Caroline Nokes
MP for Romsey and Southampton North · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. He will be conscious that there are in the region of 15 more Members wishing to speak in this debate, and we have not yet heard from the Minister, so I am not minded to accept a closure motion at this point.”
“(3) For paragraph (3A) substitute— “(3A) The returning officer shall also provide each polling station with such equipment as is necessary to ensure that relevant persons are able to vote independently and in secret, including— (a) tactile equipment that enables the voter to navigate the ballot paper and accurately mark their chosen candi…”
“(2) During the period commencing 30 minutes before the time appointed for the taking of a poll at an election, and ending 30 minutes after the close of the said poll, a person shall not, in or in the curtilage of a polling station or in any place within 50 metres of such station, for the purpose of promoting the interest of a political pa…”
“New clause 97— Power of Electoral Commission to require disclosure from financial institutions — “In Schedule 19B of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (investigatory powers of Commission), after paragraph 1 insert— “Power to require disclosure from financial institutions 1A(1) The Commission may give a disclosure n…”
“() In paragraph 6 of schedule 6 (Donations from impermissible donors), after “section 54(1)(a)” insert— “or section 55B.” (8) In Schedule 20, in Table after Section 56(3) or (4) (failure to return donations) On summary conviction: statutory maximum or 6 months On indictment: fine or 1 year” Insert— Section 55A(8) (cap on donations) On sum…”
“(2) The specified elections for the purposes of subsection (1) are— (a) UK parliamentary elections, and (b) local government elections in England and Wales.”
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“I do not want to be too difficult, but I do not think it is any excuse to say that because it is difficult for everyone to get compensation, we should not try here.”
“I will go for valproate, because there is not pending legislation about that. Have I understood the Minister correctly? Is she saying that if the Primodos case is successful, the Government will review it, and the women who have had mesh implants or who are the victims of sodium valproate will not be expected to have to go down that legal route?”
“The public and this House have been frustrated by having to wait for Sue Gray and the Metropolitan police, and today the Prime Minister has announced his new office at No. 10. Will he please let the House know what specific structures will be put in place so that this House can hold it accountable?”
“I made a plea to the Minister’s predecessor that a similar system could be considered for gov.uk, with BSL overlaid on its many hundreds of thousands of pages to make the information there more accessible to BSL users. I do not intend to detain the House for long today, but I want to thank my right hon. Friend the Minister and all those who have supported the Bill—all those charities that have come forward to us with information—and to say, “Please, let us not impede it any further. As we heard earlier, we have waited too long. Let’s crack on now.””
“It was not until a constituent of mine came to see me in 2019 to talk about an app he had developed that translated websites into BSL, which was being used by Lloyds Bank, among others, that it dawned on me that in many cases BSL users were not able to read written English to the same standard that we in this House might be able to. He was brilliant at explaining to me that perhaps their access to medical information was restricted and, as the hon. Member for West Lancashire explained, their ability to communicate with their children’s schools or interact with services such as the Department for Work and Pensions was limited because they could not read as well as they needed to in order to understand.”
“I pay huge tribute to those people who came forward with their stories of the challenges that they had had receiving information as BSL users. We got testimony from the RNID, among others, about whole families who had not been able to understand the rules of lockdown and how they impacted them. It is critical that, moving forward, we make sure that access to Government information is available for all those with disabilities, but on this occasion I want particularly to focus on those with a reliance on BSL as their first language.”
“Please be assured, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I am going to take my lead from the hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown), but first I must pay tribute to the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper), who has done such incredible work getting the Bill to this point, and to my hon. Friend the Minister. She may have been pleased to send the letter yesterday informing us all that the Government were going to support the Bill, but that is nothing compared with the relief with which we all received it. Perhaps that means we are making much jollier and friendlier contributions than might otherwise have been the case. As Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, through the course of 2020 I listened to a great deal of evidence from people with disabilities about their access to services during the pandemic.”
“My hon. Friend has done incredible work highlighting the seriousness of cyber-flashing. Does she agree that it needs to be a specific criminal offence, alongside public sexual harassment? I would love to hear the Minister’s views on that.”
“Will the Minister briefly reflect on the fact that it is not just campaigners, me and Members from across the House who are calling for a change in the law, but the Law Commission?”
“My plea to the Minister is: please, go and talk to the people there, listen to the lessons that they have learnt and the support that they can give, and work out how we can bring them into the NHS and help clinical commissioning to ensure that the psychological support is available for those who need it.”
“Pretty much everybody we see on social media today—those influencers of young people—is seen through a filter, so they look perfect at all times, yet young people look in the mirror and do not see that same perfection. Tatyana drew attention to Katie Piper, who she said was the only person she saw in public with visible burns who she could hold up as a role model. She said that she talks about it because she wants that young boy or young girl in their bedroom to see somebody who looks like them who is prepared to speak up publicly and ensure that other people have the courage to take part in everyday life. I conclude with a plea from Changing Faces, which provides a brilliant, charity-run service that includes its skin camouflage clinic and one-to-one counselling support. Changing Faces would love to work with the Government.”
“We are terribly good at ensuring that young girls who are taking that drug go on the pregnancy prevention programme, but terribly bad at ensuring that the young men who take it get the support they need to get through low mood swings and the depression that some—I am quick to emphasise, not all—feel. The Women and Equalities Committee last year conducted our inquiry into body image and the pressures that young people face. Of the evidence that we took, particularly from witnesses put forward by Changing Faces, two stick out in my mind. Tatyana, who was a burns victim when she was a very small child—she was at primary school when she was disfigured—gave us the most incredible evidence, in which she spoke about the importance of being open and talking about her skin condition. Tatyana also spoke about the importance of role models.”
“I have been in this Chamber when I have heard Members say to me, “Nobody died of a few spots.” But actually, we heard my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough highlight acts of self-harm in young people who feel so bullied and pressured because of the state of their skin that they do not leave their bedrooms and do not want to take part in school activities. Tragically, some do take their lives; they lose their lives because of “a few spots”. That is why it is so important that they are given the psychological help they need to get through their conditions. Sometimes this is terribly controversial and upsets people, but I want to pay particular attention to the drug Roaccutane, which in itself can cause low mood. It is therefore important that young people who are prescribed it get the support they need when under prescription.”
“With the skin the largest organ of the body, it is almost inevitable that those who have a visible difference, such as eczema, cystic acne, scars or burns, will face some horrendous bullying at school—the sort of bullying that means that they do not take part in the ordinary activities that other children do. When I say “ordinary activities”, I mean that they do not want to take part in PE or put their hand up in class in case attention is drawn to them. Is it any surprise that children who have conditions that require medical treatment also need psychological help to overcome all of that? I pay particular tribute to the most amazing man in Southampton, Professor Keith Godfrey—a dermatologist at Southampton General Hospital who runs the paediatric dermatology service. Nobody likes talking about acne.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I pay tribute to the APPG, and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) for securing this important debate. I will try to keep my comments brief, but the challenge is that there is so much to talk about. I, like the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), pay tribute to Changing Faces, which has done incredible work to promote the cause of those with visible difference, who too often in our lives face discrimination and bullying. We know that 55% of young people will be bullied about their appearance.”
“Our Streets Now, Plan UK and a variety of organisations from Girlguiding to the Soroptimists all agree with the Law Commission that hate crimes would best be prosecuted as a specific law. Will my hon. Friend reassure the House that she will look for a legislative vehicle to make that possible quickly?”
“Before we begin, I remind hon. Members that they are expected to wear face coverings when they are not speaking in the debate. This is in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. I also remind you all that you should have a covid lateral flow test before coming on to the parliamentary estate, and give one another plenty of room when entering and leaving the Chamber. I call Jim Shannon to move the motion.”
“I remind Members that they are expected to wear face coverings when not speaking in the debate, in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission, and that they are asked by the House to have a covid lateral flow test before coming on to the estate. Please give each other plenty of room when seated and when entering and leaving the Chamber. I will call Alicia Kearns to move the motion. I will then call Gareth Davies to make a short speech, and the Minister to respond. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.”
“My right hon. Friend spoke earlier about lifting the cloud that is hanging over leaseholders. Can he provide reassurance to residents such as those in Banning Street in Romsey, where the building is sub-18 metres, the freeholder is a housing association and the defects are cladding related, that they will be swept up in his reforms? They are looking at costs of £15,000 to £20,000 per leaseholder for new fire escapes, which may well not even be needed. Can he provide reassurance that they will be helped?”
“I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in respect of the support I get from the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy project. It includes a cross-party group of MPs who, to follow on from the comments made by the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum), absolutely seek to take the toxicity out of this debate, to find consensus, to be careful in the language we use, and to find agreement and, indeed, pragmatic solutions. When it comes to crossing the channel in small boats, we certainly need pragmatic solutions.”
“We should think very carefully before going down that route, because no Minister at all wishes to be responsible for more loss of life in the channel.”
“We should also fulfil the commitment we made to vulnerable people when the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme and the vulnerable children’s resettlement scheme came to their conclusion. We cannot talk about safe and legal routes unless we actually have some, and it is imperative that we have them. I am now stretching your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker, but let me finally address the comments of the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) about pushback. I was the Immigration Minister who rejected that idea because I thought that it was too dangerous to do in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the country, with vulnerable and overladen boats carrying women and children, in choppy seas.”
“At that point, what is there to stop that person seeking to come back to this country immediately? There could be some sort of circular trade, in which people end up back on our shores, whether in the back of a van or a small boat, and so the cycle goes round and round. I have some experience as a former Immigration Minister, so I know full well that at this time of year, there is a very popular journey using the return flight to Tirana. [ Interruption. ] I can see that you want me to hurry up, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will. There is the question of whether people might see an opportunity to head off to a different country, and then end up back here, whether their claim was accepted or denied in that third country. We must get the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme up and running, and make it effective.”
“It causes me real concern that we will create a two-tier system in which people with identical claims to safety—at identical risk from the Taliban—are treated very differently. I wish to raise concerns about where we might send people. I do not presume to know which countries the Home Office is in discussions with, but they might include Albania, which is in mainland Europe and not part of the European Union. There is already a well-established route from Albania to this country in the back of a van. We could be in a situation where we pay a third country a significant amount of money to accept someone into their asylum system—this is different from the model outlined by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden—but they are then refused.”
“We saw horrific scenes in Afghanistan when female judges and female Members of Parliament sought to flee that country. We have put in place some schemes—it is important to emphasise that they are not yet up and running—around the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme. Let me draw for the House the image of one female judge who comes to this country under that scheme when it is up and running. She is accepted into our country and is promptly given indefinite leave to remain and the right to work. A second female judge arrives on a small boat, but otherwise the circumstances are the same, in that she would be at risk if she returned to Afghanistan. We seek to offshore her.”
“I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will not mind my instantly picking up on the fact that he very specifically said that “unaccompanied” asylum-seeking children would not be sent offshore, and that we would not split families. I also seek his assurance that we will not send whole families to have their claims decided offshore, and a further assurance that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who have been accepted into the asylum process will not fall out of it again once they turn 18. To me, it is absolutely imperative that if somebody’s claim is to be decided here, it should be decided here, not diverted midway through the process because they pass an arbitrary age. I have real concerns about the creation of two tiers of asylum seeker. I tend to use this illustration.”
“I remind hon. Members that they are expected to wear face coverings when they are not speaking in the debate, in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. I also remind hon. Members that they are asked by the House to have a covid lateral flow test twice a week if coming on to the estate, which can be done either at the testing centre in the House or at home. Please give each other and members of staff space when seated and when entering and leaving the Chamber.”
“It looks like we have in the region of seven Back Benchers wanting to contribute, so if Members could do the maths and work out how many minutes they have, that would be much appreciated.”
“One of the times that women most engage with healthcare services is when they are pregnant. My constituent Michelle, a qualified midwife, has contacted me, talking specifically about the importance of retention in midwifery and highlighting the crisis that she says there is. What is my hon. Friend doing to make sure that qualified, experienced midwives stay working at the frontline where we need them?”
“The list is long: we are talking about tattooing, botox and laser treatment—just imagine the damage that high-powered lasers can do to somebody’s skin when in unqualified, untrained hands.”
“Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) spoke about people being able to call themselves nurses when they are not nurses; aesthetic cosmetic practitioners can not only call themselves that but perform all sorts of procedures, some of which we would find it bizarre and disturbing to talk about and, indeed, at some of which we might look with absolute horror when they are reported on the internet and in the pages of national newspapers. I am talking about semi-permanent make-up and permanent tattooing, which can leave people permanently disfigured. The semi-permanent variety can fade to leave people with bizarre blue eyebrows that require many different procedures to be put back to normal.”
“I wish to talk specifically about aesthetic non-surgical cosmetic procedures, which may seem quite trivial in comparison with the important matters I just referred to, but I vividly remember visiting a doctor in my constituency and talking to her about her experience when a patient came to her after she had had far too much lip filler placed into her lips by an unqualified and inexperience practitioner. The poor girl’s lips had, frankly, exploded, leaving her permanently scarred and with the prospect of many years of corrective surgery to try to rebuild her face. That is the stark reality. The hon.”
“It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate and specifically to speak to new clause 1, tabled in my name and the names of the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) and many other Members throughout the House. First, though, I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) for his incredibly important amendment on the workforce. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) for his crucial new clauses on virginity testing and hymenoplasty. As the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, I was pleased to be able to support those amendments and am delighted that the Government have introduced their own new clauses on those issues.”
“The Joint Council for Cosmetic Practitioners says: “The creation of a national licensing scheme for practitioners of aesthetic non-surgical cosmetic procedures would ensure that all those who practise are competent and safe for members of the public.” To my mind, that is the abiding word: safe. We want those who receive these sorts of treatments not to be putting themselves in harm’s way. I look forward to the Minister’s response; I know he is listening on this issue. He can expect me not to push my new clause to a vote, but I very much hope he can show us a constructive way forward that may take us to the regime that we want to see.”
“She spoke to me of some of the horror stories that she herself had seen and some of the training courses she had gone on that she said were quite simply not worth the money she paid for them or the waste of her time. She said that certificates were issued at the end of such courses that gave the impression that people were qualified and trained when in fact they had had no more than a couple of hours—in one case it was 90 minutes—of training. I also pay tribute to the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and the Joint Council for Cosmetic Practitioners; they have been incredibly supportive and helpful in the drafting of new clause 1.”
“It is a highly medicalised procedure and her big worry is that if it falls into the hands of somebody who is unregulated and unlicensed, it could be extremely dangerous indeed. Those with medical qualifications absolutely understand how they have to treat blood products; the stark reality is that those without do not. I pay tribute to aestheticians—I struggle to say that word—such as Naomi O’Hara who came to me, as someone who practises, to call for regulation and licensing. I pay tribute to a lady who is not my constituent but travelled to Romsey to see me: Tania Gough, who publishes the Image Directory. Her concern was that it is perfectly possible for someone to set themselves up in practice with next to no training whatsoever.”
“Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), who has done so much work on injectables in respect of under-18s and deserves absolute credit for getting her private Member’s Bill on to the statute book. That is amazing work and I really appreciate the fact that she has done it. Nevertheless, we need to do more and to go further. I pay tribute to a number of my constituents who, following the work I did last year on the beauty industry, approached me on this issue. In particular, I pay tribute to Dr Chris Rennie of Romsey Medical Aesthetics, and to Dr Mitra Najafi, who has developed an incredible process by which plasma-rich platelets are extracted from a patient’s blood and injected back into them.”
“I thank the hon. Lady for using exactly that term because she is right: it is about the NHS picking up the pieces and spending taxpayers’ money trying to correct something that should not have been done in the first place. If it is to be done to somebody, it should be done only by the qualified, trained and, as my new clause argues, licensed. I call today for some form of licensing or regulation. I absolutely accept that the Minister may view my new clause as deficient and not doing what he would want it to do. I appreciate the fact that he took the time to meet me and other Members last week to discuss the issue, because there are concerns throughout the House. I pay particular tribute to my hon.”
“Before we begin, I remind Members that they are expected to wear face coverings when not speaking in the debate, in line with current Government and House of Commons Commission guidance. I remind Members that they are asked by the House to have a covid lateral flow test twice a week if coming on to the estate, which can be done either at the testing centre or at home. Please also give each other room when you leave the Chamber.”
“Before we begin, I remind Members that they are expected to wear face coverings when not speaking, which is in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. Members are also expected by the House to have a covid lateral flow test twice a week if coming on to the estate, which can be done at the testing centre in the House or at home. Please do give each other and members of staff space when seated and when entering and leaving the room. I will call Dr Rupa Huq to move the motion and I will then call the Minister to respond. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up. We have had an indication, however, that Stella Creasy would like to speak and I am happy to call her for a short speech.”
“My hon. Friend is clearly setting out the complexities of the industry—I will refer to it as an industry. Does she agree that businesses such as the Longcroft Luxury Cat Hotel in my constituency want certainty and that, whether they are dealing with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the local council or their tax affairs, everything should be codified in one place so that they can understand what they are entitled to and what is available to them?”
“When I spoke to her about it yesterday, she said, “Just go and get yourself a prescription, because this will solve those hot flushes at night and the fact you wake up in a puddle of sweat.” I still tried to say, “No, I’m sure that’s just my insistence on sleeping under a 13.5 tog duvet.” Apparently not. I vividly remember being brutally asked by GB News, “What are your menopause symptoms?” I recoiled a little from the question, which I thought was a bit rude. And then I thought, no, I have to talk about it. I regard it as my duty to talk about it so that younger women know, whether it is brain fog, anxiety, hot flushes or night sweats, this is all normal and it can be addressed.”
“I regard this place as a workplace and, until very recently, it was heavily male- dominated, but we are clawing it back, sometimes just one seat at a time. I pay tribute to the work of one of the foremost menopause warriors, Anne Milton, the predecessor of my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Angela Richardson). As Deputy Chief Whip, Anne Milton played the crucial pastoral, human resources role of helping many of us with conversations on all sorts of weird and wonderful health issues. It helped that she was previously a nurse, but she was an evangelist for HRT.”
“We have to address the costs because women will be bearing the burden of prescription after prescription until they find the solution for them. We have heard a little this morning about education, but no one has yet paid tribute to the brilliant work of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), who made sure that, as part of personal, social, health and economic education, girls are not just taught about periods, not getting pregnant and contraception but are taught about what might happen when those periods stop. Of course, it is not just a matter for girls. Their male classmates and colleagues, their fathers and brothers, also need to be part of this discussion. As we have heard repeatedly, there is too little knowledge in schools and in the workplace.”
“It is always a privilege to be in this Chamber to support the work of the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris). It is just over a week since we last debated the menopause in the Chamber, and I always say that in Parliament we should pick not just our battles but our allies. It is a pleasure to campaign, to hold a revolution and to be a warrior alongside her. The reality is that all women will go through the menopause, but not all women will suffer symptoms. Only about 80% suffer symptoms and HRT—a brilliant, wonderful solution to some of those symptoms—does not work for everyone, and the same type of HRT does not work for every woman. That is why it is often a case of trial and error, going through many prescriptions to find the form of HRT that works for each woman and resolves their symptoms.”
“It is about having the conversations, about making sure that we understand, and, most of all, about joining the hon. Member for Swansea East and ensuring that we are all warriors and allies, and that we are going to bring about change.”
“Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), the current Deputy Chief Whip, but I issue a plea to all those in the Whips Office: make sure you have good, strong women in there who can provide advice when it is needed. I pay tribute to Claire Hattrick, who lives in Hampshire and runs the clipboardclaire.com website, providing impartial, informed advice for women when they are going through the menopause. Many of us simply do not know what the symptoms are. We do not understand them, and we do not know where to turn. Claire and many like her across the country provide that advice, free of charge and independently, giving us all hope that the symptoms can be dealt with. Bills such as this mean that we will debate the issue on the Floor of the House as well as in the wider country.”
“My hon. Friend has made the point—lead good lives—and that is what we want to do, whether it is at home or at work. Something in particular has struck me during Menopause Awareness Month. I have spoken to many employers about the menopause workplace pledge, and have talked to members of organisations in the City of London about what they can do to support women. According to a survey carried out by the Fawcett Society, 50% of women working in financial services were not taking on additional responsibilities because they were worried about their menopause symptoms, while 25% were considering leaving work. Women at the height of their careers are potentially losing them, and not providing those brilliant female role models to which we all need to aspire in order to progress in our careers. I make no criticism of my right hon.”
“Will she please give us some hope that the application and allocation scheme is on its way, and that we will be able to provide our constituents with some sort of update?”
“This morning I attended an Afghan community day, hosted by the Stronger Communities team in Southampton, and supported by Hampshire County Council, Southampton City Council, and Test Valley Borough Council. That was for Afghan families who are already settled here, or who have come here as part of the ARAP scheme. Their big concern is about families still left in Afghanistan, and they are desperately looking for detail and information about how the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme will work. My hon. Friend is right to point out the complexities, and we know that this will be harder than the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme, precisely because of the situation on the ground in Afghanistan.”