Rebecca Harris
MP for Castle Point · Conservative · United Kingdom
“An SME in my constituency once found someone sleeping rough on its premises and offered them a job. Does my hon. Friend agree that, when this Bill is enacted, it is very unlikely that a business will go to such lengths to give someone that kind of break in future?”
“About 20,000 pensioners in Castle Point are set to lose their winter fuel payment under this cruel and vindictive policy that the Labour Government have chosen to adopt.”
“My hon. Friend is spot on. It is the anxiety that it causes people. They do not know if they will live another 18 months or 25 years. People on fixed incomes, with no ability to raise that income, are very worried about spending money.”
“We have lots of low energy efficiency homes, including one of the biggest park home sites in the country, and I have many park home sites. Fortunately, we managed to find £2.5 million from the previous Government to retrofit some of them, but we still have a lot of people living in fuel-inefficient homes that are hard to retrofit.”
“I do not think that I need to worry; I think we know that will happen, because we know about their behaviour and their concerns about putting the heating on, and their lack of understanding of how much every heating bill will cost them.”
“I was not a fan of Gordon Brown, who once gave a derisory 75p increase to pensioners, but this policy was a huge success—credit to him. That is why my Government never changed it. For £300 for every pensioner, we give incredible peace of mind that they can put their heating on—”
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“Such criminal acts do not simply happen and are rarely the work of individuals; they are highly organised events planned by groups, and we need to be able to uncover those networks. The Bill is about not only terrorist activity, but all kinds of crime, such as serious and organised crime, child abduction, people smuggling and, most horrible of all, child pornography, which, horrendously, is the fastest-growing form of online business. One can now even arrange child abuse to order online. I have seen at first hand the work of the police who are trying to tackle online child pornography and it is tough, horrible, but necessary work. We must not allow their hands to be tied as a result of some wrong-headed, neurotic anxiety about data retention. The UK is lucky to be protected by the finest, most-principled security services in the world.”
“I am delighted that we are finally bringing forward this long-overdue Bill. Cases such as Apple’s dispute with the FBI underline how modern criminals can hide behind modern technology. Criminals and terrorists are international and depend on international networks and systems. I could recite a list of the hideous terrorist atrocities that have happened throughout the world over the past year, but only today we heard of the tragic death of Adrian Ismay, the prison officer who was attacked in Belfast 10 days ago. Since the debate began, the news has been reporting armed raids in Brussels relating to last year’s Paris attacks, so we are doing current and vital work today.”
“We all know that we are targets for international terrorists, and that the things they hate and target us for are our freedoms, democracy and liberty. We must therefore make it clear that this Bill ensures we protect those freedoms and is in no way any form of attack on them.”
“I also appreciate the benefits of the double lock, the extra judicial oversight of which will also reassure the public, although I would like to be reassured myself that that oversight will not hamper the investigative abilities of our security services and police. There are many wonderful hon. and learned Members here today but, as I sometimes hear, lawyers can often have very different views on tiny subjects when the straightforward common sense of my constituents would know exactly when we needed to regulate on something. I wish to be reassured that we are confident that we will not over-burden the process of warrantry, to the extent that security services personnel may feel that perhaps it is a little too much effort to go down that route, given that time may be of the essence and they will need to act with speed.”
“I absolutely appreciate that. I was not pointing my finger at any political party in particular, but some campaign groups outside the House may have used the term. Many constituents, perfectly ordinary, good, law-abiding people, have written to me in the genuine, albeit absurd, belief that there is—or will be—some vast room full of security personnel trawling through their Facebook profiles and the pictures of their grandchildren and their cats. As legislators, we cannot just reassure people that we would need a security service the size of the population of China to do that and simply cannot afford it, even if we had the inclination, so I am glad that the Bill clearly sets out the four key purposes that data retention and investigatory powers cover. I hope that that will reassure those who have been worried and frightened.”
“My hon. Friend the Minister will be aware of the superb work that the Salvation Army does in my constituency in helping disabled people get back into employment, and of the fact that I and the jobcentre are about to hold a Disability Confident event. Can my hon. Friend expand on what more his Department can do in Castle Point, not least by engaging with employers to get more of them to take on disabled employees?”
“18. My hon. Friend will be aware of the absurd situation on Canvey where, although residents can virtually kick a football at the new DP World container port, it is easier to access the tens of thousands of jobs there by travelling from the east end of London. What support can he give my residents on Canvey Island who have been campaigning for a third road for many decades?”
“Anecdotally, we know that when women have families, their managers often feel they are less committed to the organisation, especially if they choose to take part-time work. Conversely, it seems, anecdotally, that when men become fathers, their managers sometimes feel they must require a pay rise and a promotion. Shared parental leave, even if men do not take it up, will at least force men to face the dilemma and think through what effect it might have on their career prospects, which, if they become mangers of women in the future, could be of enormous benefit. As we have said, we want both men and women fighting to make sure this annual debate becomes something for the history curriculum in the future.”
“We need to make the same changes in other careers for women, especially in engineering, where we have a desperate need for more talent, but we need to do it faster than we have changed attitudes towards other careers. I welcome the progress the Government have made over the past five years and the huge improvement in the number of girls taking STEM A-levels, but we need to keep pushing the case to get more into engineering. The problem does not end when girls leave schools. Women still face unconscious discrimination in the workplace, and too many women feel they must choose between motherhood and building a career. I therefore welcome the Government’s move to achieve shared parental leave.”
“I believe that schools need to play a significant role in overturning stereotypes, both in what they teach and what careers advice they offer, given that the gender pay gap is, in part, driven by the types of job women do. We all know that attitudes can change. Nearly 40 years ago, my own sister was a straight-As pupil and informed her school that she wanted to go into medicine. The reaction of those at her school was to suggest that, as a girl, she might prefer to consider nursing. Characteristically, she totally ignored that advice, and fortunately the world was spared a first-rate but horrendously bossy nurse. Instead, we got a superb doctor. Nearly 40 years later, the majority of applicants to medical school are women, and something similar is occurring in law, so we know that we can change attitudes.”
“I am grateful for the opportunity to speak briefly in this important annual debate. In the time left, I wish to focus on the gender pay gap and the lack of women in senior professional roles in this country. The gender pay gap is stubbornly persistent, despite the Equal Pay Act 1970 having been passed more than 40 years ago, and women are still woefully under-represented in the higher levels of British industry. We are aware of the depressing statistic that more men called John serve as chief executive officers in FTSE 100 companies than women. We can laugh at the statistics, but they reveal a depressing truth: our major industries are still not reflecting our society and are therefore not drawing on as wide a gene pool as they could. The causes often begin early.”
“10. What progress the Careers & Enterprise Company has made on improving careers education and inspiring young people about the world of work.”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that the old careers service is all too often regarded as a source of mild and gentle humour by people when they remember their schooldays, perhaps because they were approached too late? Is it not enormously important for businesses and, indeed, employers throughout all sectors to offer work experience—and not just to young people, to whom I know many Members offer that here in the House?”
“6. How many times the Law Officers referred a criminal sentence to the Court of Appeal for review on the grounds that it was unduly lenient in the last year.”
“Can the Attorney General confirm that he is fulfilling our manifesto commitment to review the unduly lenient sentences scheme, and will he comment specifically on whether that review will take into account family courts, where it is currently at the discretion of the presiding judge whether to refer up sentences of serious cases of sexual crimes and rape?”
“A lot of people who go to community pharmacies in my constituency such as Bharat Patel’s and Asif’s go there with problems that they would not wish to burden their GP with, but that are a burden to themselves, so it is a great relief for them to be able to talk things through with someone. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that sometimes people go to a pharmacist because they would be uncomfortable or embarrassed to go to their local, perhaps single-handed, GP? They might want to ask for alcohol advice or about something that they find embarrassing, or perhaps a young girl might want to ask for emergency contraceptive but not wish to see the receptionist, who is her mother’s friend whom she has known all her life.”
“Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we have come to over-rely on our police for a lot of things? For example, there was some controversy in my constituency this year because the police were not able to police the Armistice Day march. When it came to it, however, plenty of local councillors and other volunteers were more than able to do that without using police time and resources, and it was a great success.”
“I have had some extraordinary opportunities on the scheme. I have been out with the Juno teams, which are tackling domestic violence, and seen for myself the enormous efforts made by the police in their approach to domestic violence. For example, I have seen how quickly they have adopted our new stalking legislation and how closely focused they are on it. That is part of their approach to hidden harms.”
“I particularly welcome the flexibility over the precept, especially for forces with the lowest precepts in the country, such as Essex. Given my constituents’ natural concerns about current crime rates, I took it upon myself to enrol in the police service parliamentary scheme. I strongly recommend it to all hon. Members. It is quite a time commitment—at least 20 days are spent in different parts of the police force—but it has given me a very strong and valuable insight into the true pressures on our police, the challenges for modern policing, and the changes and innovations that the police need to bring in and are bringing in. I want to put on the record my enormous gratitude to Chief Constable Stephen Kavanagh of Essex police and all those I have been out with. They have made me feel extremely welcome and have been very supportive.”
“I am very grateful for the opportunity to add my comments to this important debate. Policing and local policing is a subject about which I feel very strongly and in which I take a great interest. Policing and crime rates are a huge concern to my constituents, as they are to all our constituents. My postbag, as regularly, I am sure, as those of other hon. Members, contains letters from constituents asking what the Government are doing to bring down crime rates. I welcome the reduction in crime during recent years, but I recognise the need to make savings. I commend the Home Office on the very tough decisions it took during the last Parliament. I express huge welcome for the announcement in the autumn statement that we will certainly keep police funding on a stable basis.”
“It is right, however, that it should continually look for efficiencies to ensure that public money is spent on keeping the public safe.”
“I could wax lyrical about Essex police for a long time, because when I was in publishing, we produced a book about the history of the constabulary. It is a very long, honourable and proud constabulary. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary has repeatedly found that Essex police force provides better value for money than other police forces. It already has a very close programme of collaboration with Kent police, as was mentioned earlier, including significant sharing of back-office functions, and it is collaborating increasingly closely with other forces in the east of England. It also has one of the lowest reserves in the country, so it has not had the option of absorbing extra costs and pressures by reducing its reserves. That makes the fact that it has managed to be so successful in what it does all the more remarkable.”
“They are spectacular in standing up to the challenge of doing all that in difficult funding circumstances. I must say that I have been overwhelming struck by the sheer commitment and dedication of our police officers. I definitely expected to find professionalism, but I must admit that I did not anticipate just how passionate they are about their work and the extent to which they really care about the communities they serve. Again, I put on the record my thanks to them and to Chief Constable Stephen Kavanagh for helping with the scheme, and I say to hon. Members, “Do it.” All hon. Members should take that opportunity, because it makes a huge difference. Essex police, whose motto is “Sworn to Serve”, has long been an efficient force.”
“I have seen the pressures that the police face there, and the teething processes involved in trying, not without difficulty, to modernise and to move to new technology. I have been out with CID, and I have seen the forensic labs. I also went to a drugs factory, which was very interesting. A Member of Parliament does not often get the opportunity to go into a cannabis factory. I have also seen how the police are dealing with the problem of modern-day slavery, which they were not geared up to deal with in previous decades. I have seen the sensitivity with which they approach finding out about what they call the “gardener”, who is sometimes left in such factories without any real means of escape. There are big changes in the way that our police are policing and big differences in the kind of crimes they have to police.”
“Absolutely. I have seen officers in action with their cameras, which they can use, for example, when entering the scene of a domestic dispute to which they have been called. As they arrive, they can record evidence of their own that they can use in court. When the victim of domestic violence is, for whatever reason, nervous, reluctant or intimidated about coming forward, they can prosecute on her behalf. That is an enormous innovation. It relies on the police remembering to turn the cameras on, however, so they are doing good training on that. It is a great innovation, and the police are very pleased to have it. I have visited a custody suite. Hon. Members will understand my reluctance to be photographed anywhere near the cells. I can well imagine the comments on webpages about the picture of any Member of Parliament in the cells.”
“I absolutely welcome the announcement of those funds. A lot of things are already going on in the police, but it does cost money just to modernise and make improvements. I wish we did not have such an enormous debt in this country, but ultimately, in a strange way, the drive to create efficiencies means that, when our economy is back on an even keel and the money is again flowing in, our police service will be enormously efficient. Old practices, which have been stuck in place for many years, will have been ironed out.”
“Essex is lucky to have been served by such a fantastic police and crime commissioner in Nick Alston. I say unashamedly that he is the best police and crime commissioner in the country. He was recognised by his peers in an election on that basis. He has served as the inaugural police and crime commissioner at a time of real change and financial difficulty. We would not be in such good shape in Essex were it not for his sterling support for, and challenge to, the police. Far from being a faceless police board of the great and the good that no one knows about, his name is incredibly well known. I have only been able to accept his resignation because the highly able Roger Hirst is standing as the Conservative candidate in the police and crime commissioner elections.”
“What is rising is the confidence of people to come forward and report them, knowing that they will be dealt with sympathetically. The police are taking a very different approach to such crimes and have had training in how to deal with them. They also wear cameras now, as my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) said, and other changes in legislation have been made. Within the budget, there will be greater investment in the training that is needed to equip officers to investigate internet-enabled crime and cybercrime, which are affecting individuals and businesses across the country. That subject is very topical this week. I welcome the autumn statement and the funding review, which will enable Essex police to keep many more PCSOs than it had planned and to make many positive innovations.”
“This is the right and fair way forward, and it is understood by local residents. The current budget includes increased investment in specialist police officers and police staff to tackle child sexual exploitation, child abuse, serious sexual offences and domestic abuse. There will also be an increased investigative capacity to tackle those horrible crimes and greater support and safeguarding for victims. We now hear so much more about those hidden harms, which we did not used to talk about and recognise in the same way. As we have heard in this debate, the figures for domestic abuse, child abuse and other hidden harms have been rising, which has contributed to the appearance that violent crime is rising. I would contend, as I am sure would most police officers in my area, that these crimes are not rising.”
“That would embed, in perpetuity, a disadvantage for such a lower-cost force compared with more expensive ones. I am very grateful to the Chancellor and Home Office Ministers for listening to that point. The Government are now allowing police and crime commissioners in areas with the lowest precepts to have flexibility in raising their precept. In Essex, that has made it possible to raise the base budget for Essex police by £3.8 million to £266.3 million this year. Frankly, it is right for forces with the lowest precepts to raise their precepts on local council tax payers, rather than call on central Government and national resources to get other members of the public, who may already be paying a higher price for the police in their local area, to provide funding through a higher grant allocation.”
“As I have said, Essex is an area with an historically low policing precept. I believe it is about £140 on average, compared with a national average of more than £180 for a band D householder. Essex police force is very proud to say that it has been a lean and efficient force for a long time. I recently surveyed my residents to ask whether they would be prepared to pay extra if that meant additional officers and greater police visibility. Unsurprisingly, the response was of course overwhelmingly positive. Because of the difficulties of the existing rules about how PCCs can put across their case in a referendum and about how such a referendum is triggered by a rise of 2% or higher, there has been real concern in Essex, with such a low precept, that we would only ever be able to have an increase of 1.99%.”
“Absolutely. I will come on to that point later, but the innovation of police and crime commissioners was an enormous achievement of the last Parliament. My police and crime commissioner has been highly visible, and much more so than the old police board that he replaced. To this day, people do not realise that such police boards even existed, but they know the name of their police and crime commissioner and are able to approach him. Essex police force remains very keen to see a review of the funding formula that determines individual police force allocations across the country. The changes to the formula proposed by the Home Office last year would have meant an increase of more than £10 million in the funding for Essex police. We hope that a review later this year will increase the amount of central funding for Essex.”
“I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker. Thank you for your indulgence. Despite the huge debt burden this country faces, I am proud that the Conservative Government have managed to protect police spending as much as they have. I very much welcome today’s motion.”
“My right hon. Friend spoke about Government attaching strings to their funding. It was a version of he who pays the piper calls the tune. Does he believe that we might be moving to a world that is much more democratically responsive not only to the local electorate, but to businesses? They have often felt neglected by their local council areas and they will now feel that they are rather more important and have a starring role.”
“Councils know that they can now invest officer resources not just in bringing forward new businesses and making life easier for businesses in their area, but in bringing through new developments, perhaps on smaller sites with local businesses, that will be sold to local people through local estate agents. The entire package is an enormous step forward in local government finance. It will be very healthy for democracy and business creation around the country.”
“This settlement brings greater transparency and parity in local government finances than we have ever had before. The retention of the new homes bonus, which the Secretary of State mentioned, is incredibly valuable. Councils will have to be active in bringing forward new development and new houses, rather than sitting back passively, as they used to in the days of top-down national targets, when large green-belt sites were allocated to big unit developers, which may or may not have built on them because it was not in their business model to get on and build houses and so reduce house prices.”
“We recently hired a new chief executive who is an ex-businessman, and he is taking an incredibly positive approach. We believe that the devolution agenda will transform local government from being about service delivery and dealing with needs to being organisations that set out to change their areas, encourage business development, and create jobs and growth. It is businesses that create jobs, wealth and growth, not politicians like us and local councillors. Councils such as Essex County Council, which have shown that they can make efficiency savings, will benefit from the security of this four-year settlement. During this difficult time for all public finances, councils need to be able to plan for the medium term. Owing to the foresight of this four-year settlement, they can do so.”
“Essex, like many council areas, has a serious and pressing challenge in its ageing population. It has the longest coastline in Britain and attractive coastal towns, so it is an attractive place to retire to. Over the next decade, our older population is expected to grow by 9%. As has been said, it should not be assumed that just because someone lives in beautiful rural Essex, they are not stretched for cash. People who live on a park homes site on a fixed income may not be the richest members of society. The demographic pressures are huge and we welcome enormously the fact that the Government have listened to our case. Essex County Council is very much looking forward to the challenge of being more go-getting when it is dependent on the retention of business rates.”
“The need to reduce the deficit has inevitably put pressure on councils right across the country. Even those that have made substantial and successful savings are understandably concerned about the transitional period during the move from centralised funding to an accountable system of self-funding. At the start of this year, the leader of Essex County Council wrote to me and my fellow Essex MPs, setting out his concerns regarding the provisional local government finance settlement, which he thought would see the council lose over £50 million a year more than it was anticipating, despite having budgeted carefully. We took our case to the Secretary of State and I welcome the fact that he listened. As we know, he has made available up to £3.5 billion for social care.”
“If we could have more older people in low-rise accommodation such as park homes, it would be a great blessing for social services and all the rest of it, but their issues must be addressed. Park home owners have told me that they are not eligible for the energy company obligation. Frequently, when they apply for it, the companies refuse them. I conclude by saying that I will not offer any solutions. My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) and the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) have offered suggestions, and it must not be beyond the wit of man to sort the problem out and end the need for an all-party group on fuel poverty.”
“How much more cost-effective that would be, and how many fewer admissions I would have to hospital and my surgery.” When it comes to measures to tackle fuel poverty and home energy efficiency, one group of people is persistently overlooked, and that is park home owners. I have the biggest park home in the country in my constituency, Kings Park, and I was recently handed a petition by residents calling for park home owners to receive the same home improvement grants as other homeowners. I duly passed it to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for a response. Park home owners are overwhelmingly older people on fixed incomes who have often lived rather beyond their savings. It is a superb way of downsizing and a marvellous lifestyle for older people.”
“Publicising excess winter deaths is a good way of raising the issue in the papers and getting headlines, but the reporting of such deaths does not cover the whole story. The truth is that cold homes cause excess morbidity and have a personal cost both for young people, who suffer many extra illnesses as a result, and for our older people, which causes extra admissions to our hospitals. The cost to the NHS and our social services must be enormous, and for some reason we never seem to manage to take those two different cost streams for the Government into account. One doctor commented to me, “If only I could prescribe insulation to my patients, rather than expensive drugs.”
“Members have highlighted this morning. I draw Members’ attention to a report by the Turn2us charity, which has highlighted people’s lack of awareness of the financial help and support that is currently available for households. There are many schemes that can provide support for people who are struggling to heat their home, whether directly through their energy supplier or by encouraging people to seek information from the many excellent campaigns, such as the “No Cold Homes” campaign, which ran last December, and the Home Heat Helpline, which I regularly recommend to my constituents—I believe that many hon. Members do the same. This is cold homes week, when we will consider action on fuel poverty and excess winter deaths.”
“Fortunately, I speak very quickly, so I hope that I can manage to say what I want to in three minutes. I speak as the co-chair of the all-party group on fuel poverty and energy efficiency, formerly the warm homes group, which tries to tackle the trilemma of fuel poverty, namely high energy prices, low incomes and the very poor energy efficiency of our domestic housing stock. We saw energy bills falling early last year, with all the major suppliers passing on to their customers—to some extent—savings from the lower global wholesale gas prices. That should have helped many householders make their finances go a little further. I am pleased to say that the Government were also able to reduce energy bills by an average of £50 per household by reducing the green levies that had been placed on bills. However, we must go much further, as hon.”
“It should be pointed out that the NHS is a superb innovative organisation that does huge amounts of research. We do not hear that said often enough of the NHS. From my point of view, the most important bit of the Bill is the database, which will mean we can take forward the research we do in the NHS so that people can have access to information—not just patients, but clinicians, who might not know as much as we or they would hope. I very much hope the Bill makes progress.”
“Very briefly, Mr Speaker. I support the Bill and commend all those who have worked towards it in the many iterations it has been through in this House and the other place—I can see that Members of the other place are taking an interest in our proceedings today. I am chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on brain tumours. Brain tumour research has desperately lagged behind other areas of cancer research, and we desperately need to find new sources of treatment. Sadly, brain tumour is still the biggest cancer killer of the under- 40s—children and young adults. The Bill could be a great step forward in the sharing of information. I commend the Minister, as all hon. Members have. Without wishing to sound too toadying, we have a Minister who is committed to taking forward progress on research in a way that we have not seen previously.”
“We need to do more to open up to further new innovative ideas—supporting the work both of prison staff and prison governors. They should be able to innovate, to bring in new ideas and new organisations, and to experiment. We need to do something new, because much of what has been done for years has not worked. Anything that works to bring down rates of offending will also bring down the number of victims.”
“I mentioned Jackie Hewitt-Main not just to draw attention to her amazing work—it is easy to tell that I am very proud of it—but to stress the transformative role that outside independently run agencies can achieve by bringing new ideas into the Prison Service. I also commend Doncaster prison because two ex-prisoners from the previous project at Chelmsford prison—Colin Nugent and Phil Aldis—have trained as teachers. These are the only ex-offenders ever to be able to teach within a prison setting. I commend the work of Doncaster prison, which is run by Serco. I say congratulations on adopting that innovative approach. I believe that freezing funding for prisons and outside agencies to offer assistance to offenders will be an absolute disaster.”
“He had had a troubled upbringing and successive school failures, giving him a fear of the classroom. With the use of small spaces and multi-sensory learning, he was taught to read and write the alphabet for the first time, and he subsequently made rapid progress—eight years’ progress in eight months! DL says: “I’ve spent 22 years in prison. I’ve beaten up staff and everything. I’ve just had my 40th birthday and it’s the first one outside prison as an adult. Now I can attend job interviews and I’m planning to take the driving theory test which I’ve always feared to do before.” I would recommend anyone not impressed by those results and the possible transformative effects that can be seen if we change our approach to rehabilitation in prison to visit the Cascade website.”
“Jackie is getting amazing results in her current work in Doncaster, bringing people with pre-entry levels of English up to level 2 and beyond within a matter of months. Some make a whole year’s progress within a month, having utilised her extraordinary methods. Let me cite what John Biggin, the previous governor of Doncaster prison, said: “The potential for sustained and often life-changing results for prisoners going through this programme cannot be underestimated…The potential for good that this programme can deliver is not only worth investing in, but embracing as part of the DNA of our prison.” Another great success story from Doncaster prison is about an ex-prisoner called DL, who had spent virtually his entire adult life in prison for 22 years. He was deemed to be one of the most disruptive and disengaged men in the prison.”