Prisons

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Simon Hoare

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker.

They are the Government. They have been in power for the past seven years, and prisons have been under their control. It is under their watch that 6,000 staff have been cut.

[Simon Hoare]

I will take the hon. Lady’s lead and not be party political, but given the huge crisis that she is outlining to the House—her Front-Bench colleagues clearly share her view—will she explain why, on an Opposition day motion, Labour ran out of speakers and we did not?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The hon. Gentleman is trying to deflect attention from what the Government should have been doing for the past seven years.

As I was saying, about a quarter of all prisoners are held in overcrowded or unsuitable conditions. In the past 12 months, there have been 6,000 assaults on staff and 24,000 assaults on prisoners. There were also 105 self-inflicted deaths of prisoners, which is a record increase of 13% on the previous year. The levels of poor mental health and distress among prisoners are higher than those for the general public. The number of incidents of self-harm in prisons has increased by more than 25% in 2016 compared with the previous year. When we look at all the statistics provided by the Ministry of Justice, we can see that the number of incidents of self-harm has gone up and the number of assaults has gone up, and that deaths have occurred and suicides have happened. I am afraid to say that that is the responsibility of this Government because they have been in charge of prisons for the past seven years.

Housing Benefit and Supported Housing

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Simon Hoare

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I have listened to all the speeches that have been made by Conservative Members today, and have found myself wondering whether some of them are attending the right debate. If they consult the Order Paper, they will see that this debate is about supported housing. It is not about housing bills or taxation; it is about a very specific, vulnerable group of people.

We keep being told to wait and see what the proposals are. Would it not have been sensible for the Government to work out the costs of their proposals and establish the issues involved at the outset, and then conduct a review before making their announcement? If they had conducted the review properly, they might have established that the proposals were counter-productive in both economic and moral terms. If they had done their homework first, we might not be having this debate.

To suggest that mine are crocodile tears are very unfair. I rarely cry, but when I do, my tears are real. I assure the House that Labour Members care about people, and we care about people because it is what the Labour party was founded for. As for the suggestion made by some Conservative Members that social housing organisations have pots of money and spend millions of pounds on campaigning, that is absolute rubbish. I have been contacted by a number of housing associations and charities that look after vulnerable people in my constituency, and I assure Members that they do not have money to waste on campaigning. I have visited those places and I know what happens there.

Let me enlighten the House. At least three organisations in my constituency are doing valuable work. The main provider of social housing is Bolton at Home, whose representatives have contacted me—and I speak to them regularly in any event—to say that thousands of children will be made homeless, as well as hundreds of adults. Bolton at Home also provides supported housing, and it is important to remember what “supported housing” means. It means support for the vulnerable, the disabled, the elderly, those with mental health issues, and the young. The suggestion that turfing them out of their supported housing will enable the Government to economise and cut costs is absolute rubbish, because the state will then have to pick up an even bigger tab.

Another organisation in my constituency, St Vincent’s Housing Association, is a charity which runs a secure unit for about six adults. It relies on housing benefit to look after those people, who have mental health and drug problems. They are extremely vulnerable. If they are put on the streets, they will probably commit crimes and end up in the courts or in prison, and that will cost the state even more money.

Emmaus runs a “companions” system. It, too, looks after vulnerable people, using housing benefit to support them. I do not understand why the Government seem to think that their proposed cuts will save money. In fact, they are counter-productive.

[Simon Hoare]

In the words of the late Ronald Reagan, “There you go again.” The hon. Lady seems to be suggesting that she has a monopoly on understanding. Does she not accept that Conservative Members also talk to service providers in our constituencies, and also know what is going on?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Sometimes I genuinely struggle with the question whether some Conservative Members either care or are bothered. If you were really concerned about disabled and vulnerable people, you would have spent your five-minute speech talking about them, rather than criticising Labour Members for raising this issue and accusing us of shedding crocodile tears. I do not know how many times you used that phrase.

Assisted Dying (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Simon Hoare

Friday 11th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Simon Hoare]

rose—

[Mrs Spelman]

I should like to make a bit more progress before I give way.

Assisted dying should be the absolute exception, not the rule. In practice, the law as it stands has seldom been used to convict anyone for assisting someone else to die. Strong laws protect vulnerable people. The existing law protects the elderly, the disabled and those who might otherwise feel pressured to die. It is difficult to prove definitively that someone has not been coerced. It would be almost impossible to pass a law that could definitively prove one way or another whether an elderly person had been coerced.