Dame Meg Hillier
MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have huge respect for the Minister, but she has said that she will not take any interventions. She is a very good Minister, and I trust that she will answer in detail the points that have been raised in the House today; having discussions with her and the Government after the debate is too late…”
“My hon. Friend talks about who makes our laws, and she has talked in articles that she has written about the primacy of this place. If the Bill goes forward, is she willing to accept amendments?”
“I welcome my right hon. Friend to her place and thank her for that response, which demonstrates the complications of these schemes. I asked the National Audit Office to look into this, and yesterday the Public Accounts Committee published its report on compensation schemes, suggesting that a central body be established.”
“I am pleased by my right hon. Friend’s answer, but she is in a unique position across Government to ensure that we are protecting not only women, but those who are blind or have visual impairments, who really value this technology.”
“I welcome the Chancellor’s clampdown on speculation and leaks ahead of the Budget; it is certainly an important step he has taken. On the issue of certainty, the National Wealth Fund is a critical investor in crowding in private investment around the UK. I noted that he has changed the remit.”
“Further to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes), it is important that we talk here and that we have diplomacy, but what practical actions are the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence taking to ensure that there is a review of physical defence and security, so that we send a clear message to t…”
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“I am proud that my local council, Hackney council, is one of those councils that are accredited as paying the living wage, because we in Hackney see the impact on people’s lives of that policy. We are living what is happening. However, it was interesting that when I asked the Deputy Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions in November how many Liberal Democrat councils were paying the living wage, answer came there none.”
“NICs are now more than 13% of total gross pay for small employers, which is more than employees contribute. The on-costs for a small employer are significant and we need to think about how we might want to encourage and support small employers, to get people into work, yes, but also to increase their pay gradually so that they are on a living wage. There is a real interest for business, but some of those start-ups in my constituency will be worried if they foresee a suggestion that overnight they will have to increase wages. We need to handle that issue carefully, because the jobs that are being created in my constituency and elsewhere are important.”
“There is always a cost to the state, whichever way we do things, and actually giving people the dignity of earning a living wage with which they can support their family and make choices for their family on their own is very much at the heart of Labour’s policy in this area. I could add to that kitchen porter many other of my constituents, even some on higher salaries. The tube price hikes and the bus fare hikes by the Mayor of London, and the cost-capping—we had the vote yesterday in Parliament on in-work benefits—all put pressures on people’s ability to pay their costs of living. That is why a living wage gives people the dignity of being able to make their own choices. We also need to look at national insurance contributions. That is something that we will need to work through as a party, as we flesh out the policy on the living wage.”
“However, his jobcentre was asking him to travel further afield in order to take a job as a kitchen porter. One could say that that was quite reasonable. However, because of the low wages for that type of job, the extra costs to travel out of the borough and the extra child care needed because of the longer hours spent travelling, it was not a viable option. Let us be clear—that man is no shirker. However, the hon. Member for Christchurch suggests that the market would solve that problem, perhaps by single people taking that work. However, my constituent has a family to support; he wants to support them but is unable to do so under the current regime, except that the state will subsidise matters to a degree by providing benefits. So we are talking in the round here.”
“I would be appalled, and indeed I am appalled. I am part of the campaign in Parliament to ensure that all of us—from whatever party—pay people in our offices a fair rate. I like to think that I lead by example on that; in fact, I know I lead by example on the issue, alongside a number of my other colleagues. I think that we can all agree that what the hon. Gentleman just referred to is not something that we would want to see in the mother of Parliaments. Let me relate this debate to real life, because we could have a theoretical discussion in Parliament about the economics of the issue. A kitchen porter came to my surgery and he was very upset. Being a kitchen porter is low-wage employment, but he was seeking work because he was out of work.”
“It says to companies, “Publish. Be transparent about who you’re paying and what you’re paying them.” People can then make judgments for themselves. We have already seen some companies, such as KPMG, lead by example, and if some can do it why not all of them?”
“In fact, it was the current Chief Whip of the Government, the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young), who talked about housing benefit “taking the strain” back in the ’90s. Housing benefit has still been “taking the strain” despite attempts by both the last Labour Government and this Government to change the approach. It is housing benefit that subsidised so many people in their lifestyle, because wages are not high enough. In London, we cannot raise wages enough to cover all housing costs; I recognise that, before Government Members leap up and suggest that that is what I am saying. I am not saying that, but we must recognise that people need to be paid a rate that they can actually afford to live on and that there is no nil cost to the Exchequer. Labour’s voluntary model is a moderate one.”
“Indeed. Today, not a single Liberal Democrat MP is here in Westminster Hall, even though the Deputy Prime Minister has pledged his support for the policy of a living wage; he has pledged his support, but words can be very empty. As I say, there is not a single Liberal Democrat MP here in Westminster Hall today, but since November I have discovered that there is actually one small Liberal Democrat-run district council that pays the living wage. In a show of cross-party support, we should congratulate that council on that and hope that it has some influence on the party leader in ensuring that a living wage system is rolled out more widely. We also need to look at the most profitable companies, which in London are being subsidised—as I mentioned earlier—by taxpayers through tax credits and benefits. There is not a nil cost to lower pay.”
“Q7. “You shouldn’t have to fill in long forms from the Revenue. You’re working. You need help. We want to help you.” I am sure the Prime Minister recognises his words to families receiving child benefit. How many families could face a fine for not filling out a long tax form?”
“When the hospice movement started, it was rare for doctors to get proper training; indeed, I think they spent about a day on the bedside manner for dealing with a dying patient and speaking to their family. Things have moved on a lot since then, and it is vital that, in the debate about the Liverpool care pathway, we do not throw out the baby with the bathwater. The LCP has done good things, although improvements could probably be made at any point to any such approach. None the less, it is vital that we maintain the approach that dying well is important and should be available to all in every setting.”
“If we agree that dying well is important, we need to recognise that practical and policy issues need to be addressed. Patient and family choice about where to die works only if proper 24/7 care is provided, whether in the home, the hospice, the hospital or another setting, and we need to make sure that proper resources and support are available. Often, that is about training practitioners in general so that they know what best practice is. If we look to our inner humanity, we all know what we would want, leaving aside all the medical trappings, if we were dying: we would not want to be poked and prodded in the last hours of our lives; we would want to have a good, well-supported death. Training and development are vital, and I welcome the work done by trainee doctors in Liverpool, which my hon. Friend mentioned.”
“Good leadership and training of staff are vital, and that is one of the issues I want to address in the short time I have to speak. We face an important challenge as a society as we consider the end-of-life care we aspire to. Most of us want a choice of where we die. If we had a free choice, most of us would choose to die at home, supported by organisations such as Marie Curie or hospices such as St Joseph’s, whose nurses go out and care for people in the community. Where individual practitioners are out and about and are not being overseen, that will create greater challenges in the future for regimes such as the Liverpool care pathway, but that is no reason to dismiss it or not to see it as an important way of helping and supporting people as they die. That raises an important issue for us as a society.”
“It is about treating someone who is dying as a person, and not as a number or a patient, and about looking at that individual’s needs in the round. It is not about giving a mechanistic response. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) said, surely once a clinical decision has been made about someone’s life chances, we, as a compassionate society, should try to ease suffering and support them to die well. The Liverpool care pathway, which is used only when someone is in the last hours or, in some circumstances, the last days of their life, aims to provide the tools to enable rest and care rather than making active interventions that would cause a person to die less well. Those fine principles are great, although they may not always be adhered to fully.”
“I am pleased to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir. I congratulate the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) on securing this debate on such an important issue. I represent St Joseph’s hospice on Mare street in Hackney, which is a beacon of good practice in end-of-life care. Under the expert leadership of its chief executive, Michael Kerin, its medical director, Dr Anjali Mullick, and the Sisters of Charity, who founded it more than 100 years ago, the hospice ensures that people in their last stages of life receive care and die with the respect and dignity that they deserve, and that is what we are talking about today. It is worth reiterating here what end-of-life care should offer.”
“The Minister has given warm words about his desire to tackle antisocial behaviour, but why is it that my constituents and people up and down the country who suffer antisocial behaviour will now get no action unless they complain three times, not just once?”
“As we know, many marriages struggle under the strain of coping with a disabled child. I urge the Minister to comment on that point and to look more widely at the work of organisations such as Contact a Family, which, by the way, is quite supportive of some of the Government changes, but has some particular points that I urge the Minister to consider.”
“There was no option for us. Many people have taken the option of not working, and that has considerably reduced their household income. I want to touch briefly on the work done by Contact a Family in my constituency, and ask the Minister to comment on the disability addition under universal credit, which seems to cut the weekly tax credit for families with a disabled child from £57 to £28. The issues for families with children are immense. If we do not get this right now, it says bad things about what our society wants to do for disabled people. Those families want to ensure that their children have the best start in life to increase their chances of independent living later on. Without proper support in the early stages, families can break down under the immense pressure.”
“As many hon. Members have mentioned, the cumulative impact of many changes can be very complicated. When I cared for two disabled adults, at one point I dealt with 13 different agencies just to get the basics of care, support and medical support in place. Happily for me, at that time we were not dealing with many changes in the benefit system. I am not saying it was all perfect, but it was at least a stable system. All the changes coming hard on the heels of one another add stress to carers who must navigate through the system in addition to all the other challenges of being a carer. We live in a world now where people should be able to work and care, but we make it more difficult for them to do it. When I was a working carer my husband’s cousin was a carer for her sister. We worked because we had to—to pay bills and pay for our families.”
“At a recent AGM of Hackney carers association, carers raised concerns with me about many things. One was the carers allowance, which is only £55.50 a week. I want to ask the Minister to comment on the proposal by some bodies that that should be increased. Many carers in my constituency have been on low incomes for long periods of their lives already. It is not as if they have reserves to fall back on. I wanted to touch on the general issue of disabled households typically being poorer, often because disability has meant being able to work less over time. Many carers have had to give up jobs to care. I am a former working carer, and I cared for two disabled adults. Annie, who sadly died in October, went to live with her sister, who was also a working carer. The Minister needs to understand that the pressure on carers is immense.”
“With respect, the Energy Secretary has not answered my hon. Friend’s question. How are the Government going to ensure that the energy companies do not simply raise the price of their lowest tariff so that it is no longer as low as it was in the past?”
“Along with that cost, the bedroom tax is a big issue that will hit hundreds of families in my constituency. They are not all aware of that, so the case will get much harder.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Hackney has a food bank under the aegis of the Trussell Trust, as have many constituencies, and Magic Breakfast works in many of our schools. A primary and a secondary school have spoken to me recently about the problem of young people being able to afford lunch. At the secondary school, the head dips into her own pocket to help fund lunches in some cases, and in the primary school, when parents come in to say, “We cannot afford £9 a week per child for the school meals,” which are nutritiously cooked, good-quality food, often grown on site in that particular school, the head tries to find a way of funding at least one or two of the children, so that they do not lose out on those hot meals.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for giving way yet again. One of my largest local landlords has 250 families who will be hit by the bedroom tax. People are doing their best to help such people to get jobs and so on, but there will be a number of families with a shortfall. That is just one landlord in one constituency. Would my hon. Friend like to comment on any analysis that she has done, or thinks should be done, to assess the impact of that Government policy, which will have a direct effect on people’s ability to pay for food?”
“The issue of food prices is important. Sometimes in government, especially from this privileged seat in Westminster, it is possible to forget what the real choices are for families on the ground. In my constituency, four pints of milk cost £1.35 in the Co-op, because it gives farmers a fair deal, £1.08 in Tesco and £1 in Iceland. There are people who will step across the road to save 8p on four pints of milk, because that is the margin that they are working on.”
“Overall in my constituency, the number of claimants on jobseeker’s allowance in October was the 22nd highest of all constituencies. Among 18 to 24-year-olds, the rate was 10.4%. That is far too high. My constituency has regular visits from the occupants of No. 10 and No. 11 Downing street to extol the virtues of Tech City, but what is the Treasury doing to make sure that my constituents are able to get any of the jobs created, especially when the Work programme is also failing them?”
“Since 2004, many of my constituents have registered their civil partnerships. If and when the law changes, some of them might want to get married, in either a civil or a religious ceremony. Would that require them to dissolve their civil partnership, or would there be a mechanism in the law to enable them to commute it or have a marriage in addition to their civil partnership?”
“When the Secretary of State is having those further discussions, perhaps he will take account of experience in my constituency, where around a third of residents are under 24. Nationally, an estimated 400,000 households are headed by someone under 25 who claims housing benefit, half of whom have dependent children. When he is having those discussions, will he consider the impact on children of his policy proposal?”
“I know that not everything that I have mentioned is within the purview of the Home Office, but I plead with the Minister to become a champion of the approach, across Whitehall. I want to reiterate the point that it is not one-off funding and lots of new initiatives that we need. Let us stick with what works and keep funding it, so that we do not have a stop-start approach. As for those young people whose lives are ruined by gang membership, whose life chances are changed for ever and who are affecting their neighbourhoods, we need to get them out of that and into positive activity. Let us deal with the scourge of gang activity and gang violence once and for all.”
“We have good examples of how local solutions can work in Hackney. However, we can learn lessons, and some things can be applied more or less across the board. Pan-London support is crucial. There cannot be a rehousing programme from one borough: Hackney cannot have a rehousing programme on its own, and nor can Westminster. We need a proper way of working, agreed across London, or it will not deliver. We need funding for diversion and intervention early on. The Peabody Trust is working with Hackney council to attend to parenting and intervention from toddler stage onwards. We need to consider a range of actions. I touched on parenting support, which is important, and so is support for young women; that is also happening in Hackney. It is all needed.”
“In the current climate, with such pressures on housing, some of which are caused by the coalition’s policies, such a scheme might be unpopular, but I would defend it to the hilt, because unless we get gang members away from their area of activity, there is no easy way of helping them to stay away from the company they keep there. There are many organisations that do good work in Hackney. One is The Golden Company, which works with young people at risk of exclusion and often on the edge of gangs. They get engaged in a project that collects honey and other bee by-products, and they learn how to create small businesses and become young entrepreneurs. The company does some very good work. In short, there are important local solutions, and one pan-London or national solution may not always work.”
“The trust has also introduced a 13-week parenting course, and parenting is an issue we have perhaps not touched on enough. It is challenging being a teenager’s parent at the best of times, but it is very difficult at the worst of times. It is easy to tell parents that they should control their children, but if they have a large teenager who has got in with the wrong crowd, that can sometimes be difficult. We also have the Makeda Weaver project, supported by Shian Housing Association, which helps to rehouse gang members away from their area of activity.”
“I am sure the Home Office is fully aware that the cost to the taxpayer of not tackling these issues is probably higher than that of tackling them early, so this is important. Given the fear of crime that the few members of gangs can generate, this has to be a high priority for the Government. I want briefly to mention some of the work being done by local landlords. The Peabody Trust, which is the housing association that runs the Pembury estate, has projects such as Threads, which helps young women on the fringes of gangs. It also has the local intervention fire education programme—LIFE—which is a five-day course for 13 to 17-year-olds on the estate. The evaluation is clear that the programme works and really diverts young people from antisocial behaviour.”
“Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) said, is a growing issue and a real concern in my constituency. The unit’s work is funded by the London borough of Hackney, where the mayor has done a good job, in difficult circumstances, of making sure that certain local priorities retain council funding. I strongly echo the point so well made by my hon. Friend that we cannot have a stop-start approach. I am not asking for lots more money, but we need consistency of approach. Solving gang problems is not about having lots of new initiatives all the time. There are things that have been proved to work, and I am sure there are things we can learn that will work in different situations in the future. However, this is not about continually reinventing the wheel, as the hon. Gentleman said; it is about consistency of approach.”
“On the policing side, some progress is being made against gangs, but the most important work is being done by the gangs integration unit, which is headed by the former borough police commander, Steve Bending, who is now no longer a serving officer. The unit brings together police, probation, youth work, housing and any other agency that needs to be involved to tackle and divert gang members. It targets the top 50 gang nominals at any one time and sends them letters saying, “We know who you are, and we know where you are. We will be watching you. If you wish to divert yourself from gang activity, to move house or to get involved in education, or if your family do, we will help you in any way we can.” The unit is also doing a strand of work on girls in gangs, which, as the hon.”
“He came up with the Boston strategy, or Operation Ceasefire, in 1995, and it has subsequently been copied, most notably in Glasgow. In its work on knife crime in June 2009, the Home Affairs Committee praised the Glasgow model for achieving results. I will not go into detail, but, in summary, this approach involves pulling known gang members—nominals—together and confronting them with the information the police hold about them and with the impact of their crimes, before offering them the opportunity to come forward for diversionary activity. The model has critics and supporters, but has the Home Office done a serious analysis of this option for dealing with gang nominals? That brings me to the work being done locally in Hackney.”
“I hope the Minister will continue to be vigilant about how the Crown Prosecution Service represents the Crown in such situations, to ensure that those positive elements are not removed. I hope he will be humble enough to recognise that if gang injunctions do not work as intended, they may need reform. I am not completely against them, but they need to work, and it takes a lot of time to put them in place. If they are not delivering the positive, diversionary element, they are not worth very much. I hope the Minister will comment on that; if not, I hope he will give me a detailed response in writing. Has the Home Office given any consideration to Operation Ceasefire, which is based on work by sociologist David Kennedy from Harvard?”
“In under-five settings, too, there are generally far too few male role models. That is a real issue, which has a long-term effect, and I am sure my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) will have something to say about that. Let me touch on the operation of gang injunctions. They were introduced by the coalition Government, and the Minister has direct responsibility for this area of policy. There is a concern about them, compared with antisocial behaviour orders. Gang injunctions come into operation after a crime has been committed, and they link good, positive aspects with punishment, but lawyers for the convicted have been arguing against the positive elements—for example, that their clients should have to attend college—and they have been winning.”
“At that age, he looks away from his mother’s skirts, and he will latch on to whomever is around. On the Pembury estate—contrary to media reports, it was not the heart of the riots, but adjacent to where some of the worst activity took place—when older gang members have been put in prison, the youngsters, aged nine and 10, have sometimes begun to act the big man and to act as the leaders of their groups. The lack of male role models in schools, communities and, often, homes can therefore make a real difference. That is a big issue for the Home Office to resolve, and I am not saying that it can resolve it, but we need to have a serious adult discussion nationally about what is happening, particularly in our primary schools. I always add up how many male teachers there are in primary schools, and, sadly, there are far too few.”
“The issue of young black men is also of real concern; it feeds the negative stereotypes that are so often untrue, but there is a reality in Hackney. It is interesting that no schoolchildren were involved in the riots in August. There may be poverty in my constituency, but there is no poverty of ambition. We have seen hugely improved school results, so there is real reason for people to focus on what they can achieve in their own right, and that improvement in education is making a difference. Another big concern—this touches on some of what is going on in our schools—is that, sadly too often, there is a lack of good influences and role models, particularly male role models. I will not repeat all the research, but an eight-year-old boy will typically look for a male role model.”
“It’s much nicer than Paris.” That is something I would echo for those Members who have not been to Hackney recently. However, let me get back to some of the issues, causes and concerns. One really big concern that has been mentioned is unemployment. Unemployment among under-24s in Hackney is very high. We have a high percentage of young people, and about a third of Hackney residents—it is probably even more now, because these are old census data—are under 24. We had an increase of 30,000 or so in our population between censuses, which was made up largely of under-fives and people in their 20s and 30s. Some of those young people will be living in private accommodation, where 90% of people are employed, but only 40% of my constituents living in social housing are employed.”
“Some of the journalism about the aftermath of the riots in Hackney was based on questionable and often unbalanced vox pops and on evidence gathering that was not true evidence gathering, which was not helpful. I suspect Hackney suffers from its improved transport links and its proximity to the headquarters of many national newspapers. Let me give a feel for how inaccurate the coverage sometimes was. I turned up in Hackney town hall the day after the riots in August 2011. I was speaking to a French journalist, who interrupted our interview to stick her microphone out in the road, saying, “I just needed to get that police siren for good effect in my report.” That rather summed up the issue, especially as she also said, off-microphone, “This is a really nice area of town, isn’t it?”
“The Home Office had the mission in the past of reducing the fear of crime as well as actual crime, and I hope the Minister can comment on the progress that has been made on that, if it remains a target for the coalition Government. My hon. Friend talked about riots and gangs overlapping; as she said, there are separate issues, but there are some similarities, and I will echo her comments in the time I have. However, I would like to mention one concern. I am a great defender of a free press, but one thing that those of us who are routinely active on doorsteps, in communities and in people’s homes get quite irritated about is the simplistic headlines generated by some of the media.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) on securing a debate on this important subject. I am going to dive straight in by saying that despite media reports, overall crime levels in Hackney have dropped dramatically over the past six years. However, safety issues and the fear of crime remained the No. 1 priority in the council’s residents survey. Indeed, one reason why parents appeal school admissions is that young people are frightened of crossing postcode areas. Although fewer than 1% of Hackney residents have any involvement in gang crime, the fear effect therefore ripples out further.”
“I have been in the Minister’s shoes, and I am a constituency MP with a strong interest in this matter. He has talked a lot about voluntary projects, but what the Home Office can do apart from providing some funds is rigorously to evaluate what works and to ensure that funding goes only to the projects that work. It should not be sprinkled so thinly that it has less impact than it ought to.”
“Bridge academy in Hackney and our university technology college, among other schools in Hackney, provide proper digital learning for jobs for five years hence. Given the Minister’s words about the importance of learning in this field, what is she doing to make sure that the school curriculum is preparing students for the work force for businesses such as those in Tech City which require this home-grown talent?”
“On 17 October, the Prime Minister promised that he would ensure that energy companies put consumers on the lowest tariff by law. We know that that was a sleight of hand; the Secretary of State has just said that metered customers would not be on the lowest tariff, only the lowest in their band. Will the Secretary of State be clear today that he is limiting the tariffs to only four per company and that there is no guarantee that they will be the lowest? The lowest tariffs will now be higher than they were before.”
“Lord Justice Leveson suggests that this new body should have strong powers to investigate a suspected breach of the code. Many of our country’s best investigative journalists are freelancers, however, so will the Prime Minister carefully consider the potential impact of such investigations on individuals who do a great deal to shine a light on areas that others do not want illuminated, and will he ensure that this issue is discussed in cross-party talks?”
“I represent one of the youngest constituencies in the country. About a third of my constituents are under the age of 24, and there is an explosion in the number of 20-year-olds moving into the constituency. Nationally, last year, a third of those accepted by their council as homeless were aged 16—that is very young— to 24. Of those, 10,000 said that the reason they lost their previous home was that their parents would not or could not house them. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s approach seems to ignore the reality of family breakdown? It is a reality for many young people in my constituency.”
“One concern in my constituency and nationally is the number of under-25s who themselves are parents. I am sure that my hon. Friend would agree that it would be helpful if the Minister clarified the Government’s current thinking on those young people.”
“Rape convictions may be up, but they are still woefully low. Given that next Sunday is international day to end violence against women, will the Solicitor-General expand on his earlier comments about the number of specialist prosecutors? The key question is whether there are enough of them for justice to be pursued swiftly, which makes things better for the victim and more likely that a prosecution will be secured.”