessed our five-year-olds, nearly three quarters—three out of four—of our country’s youngest children had achieved a good level of development. That is a massive improvement, because back in 2013 it was only one in two of our children.

I know that there are many questions about funding. My officials are in regular discussions with the Treasury as we prepare for the forthcoming spending review. Throughout the pandemic, the early years sector has been a cornerstone of protecting livelihoods and family life, letting our youngest children enjoy their early education with minimal disruption and helping to secure a positive future for each one of those children. I reiterate my deepest thanks to all those who work in early years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Vicky Ford

Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

We have been very clear that schools and colleges remain open for therapists to attend, but some children will have missed some therapies during the pandemic. Schools can use their catch-up and recovery funding to purchase additional therapies, as I mentioned in my answer to an earlier question. Many schools, especially special schools, have done so already. I advise the hon. Member to ensure that he is in touch with local schools in Bedfordshire. In his own borough, we have increased the high-needs funding budget by 8% for this financial year, on top of an 8% increase last year. The funding should be there; please do get the therapists back into the schools and use that catch-up and recovery funding well.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

With reference to his Department’s proposals for a centralised procurement framework, what recent discussions he has had with the community energy sector on solar power for schools.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Vicky Ford

Committee: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

It is a great honour to follow the wonderful women from Wealden and Walthamstow in their different speeches this evening. This is not a time to re-argue the referendum debates—they happened last year. This is the time to look forward, not to think about what we have left behind but to think about how we forge new relationships not only with the EU but with its single market and with other parts of the world.

One of the reasons why the Bill and tonight’s discussion is so important is that it is about the way we as legislators intend to act. The rest of the world is watching us, and if we want to have deep, close co-operative relationships with other parts of the world, it is up to us to act in a predictable manner, to be honest and transparent. I am proud that as a Conservative during my time in Brussels I helped the Conservative-led Governments champion the better regulation agenda, which I have mentioned before. It is an agenda that says, “Before you make any changes to law, you consult those who will be affected and you consider the impacts, and you don’t make decisions behind closed doors.” That is why I added my name to amendment 3, as so many different pieces of European legislation would be affected.

The Library mentioned three of those, with one being fisheries, mesh size and fishing nets. Everybody who has been watching “Blue Planet” knows how important protecting our sea is. I am glad that the Library said it would be relatively straightforward to bring that piece of legislation directly into British law. It also talked about the open internet access law, which is fundamental to freedom of speech in a digital age; it deals with whether or not someone’s internet provider can block or throttle content from others. That piece of law will need a number of policy decisions to be made when it is brought from European law into British law.

The Library also mentions the bank capital requirements, which is really boring law—it was five years of my life. It is deeply detailed but really important to our major financial services legislation and will involve policy decisions. So we need to make sure those policy decisions are made in an open and transparent way.

I am very glad that, thanks to the leadership of my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), the new sifting process has been put in place, not only under amendment 3, but under amendment 393, which the Government now support. I am also pleased that overnight last night they announced they would support a new European scrutiny instruments committee, which will scrutinise the various changes that need to be made to our law in this transposition and bring in expert guidance. We need the expertise of the Treasury Committee to look at changes to banking law and of the Environmental Audit Committee to look at changes to environmental law, because only in that way will we ensure that these details are properly addressed.

Clause 7 is complicated. It says that the Government will only be allowed to deal with “deficiencies”, but the Bill contains no definition of them. We have heard Ministers tonight say that they will look again at this issue of deficiencies and whether they can give more clarity on that. Where a significant policy decision is being made that affects real stakeholders in the real world, we should have affirmative decisions.

There are also confusing powers in the Standing Order on what powers the statutory instrument committee will have. It says that the committee can turn a negative into an affirmative procedure only where a provision is of the type specified in paragraphs 1(2), 5(2) or 6(2) of schedule 7 of the law. When we read those paragraphs, we see that they are actually very limited. So that committee will need to think very hard about the principles of transparency that it wants to engage in, because it is in all our interests to make sure that when we move on to these new agreements—this new legislation—we give certainty not only to those watching us from overseas, but to the many people and businesses that these legal changes could affect.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I rise to speak in support of amendment 124, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), and new clause 27, tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). I am very pleased that she is here to introduce it later on.

What is the biggest long-term issue facing people here in Britain and across the world? It is not Brexit and it is not the world economy; it is climate change and the environment. For decades, we have thoughtlessly exploited our planet, heated the atmosphere and polluted the earth. The price we pay for continuing as before will be enormous.

As part of the European Union, Britain is making progress to tackle climate change. Together, we have signed up to the Paris agreement. Many European laws and regulations, which are our laws, have been a force for good and have nudged the UK towards better environmental protection and better protection for human health. That was possible through the effective enforcement of those laws by EU agencies and the European Commission. The Bill carries with it the risk that we might scrap the commitments we have shared with the EU to go it alone, or to throw in our lot with America or another country.

I want this country to become the greenest in the world. Before I became an MP, I was closely involved in improving how we dealt with our household and commercial waste following the EU landfill directive. Landfill produces a potent greenhouse gas, methane, and diverting landfill waste through recycling, composting and waste reduction is the only way to stop this greenhouse gas getting into the atmosphere. The UK is still one of the worst recyclers in the developed world, according to figures released the other day.

We have a long way to go and would not have gone as far as we have without the EU pushing us in the right direction and the effective enforcement of the European enforcement agencies and the Commission. We have talked for a while today about how the UK has been a leader on particular EU legislation. That is the beauty of the EU: in some areas, we are leaders; in other areas, such as air pollution, other countries have been leaders. Together, we have produced a body of legislation that makes things better for us all. Another example of good EU legislation is how our beaches have been cleaned up following EU directives. British beaches are now 99% clean and safe—that is what the EU has done for us.

The environment is owned by everybody. It is not a person or legal entity that can complain. Private ownership in a deregulated world does not protect the environment. That is why the legal principles that underpin the EU, as well as powerful and independent enforcement bodies, are so essential.

Frankly, I am not reassured by Ministers. The recent Brexit impact assessment debacle or the war of words over regulatory alignment or divergence are prime examples of why we should not be bamboozled by fine words, but keep a watchful, eagle eye on the Government’s every move. The draft animal welfare Bill that has been produced in a panic is not at all reassuring, but rather an example of how all the Government can do in the face of Brexit is to firefight. Indeed, the biggest problem for me is that Brexit has to happen in such an enormous rush, and that there is apparently the need to undo in a few short months the laws, regulations, enforcement, co-operation and partnerships that have evolved over 40 years.

The protection of the environment depends on cross-border co-operation. The environment is not a game of politics. It is the one thing that can either guarantee or endanger our own survival. The next best thing to staying in the EU would be to stay in the single market and the customs union. That alone would protect the high standards for the environment, health, safe employment, consumer protection and animal rights, and the oversight and enforcement of those standards by independent agencies. That is why everybody in the House should support amendment 124, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington, which would ensure that the Bill’s provisions would not undermine EU regulations and their enforcement during the transition period, while we are still operating in the single market.

At the very least, we should set up independent regulatory bodies that are effective and have enough teeth to hold powerful organisations, global companies, industries and individuals to account, and new clause 27 would allow that to happen. Of course, it would be great if we could count on everybody to do the right thing, but experience tells us otherwise. Environmental crimes continue unfettered where there are not powerful laws and powerful enforcement agencies.

Would it not be a tragedy if Brexit meant that we aligned ourselves with Trump’s America, pulling out of the Paris climate change agreement, expanding our fossil fuel industry, undermining our renewable energy industry, trampling over environmental protection laws and sitting idly by as the planet warmed up? Climate change is not “Project Fear”; it is the worrying and brutal reality. I started by saying that climate change is the biggest challenge of our age—bigger than Brexit. What a tragedy it will be if the environment and vital action to tackle climate change are the biggest victims of Brexit.

Leaving the EU: Data Protection

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Vicky Ford

Thursday 12th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

My hon. Friend is spot-on correct. We need not only to get things right and workable on the day of exit, but to maintain an ongoing relationship. As the Prime Minister has said many times, we are not leaving Europe; its countries will remain our closest neighbours and currently account for nearly half our trade. Ongoing co-operation on issues such as data protection is not only vital for our future but will help us to continue to lead the global dialogue in this policy area.

Some people seem to think that European politicians want no deal; I do not believe that to be true. From the conversations I have had, I believe that the vast majority of politicians throughout Europe want an ongoing, deep, bespoke partnership with the UK, and data is just one of the many areas in which they want that. Just this morning I welcomed to the House a colleague from the European Parliament: the Spanish lady MEP who helped me to deliver, through the EU, the end of mobile phone roaming charges. She is a leading light in digital policy and an excellent ally on digital issues. She explained to me how right now, throughout Europe, they are looking at the free flow of non-personal data. The UK called for legislation in this area, and Europe is now delivering. The leadership on the issue in the European Parliament has just been allocated to a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists—the Government’s European sister party.

We continue to want to lead and work on these issues, not only up to the time of Brexit but in co-operation thereafter. I say again: crashing out of Europe with no deal will not be good for the UK or for Europe, and it is not what the vast majority on this or the other side of the channel wants.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I was in Brussels a couple of weeks ago, and as much as it is true that our European partners would like a deal, they are perplexed by the attitude of the British Government, who simply do not enter into proper negotiations.