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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“They did not even have six days before they were forced back into burqas and turned away from their university places, or before the bank tellers were told that they had to go home because their jobs were to be taken by men. They were told it would all be okay so long as they lived under Islamic law, but what is the Taliban’s interpretation of Islamic law? What will it actually look like for them? My email inbox has had a number of comments from people telling me that I have to have trust in the Taliban and that they are not as bad as they once were. I will judge them by their actions, not their words. I saw the terrible scenes at Kabul airport, where Afghan nationals had no confidence in their words and were clinging desperately to the undersides of planes to escape.”
“How are we going to bring those people to safety in the time that we have to do it? For 18 months, I lived the Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme, and I know the complexities and the difficulties with, on occasion, pettifogging bureaucracy. I know how hard it is to get the referrals and make sure that people have the right vulnerabilities identified, and how difficult it is to work on the ground when people are in camps, all in one place. The women of Afghanistan are not in one place; they are in hiding. They do not necessarily have the documentation that they need to find their routes to safety. What are those routes to safety? We need to know as a matter of urgency. My concern is that the women of Afghanistan do not have the six years that we are talking about with the VPR scheme or, actually, six months.”
“May I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests for the support that I get from the RAMP—Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy—project? I would also like to pay tribute to the Army Air Corps, based in my constituency, which over the last 20 years has played such a significant role in Afghanistan, and to gallant Members across the House who have personalised the story in their contributions today. I start by commending my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister for the scheme that he is putting in place to ensure that we can prioritise women and girls and bring them to safety. He and I do not always see eye to eye, but this scheme absolutely is the bespoke one that I have been calling for over the last few days. But time is of the essence and detail is missing, and that is my big worry.”
“I welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement that students will be examined only on what they have actually been taught, in recognition of the acute impact that this year has had on their studies. Both students and teachers need certainty. Will he ensure that teachers will have the materials and resources they need to give their students that confidence?”
“My hon. Friend will understand my disappointment that there is no current commitment to outlaw public sexual harassment. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, writing in The Times , indicated that there would be ongoing work to look at gaps in legislation, but her correspondence to Members this evening omitted it. Please will my hon. Friend the Minister, from the Dispatch Box, commit to making sure that, where gaps are identified, they will be acted upon, and swiftly?”
“There is some real concern among my constituents that they might in some way have the wrong batch of AstraZeneca vaccine. My hon. Friend provided a useful update on Friday, but can he give any further reassurance that no British traveller will be turned away at the border because they have been given the wrong vaccine?”
“It is obvious that local authorities such as Kent, Croydon and Glasgow are already under extreme stretch. I am worried that the new plan for immigration might place further burdens on them. These are long-standing problems and, therefore, sustainable solutions are needed. I know that being pragmatic is not necessarily everyone’s cup of tea, but it is essential.”
“That is good news, in particular given the scale of the current backlog, but it is essential for the system to be relatively rapid, and I worry about building in a six-month delay at the start of the process for those who might have travelled through a safe third country. Currently, there is no mechanism to return them, and it will be extremely challenging to find appropriate accommodation for those individuals. There is of course discussion of reception centres, but the proposals to establish those are not yet clear. We do not know if that will involve the housing in those communities of women and children. I gently direct the attention of Ministers to their responsibility under the Children Act 1989. It is crucial that when we do this, we get it right, and that we treat people humanely.”
“Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). She has spoken about it already, but it deliberately selected the most vulnerable, the most in need, and the Home Secretary is right to look at making its successor programme less geographically specific. However, we have an important responsibility to resettle adequate numbers. That will be challenging to meet. We have to be fair to those seeking asylum and fair to the taxpayer. I was pleased to hear the borders Minister say in a Westminster Hall debate recently that there is to be a dramatic uplift in the number of those employed by the Home Office to process asylum claims.”
“Friend will know as well as I do that once a craft has taken to the waters of the English channel, it is not only difficult to stop but potentially puts lives at risk, not only of asylum seekers but of our Border Force personnel. Small boat crossings are not a problem that will be solved on the water. She highlighted the use of guns and violence. That of course could be turned on our own Border Force mid-channel. I worry for their safety if attempts are made to turn boats around on the water. I want to focus on the issue of support for those who seek to use safe and legal routes to claim asylum here. Britain has a proud history of providing a safe haven for those fleeing persecution. In particular, I draw attention to the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme, as highlighted earlier by my right hon.”
“Meeting people in detention centres—Syrian refugees who came here fleeing war or young people trying to regularise their status in order to complete their education—was both the toughest and the most rewarding part of the job. I welcome my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary’s reiterated commitment to a firm but fair immigration system. There can be no question but that the issue of small boats making perilous crossings of the busiest shipping lane in the world is a challenging one. I have many constituents who are concerned about the crossings. In her opening remarks, my right hon. Friend reminded us all that this is a trade in human misery. She is right in her determination to crack down on that evil trade, but we need to find practical and sustainable ways to do so. My right hon.”
“I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and the support that I have received—a research capacity in my office, relating to my work on asylum seekers, refugees and migrants—from the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy project. When discussing immigration, asylum and our borders, there is a real problem with language and tone. I tried for 18 months to get that tone right, not always successfully, I will admit—although, having listened to the shadow Home Secretary, there was apparently much that I did not do successfully. But I always remembered that behind every visa application, every asylum claim and every journey to the shores of the UK there is a personal story—an individual.”
“It is popular to blame mutant algorithms for many things, but social media giants could use them quickly and effectively to shut down accounts that are spouting racist bile. Will my hon. Friend assure me that the Government are prepared to take action against platforms such as Instagram, which have been painfully slow to respond to the horrific racist abuse targeted at black players since Sunday?”
“Tragically, maternity discrimination does not just happen in the labour market—it also happens in labour wards. What work is the Minister doing across government to make sure that we drive down the horrific death toll that sees black women four times as likely to die in childbirth than their white counterparts?”
“The River Test is one of the finest chalk streams in the world, but since May, diesel has been spilling into the river. What matters most is that the flow is stopped and that there is an effective clean-up, but there are many agencies involved, which has made a co-ordinated response challenging. Please will my right hon. Friend ensure that the Environment Agency, Natural England, Southern Water, local authorities and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are all involved in solving this environmental catastrophe together?”
“The immunosuppressed want to know what the plan is for them. Will they be allowed tests for spike antibody levels on the NHS? Will they be able to get a booster before September if their antibody tests show that they have no protection, despite being vaccinated?”
“Can my right hon. Friend reassure me, as we look to 19 July and the end of the summer term, that there can be no question of a return to bubbles and self-isolation when children return in the autumn?”
“That will have a consequential impact on the work of the Department for Work and Pensions to make sure that interesting, challenging and sustainable opportunities are found for those women in the future. It is crucial that we look at our recovery and how we build back better in a feminine way. I will leave the Minister with that thought. When we look at how we build back, we have to make sure that we do not forget the female workforce, who are so vital in the hair and beauty sector, and indeed in other sectors.”
“Member for Swansea East mentioned the fact that the beauty and wellbeing sector has rightly had to put in all sorts of provisions to prevent covid spread, but increased gaps between chairs reduce capacity, and businesses must have 15-minute breaks between customers so that facilities can be wiped down and disinfected, taking hours out of a day that could instead have been productive, income-generating hours. We have seen the same in retail. We know that 58% of non-essential retail workers are women, and my horrific prediction is that when furlough comes to an end, we may well see a massive increase in the number of women being made redundant.”
“The reality is that there is not the sort of oversight that one might expect for an industry that uses, in some instances, interesting and even challenging chemicals and machinery, and all sorts of products that need to be used by expert hands, particularly in services such as cosmetic tattooing. I say that because we can all open the Daily Mail’s Sidebar of Shame and see some of the horrors that have been carried out on people’s faces. Fundamentally, it is vital that the Government recognise that, as we come out of the pandemic, there is a challenge in female employment. My Select Committee, the TUC and the Women’s Budget Group—a range of experts, up and down the country—have reflected upon the fact it is predominantly women who have been employed in the sectors that have been locked down longest and hardest. The hon.”
“What is lacking is regulation. We need a way of making sure that people are accredited, that training is understood and recognised, and that we can understand who is providing what to whom. I remember having a fantastic conversation with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on this subject. He rang me on a Sunday to talk about it and I explained to him there and then that he and I could set ourselves up as a pair of beauticians with absolutely no training, no accreditation and no regulation—although we would not survive in business very long, because we would be very bad at it.”
“Treasury Ministers always say that it was very easy and straightforward to do that because hospitality was on a separate VAT code and could be easily and distinctly hived off from other sectors, but the same does not apply to the beauty sector. Well, it should, and it would not be difficult to give it a separate VAT code. Will my hon. Friend the Minister undertake to have a conversation about that with the Treasury? We do not know whether covid will be back, or what the next pandemic is coming over the hill will be, or indeed what future financial challenges will arise. I think that it would be of benefit to the sector to have a separate VAT code, so that we will not be in the same situation in the future. This is a very competitive, enterprising and determined sector, and one that is phenomenally good at self-promotion.”
“Lady about the promotion of the sector. This is not just “hair and beauty”; it is a really important sector, worth £28 billion, which can give women back their confidence. I have a specific plea, which I hope the Minister will listen to and act on. The thing that struck me after talking to the National Hair and Beauty Federation and the British Beauty Council, among other organisations, and perhaps specifically after talking to individual providers of beauty services both large and indeed very small, including one-woman-band enterprises, is that they talk about the VAT break that was given to hospitality.”
“Lady mentioned some of the services that can be provided, but I always highlight services such as ayurvedic facials that help with migraines, or the ability of specialist—indeed, brilliant—cosmetic tattooists, who put eyebrows back on people with alopecia or tattoo nipples back on women who have had breast reconstruction surgery. All these things give people the confidence to go back into the workplace, go back to work and take up a productive and useful role in society, in the community, and of course—I would say this to a Minister at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy—in the economy. That is crucial, because ultimately these are people who will pay tax and help the rest of us to recover from the hideous fiscal crisis caused by the pandemic. I recognise and want to reinforce the comments made by the hon.”
“We talked about the challenges of getting women back into employment, perhaps after a long career break, and the thing that was missing from so many women was confidence. I would speak to women in jobcentres up and down the country, and I learned that they did not have the confidence to go back into the workplace; they felt their skills were lacking and they were old and past their sell-by date. These were women of 40. For the record, let me say that no woman in her 40s— I declare an interest—is past her sell-by date. It is crucial that we look at this sector, which can give the female workforce confidence. The hon.”
“This country thrives on the entrepreneurial spirit of people like you, who have the guts to go off and become self-employed, to set up your own business, to rent your own studio, and to contribute to the economy in myriad ways.” I have got that off my chest, and I feel lot better about it. The hon. Member for Swansea East mentioned that the industry sometimes gets ridiculed and people laugh at it, which makes me really angry, because they are laughing at the hard work of women who have skill, ability and the determination to give back to others the confidence that some of them may have lost. I know there is nothing more boring than somebody who stands up in this place and says, “When I was a Minister,” but I am will say it. When I was a Minister, I spent a very happy year at the Department for Work and Pensions.”
“Then, he said, “But when educationalists find not-so-clever bright girls, they shove them off just into the beauty industry,” at which moment I had one of my moments of rage. Through the medium of Zoom, he undoubtedly got the famous death stare, because the reality is that the beauty and wellbeing industry is not “just” anything. It is a fantastic, thriving industry that provides training, employment and the opportunity to go off and become an entrepreneur. Over the course of the last 12 months, I have been blown away by the stories I have heard from young and not-so-young women who have told me how their boyfriends, fathers or brothers have regarded them as “just” beauty therapists. I have always gone back to them and said, “You are not ‘just’ anything. You are an entrepreneur, and you know what?”
“They are brave and ballsy—as I have previously said and established, that is not unparliamentary language—women, who go out, take the risk and benefit from it, and in turn they become employers of other women. That is a model that we should absolutely be encouraging, celebrating and promoting. I will tell a little anecdotal story. As Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, I get all sorts of interesting panels with fascinating people, including one gentleman who is one of the leading educationalists to whom the Government turn when they are looking for advice and interesting reports on everything to do with education. He talked to me about the veterinary profession and said that the veterinary profession was full of clever white girls.”
“Members would expect me, as Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, to emphasise that we are talking about a sector that employs women, but it does not simply employ them; it trains them and gives them opportunity. Many of them will do years of training in college or an apprenticeship, then move into working in a salon or studio. They might then consider taking the plunge and going self-employed; that is always a risk, but many of those brilliant and brave women do exactly that. After a few years of being self-employed, perhaps on a mobile basis, they rent their own salon—an enormous financial commitment, involving business rates and rent. For all of them, it is about risk and a cost-benefit analysis.”
“May I say what a pleasure it is to see you back in the Chair, Sir Roger? You have been much missed. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for her phenomenal work, both as chair of the APPG and in repeatedly highlighting the hair and beauty sector in the main Chamber, emphasising, as she has done again this morning, the particular challenges that it has faced during the pandemic. She has also given us a really healthy reminder of what a strong sector it has been, which is important to reflect on. We went into the pandemic with somewhere in the region of 300,000 employees in the sector, the vast majority of whom were women. Hon.”
“My hon. Friend was quick to respond that he wishes to support apprenticeships and demonstrate how important they are in the sector. Can he outline what specific work he is doing with the Department for Education to make sure that it, too, promotes them?”
“The reports of events in the Black sea remind us of why families worry when they have serving personnel at sea or serving abroad. Can my hon. Friend reassure the constituents who have contacted me on this issue that the vaccine roll-out programme to our brave men and women is going well and will hit the targets he has outlined?”
“I also want to pick up the comment about enforcement made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord). In the valley of the River Test, we have seen over the last few days a horrific pollution incident, which I sincerely hope agencies such as the Environment Agency will seek to remediate as quickly as possible. That incident reinforces the message that where we put in protections for our environment, we must also give authorities the power to enforce when accidents happen or, indeed, when deliberate acts cause pollution. Fundamentally, I want to leave the Minister with one thought: we need planning policies and strategies that will help nature and our environment, and the proposal for a wild belt could do exactly that.”
“In Romsey and Southampton North, we have some important designations. We have national park, SSI, SINC—site of importance for nature conservation—and ancient woodland, but no green belt. I will always make a pitch to the Minister to consider having some green belt in Hampshire. We have farmers who have embraced high-level stewardship and have pioneered environmentally friendly techniques and low plough strategies to prevent soil erosion. We have the Broughton water buffaloes, which are used as part of a regenerative farming policy that enables carbon to be captured and has built biodiversity. None of that happens by accident. People take deliberate, carefully thought through decisions to improve the local environment. I am extremely envious of the green belt that my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey has in her constituency.”
“I want to turn the clock back 10 years to when the chief executive of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust came to visit me and spoke of wildlife corridors—perhaps the forerunners of wild belts. That was a recognition that a belt in itself is not adequate: we need areas where wildlife can spread, move and migrate, and we need to ensure that they are linked so that where there is development, green corridors can surround that development to make sure that our wildlife can thrive. That is why a new planning designation could really help, giving strategic planners the opportunity to look at things holistically and work out how to integrate development and green areas in a managed way. We know that nature, when left to its own devices, can be incredibly rich and can provide some of the solutions to climate and pollution challenges.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins, and I extend my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) on securing this important debate. She has clearly struck a chord. I will always claim that the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust is visionary and ahead of the curve, and I should declare an interest as a member of it. The trust does brilliant work in my constituency, specifically around rewilding. Fishlake Meadows on the edge of Romsey, a bog in North Baddesley, and, of course, the Wilder Wallops project, which it has supported, are brilliant ways to inspire local communities not just to visit nature, but to volunteer and become part of it, and to ensure that facilities in those areas improve and increase. A specific designation could do exactly that.”
“Before I call the next speaker, I aim to call the Front-Bench spokespeople at 10.25 am, which leaves plenty of time. I have no plans to put you on a time limit, but please can Back Benchers recognise that four of you wish to speak.”
“As the evictions ban comes to an end and rate relief ends, what reassurance can my right hon. Friend give businesses such as Fitskool in my constituency, which is still operating under restrictions, that this delay to full step 4 really is the last delay?”
“Changing Faces has convinced the Welsh Government to sign up to its Pledge To Be Seen campaign on including people with visible differences and disfigurements in Government publications. Will my right hon. Friend consider doing likewise so that Government information campaigns across the UK are as inclusive as possible?”
“In the last week, two of my constituents—both British citizens—have received letters from the Home Office telling them they will lose their pension unless they apply for EU settled status. Please will my right hon. Friend do his best to extract a statement from the Home Office as to what data sharing is going on across Government that has led to those errors, which have alarmed pensioners in my constituency and, I assume, elsewhere?”
“Evidence shows that mothers have been harder hit by the pandemic than fathers in terms of redundancies and their employment opportunities. Does my hon. Friend support the words of the Secretary of State for International Trade yesterday when she was advocating flexible working in order to overcome some of these problems? Would the Minister, like me, support seeing job sharing as part of a forthcoming employment Bill?”
“Hampshire has a significant Nepalese community, many of whom are deeply worried about family and loved ones in Nepal, where covid has taken a terrible grip and there is inadequate access to oxygen and ventilators. Will my right hon. Friend ask the Foreign Secretary to make a statement to the House about what assistance the UK can give to help Nepal come through this crisis?”
“I would argue that not just rape victims but all female victims of crime need to be empowered to have the confidence to come forward and report it, knowing that their case will be treated seriously by all law enforcement.”
“We also have to make the online space safer, so that comments such as the horrific ones we saw over the weekend can be tracked down by the social media companies that host them and action can be taken. I was delighted to meet the Football Association a few weeks ago to talk about racism in football and the harassment that players face online every single day. The FA used the analogy that the problem is not just in the chair, but in the computer. It is critical that we use our new online safety legislation to ensure that those companies bear the brunt of the responsibility to help police and law enforcement to identify the perpetrators and stamp such behaviour out. I welcome the review of how rape victims are treated. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary was correct to say that we need to overhaul the way in which we treat victims.”
“Fourteen-year-olds—children—in their school uniforms being sexually harassed is not something that we should tolerate. It is not currently a specific crime, but it should be. Making our streets safer is not just about more street lights, more CCTV or more police on the streets. When I was a local councillor in 1999, more than 21 years ago, we talked about designing out crime, yet there are still young women afraid to walk on our streets. Relationships and sex education should not stop at 16, because it is crucial that in the sixth form our young people understand consent and what it means. Of course, it is not just about making our physical streets safer.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. You are right to point out that intolerance, harassment, racism and abuse, of whatever sort, are intolerable in this country. I am pleased to hear of the arrests that you mentioned. I was also pleased to hear about many of the things that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary identified in her opening remarks. I was delighted to hear that she had met Our Streets Now, a really effective and energetic campaign group that is working so hard to see public sexual harassment made a crime. I very much hope that we will see real action on that, either in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill or in separate legislation. Public sexual harassment affects not just young women, but children: 66% of young women aged between 14 and 21 have experienced it.”
“Primary care networks have done an incredible job of rolling out the vaccine, but GPs and practice nurses need to return to their surgeries and their patients. As my right hon. Friend said, we have to anticipate a difficult autumn and winter. What reassurance can he give that there will be capacity in the system for second jabs, potentially booster jabs in the autumn and the annual roll-out of the flu jab?”
“What recent discussions he has had with (a) the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs and (b) representatives of the cruise industry on amending the covid-19 travel advice on cruises.”
“The cruise industry is a significant employer in the Southampton area, but British travellers are still advised by the FCDO against cruising, even as advice on flying is set to be relaxed along with eased restrictions. Approval has been given for domestic cruising, but please can my hon. Friend work with colleagues across Government to make sure that international travel advice for cruising is aligned with that for aviation?”
“Many of us have constituents who are deeply worried about loved ones in India. Please will my hon. Friend reassure them that the Foreign Secretary will continue to engage with the Indian Government on the practical help that is needed and how we can provide it?”