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It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), whose sincerity in serving his constituents and his concern for the poorest across the globe, particularly in Africa, is unparalleled in this place.I want to speak in support of the wonderful town of Middlewich in my constituency, and to champion its irrefutable claim for Government funding for a bypass—a bypass that has been 20 years in the waiting, and for which planning permission was first granted two decades ago. If traffic was pressured then, one hardly needs to imagine how much more pressured it is now. Travelling through Middlewich—not just at peak time—one can justifiably describe the congestion as chronic. It is the worst in my constituency by far.Middlewich has an exceptionally strong community spirit and a high level of volunteering among its residents, as demonstrated by a whole host of community events that take place throughout the year. The annual FAB —folk and boat—festival attracts up to 25,000 visitors in a week, almost doubling the town’s population. It is the largest event in the country that celebrates canals and their narrowboats, and the surrounding heritage, music and culture. That is just one of many grassroots events promoted by the Middlewich townspeople. Others include a festival to celebrate the town’s Roman heritage, an annual Oscars ceremony to celebrate local community champions, the Good Neighbours scheme, the classic car and bike show, the national town crier competition, a cider festival, the Scribe literary festival, heritage open days, and the nationally recognised Middlewich Clean Team of more than 200 residents, who are regularly out keeping the town tidy. I consider myself to be a privileged member of that team, and it was heart-warming to see the huge number of residents out recently to make the town of Middlewich “Clean for the Queen”.Middlewich is an aspirational town, and St Michael’s church—a hub for community activity—is embarking on a £1.2 million regeneration scheme that will open it up for even greater community use. Community leadersacross the town have recently concluded a new town branding scheme, and Middlewich High School is fortunate to have a visionary headmaster in Keith Simpson.However, over recent decades, Middlewich has simply not received the investment that it deserves from wider authorities to enable it to realise its substantial untapped potential. There has been a huge amount of grassroots energy and commitment from local townspeople, and they deserve greater support. There is space for enterprise and development to grow in Middlewich, and it wants and would welcome such growth and development, including housing development. It is essential to have greater investment for Middlewich, and I have campaigned for that since my election in 2010. I am pleased to tell the House that Middlewich’s potential to make a substantial contribution to local and regional growth has now been recognised more widely. I am delighted that not only the townsfolk of Middlewich but Cheshire East Council and the local enterprise partnership now see Middlewich as a key town for development, with the potential for growth. That is important. The Government’s Transport for the North report, “Northern Transport Strategy” which was produced this month, states:“It is important to ensure economic benefits are spread across the North to deliver the vision of a Northern Powerhouse…and development opportunities are better connected to contribute to and benefit from”key towns. If the aspiration of the northern powerhouse is to be realised, it is essential that Middlewich receives greater investment, and that means the Middlewich eastern bypass.If I may, I would like to unpack just why the bypass is so important. The Middlewich eastern bypass is a major highway scheme. It would support the building of more than 2,000 new homes in and around Middlewich, thereby making a considerable contribution to facilitating the much-needed completion of the Cheshire East local plan. It would be a boost to existing businesses, which employ 4,500 people in Middlewich, and, according to figures from Cheshire East, enable the creation of a further 6,500 new jobs. That is why it is so important for the Government to consider supporting this major highways scheme by allocating funding from the Government’s £475 million local majors funds. Local areas were invited by the Chancellor in his Budget statement last week to make further bids. I am recording a request now, on behalf of Middlewich, for funding from that fund, with the support of Cheshire East Council and the local LEP. The fund is for large local transport schemes, too big for the regular local growth fund. That applies to this bypass: it is a £30 million project. It is now a high priority for our principal authority and for our LEP.In addition to helping to solve serious congestion issues locally, the bypass would also solve many regional transport problems. Cheshire East Council states that Middlewich is the worst pinch-point on the A54 corridor, which runs from the M6 across to Cheshire west. A bypass would help to relieve the pinch-point, and tackle a number of road safety issues in the town that have been a cause of great local concern for many years. If the bypass scheme involves, as I believe it should, local improvements, that would help to address and improve challenges along Lewin Street, Nantwich Road, the Newton Bank Gyratory and the junction of Leadsmith Street and St Michael’s Way. Those improvements are essential to protect pedestrian safety and to improve pedestrian access to the town centre.A bypass would provide better routes for heavy goods vehicles and a greatly improved link to the M6 Smart Motorway, which is now under construction. There is no point in making that very considerable investment to relieve congestion if vehicles find themselves stranded and stationary when they move off the M6 and on to the route to Middlewich. The route will also improve access to the HS2 Crewe hub when that opens. I am informed that the work required to develop the hub will involve considerable additional vehicular construction traffic. The construction of the bypass is essential if the region as a whole, not to mention Middlewich as a town, is not to be blighted by the HS2 construction traffic that will continue for very many years.This week, the Minister for Housing and Planning, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) attended the international property conference in Cannes to launch the northern gateway development zone prospectus. It sets out very ambitious growth proposals for south-east Cheshire and north Staffordshire, arising from the Government’s decision to have a station at Crewe on the new HS2 line. These exciting proposals will deliver significant benefits to the local economy and have the potential to unlock major new growth and investment opportunities. These could deliver more than 100,000 new homes and 120,000 new jobs by 2040 by creating a growth zone at the gateway between the northern powerhouse and the midlands engine—the area is situated directly between the two.Middlewich is an important focal point within the development area, but although the proposals are exciting and will deliver significant benefits to the economy, I understand from the LEP that the amount of traffic travelling through Middlewich, which already experiences high levels of congestion at peak times, could rise by up to 90%, if the plans are developed. The LEP is concerned, therefore, that its growth proposals will not be achieved unless the issue of congestion is addressed through investment in local infrastructure—and that means the Middlewich eastern bypass and improvements to local roads. I ask Ministers in the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for Transport to do some joined-up thinking and improve connectivity, not just for Middlewich but for the region, by funding the bypass
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Thursday, 24 March 2016
Easter Adjournment
Wednesday, 23 March 2016
Burma
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I join my colleagues in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) on his eloquent speech and on his close and direct interest in Burma, which he has shown since he entered the House. That has been most welcome, especially by those of us who have had an interest for some years.I welcome, too, the long-awaited democratic elections, which recently took place, and I join my colleagues in praising the bravery of millions of Burmese citizens who campaigned for decades, often at great personal cost, for liberty and democracy in their country.I also join my colleagues in thanking the staff of this House who have been out to Burma, certainly since the visit of the Speaker’s delegation in 2013, which included me and the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz). We learnt, including directly from Aung San Suu Kyi, how much the Burmese wanted and invited help with such issues as library facilities and research resources. It is to be commended that some of our staff went there—at least one for well over a year, away from home and family—
- Indeed, almost two years—to provide substantial help. I want to recognise that Mr Speaker has stayed true to his word, which he gave on that delegation, that we would provide help.I am encouraged by the report of my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) on how much constructive help has been given to the MPs in Burma—again much needed. When we were there, they were quite surprised to hear that we went back to our constituencies every week. I remember providing a modest training session on Select Committees—again with the hon. Member for Walsall South—and people were surprised, because in this country Select Committees are not given the subject that they are to look into by the Government and, once they have looked into it, do not submit their report to the Government to be checked before it is published. I am encouraged that there has been a great deal of progress, so I commend my hon. Friend and the others involved.As we are joyful, so we are cautious. Burma remains a nation in a delicate state. Hate speech, religious intolerance and the powerful remnant of the military still threaten to slow or prevent the next stage of Burma’s growth. As we speak, forces continue to destabilise and halt the hard-won progress to date. The delicate balance of joy and caution is summed up in the words of the moderate Cardinal Bo, who has already been mentioned in the debate. He is a greatly respected and long-standing champion of human rights in Burma. He said:“My country is emerging from a long night of tears and sadness into a new dawn...But our young democracy is fragile, and human rights continue to be abused and violated.”We rightly extend our support, therefore, to Aung San Suu Kyi and the new President, U Htin Kyaw, who face the challenge of nurturing the fragile democracy. Even as we speak, nationalists have been protesting against the appointment of Vice-President Henry Van Thio, because he is a Christian and a member of the Chin ethnic group. The ultra-nationalists find it an offence that a member of another religion and of a minority group should be in a position of such authority.That is an important example to dwell on, because freedom of religion and belief has been under extreme pressure in recent decades in Burma. Minorities of all religions have suffered, as well as Buddhists, who stood up to the state-sponsored interpretations of Buddhism that we have heard about. So we celebrate the appointment of Henry Van Thio, and we hope that he will be a symbol of encouragement to many from the minorities in the country, who to date have been excluded from a voice in government.Particularly persecuted, as we have heard, have been the Rohingya Muslims of Rakhine state. Previously, the regime promoted an ideology of hate that rejected the idea that Muslims could be fully Burmese, or that the Rohingya people had any right to live in the country. They were grievously targeted by military forces, and hundreds were killed and 140,000 reportedly displaced by violence in 2012. We need to ensure that they are given appropriate support and help.Of comparable concern are the military offensives still being waged by the Burmese army against civilians in northern Shan and southern Kachin states. Gross violations of human rights have forced tens of thousands to flee, as we have heard. They either live as internally displaced persons, or IDPs, in dire conditions, or eke out a living as refugee migrants in other countries. In that context, I commend in particular the work of Baroness Cox from the other place and of her charity, HART, the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust.HART has done great work to assist oppressed people in Burma and to bring that oppression and the violations of human rights to the attention of the wider world. I will refer to some of Baroness Cox’s work in more detail. In Burma, HART works to provide lifelines among the Shan, Karen, Chin and Karenni peoples. Shan Women’s Action Network—SWAN—runs health, education and women’s empowerment programmes. HART works only with local people, and through its remarkable work it is transforming in particular women’s perceptions of their roles in their communities—as the hon. Member for Walsall South mentioned, that is much needed—and enabling them to become strong agents of change. I want to extend my best to HART for that vital work in strengthening civil society.If the good people of Burma are to realise their potential, it is critical that civil society is strengthened and encouraged, particularly at a time when concerns are increasingly being expressed about the shrinking space for it across the globe. I ask the Minister to consider how civil society can be supported. I commend him on his sincere personal commitment to Burma over many years. I know that he is a Foreign Office Minister, but may I request again that DFID looks at how it can support small charitable organisations such as HART? It receives no support from DFID and yet it reaches right to the heart of the issue in Burma, helping women in their local communities to make a real difference. There is much more that I would like to say, but time prevents that.
Tuesday, 22 March 2016
Daesh: Persecution of Christians
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I beg to move,That this House has considered persecution of Christians and other religious minorities under Daesh.It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. May I clarify the subject of the debate? The wording I applied for was “Genocide under Daesh of Christians and other religious minorities”. It is regrettable that, without any discussion with me, the motion was changed, although I understand it was not changed by the Speaker’s office. I shall say no more about the motion, except to clarify that the violence of ISIL, or Daesh, as we now call it, rages against a number of minority religious groups in addition to Christians, including the Yazidis and minority Muslim groups. Space prohibited me from referring to them by name in the motion.The 1948 UN convention on genocide makes it clear that genocide is the systematic killing or serious harming of people because they are part of a recognisable group. The specific legal meaning of genocide is“acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.The convention specifies certain actions that can contribute to genocide, such as killing, forcible transfer, preventing births and causing serious bodily or mental harm. -
I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this matter to Westminster Hall for consideration. It is a massive subject that warrants a 90-minute debate, and I am disappointed that it was not allocated one. Nevertheless, we have half an hour. I know that the hon. Lady, along with others present, shares my concern that Christians are given the ultimatum: “convert or die”. It is a choice between continuing to have religious beliefs and leaving the country or dying. Genocide is the only word we can use for that.
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The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point and is quite right. As I stand here today, religious minorities are suffering horrendous atrocities at the hands of this murderous cult in Syria, Iraq and the other countries of the middle east where Daesh has a strong presence. The number of Christians in Iraq has reduced from 1.4 million to just over a quarter of a million in just a few years. The Bishop of Aleppo said this week that two thirds of Syrian Christians have been either killed or driven away from his country.Acts committed by ISIS against Christians include the assassination of church leaders, mass murders, torture, kidnapping for ransom, sexual enslavement, systematic rape, forced conversions and the destruction of churches. We know about the mass graves of the Yazidis, and about crucifixions, forced marriages and the kidnapping of women and girls, some of them as young as eight, many of them raped mercilessly, month after month, until their bodies are in tatters. We know about children being beheaded in front of their families for refusing to convert. -
The hon. Lady is being very gracious in giving way. Before the debate, I asked her if I could intervene to say that the Yazidis in particular have been reduced from 500,000 to 200,000 in Iraq. Nobody in the west put out their hand to help or assist, as they should have. The Yazidis have been in the Kurdish camps along the borders of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. They are a small group who have been persecuted, pursued and discriminated against, and their ethnic and religious freedoms have been abused. Perhaps the Minister could respond to that point as well.
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Again, the hon. Gentleman makes a strong point.We are sometimes at risk of being desensitised by the horrors under Daesh. They are so extreme that their evil seems almost fictional. But for those who are suffering—people who lived lives like us just a short time ago—they are very real.Surely one thing is becoming increasingly clear. Bearing in mind the definition of genocide to which I referred a moment ago, can anyone now seriously doubt that Daesh’s actions are genocidal? Nor, surely, can anyone seriously doubt that Daesh is trying to destroy minorities such as the Yazidis, in the words of the convention,“in whole or in part”.As Bishop Angaelos, a general bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom, has said:“How can we not declare Genocide if Christians are suffering the same fate, at the same time, under the same conditions, at the hands of the same perpetrators?”The entire population of Christians in the city of Mosul in Iraq, all 60,000 of them, have been effectively eradicated by Daesh—gone, fled or dead.Daesh’s intentions in perpetrating its violence are a matter of record, as reports have made clear repeatedly. It regularly makes public statements of a genocidal nature, such as the following message, which was broadcast on its Al-Bayan radio station:“We say to the defenders of the cross, that future attacks are going to be harsher and worse...The Islamic State soldiers will inflict harm on you with the grace of Allah. The future is just around the corner.”As US Secretary of State said just last week, after a unanimous vote by the House of Representatives to declare a genocide by 393 votes to none:“Daesh is genocidal by self-proclamation, by ideology, and by actions—in what it says, what it believes, and what it does…The fact is that Daesh kills Christians because they are Christians; Yezidis because they are Yezidis; Shia because they are Shia.”I submit that the legal criteria for genocide have been amply satisfied. Not only have the US Government now said so, but so have the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, the Pope, the US Congress, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and 75 Members of both Houses of Parliament when we wrote to the Prime Minister, including the former chief of staff and former head of MI5. A group of leading QC peers also recently wrote to the Prime Minister on this issue. All agree that the crimes of Daesh are genocide.Why is it so important that we, as Members of Parliament, also collectively define these crimes as genocide? Because doing so would be more than mere verbiage—more than mere words. It would bring into play a whole series of mechanisms that can strengthen the response of the international community to challenge this evil force. The convention on genocide is clear that such a declaration brings with it obligations to prevent, protect and punish. I suggest that our making such a declaration would challenge the 147 countries that are party to the convention to step up and act on their obligations to help to prevent further atrocities, to protect those who are suffering, and to work towards punishing the perpetrators. -
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way again. She has outlined clearly the need for us to have this debate. It is an opportunity for us to speak out on behalf of our Christian brothers and sisters throughout the whole world who have been persecuted because of their beliefs. We have the chance to be a voice for the voiceless. I congratulate the hon. Lady again on bringing this debate to Westminster Hall for our consideration. -
It is right that we should be a voice for the voiceless. -
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Before I heard the start of her speech, I did not know the original wording of her motion. May I press her to submit the motion again and, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, request more time for the debate and possibly a vote in the Chamber? I, too, was a signatory to a letter to the Prime Minister on this subject, and I think there are many more parliamentarians who would welcome the opportunity to debate it at length and to vote on it. -
My hon. Friend pre-empts me. He is absolutely right. I suggest that such a motion should be worded in the following way: “That this House believe that religious minorities in the middle east are suffering genocide.” Crucially, that would mean that those who have participated in such vile crimes would know that they face justice and the full weight of genocide law when they are tried before the International Criminal Court. Must the relevant conflicts end before we work to bring to justice those who are responsible for these terrible atrocities? How long will that be? How much of the evidence will have disappeared? How many of the witnesses will have gone?The international community’s record is not strong on this issue. Our incumbent Foreign Secretary and the previous Foreign Secretary have both lamented on the record the international community’s response to previous genocidal suffering. In 2015, the Foreign Secretary said that“the memory of what happened in Srebrenica leaves the international community with obligations that extend well beyond the region…It demands that we all try to understand why those who placed their hope in the international community on the eve of genocide found it dashed.”On the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, William Hague, then Foreign Secretary, said:“The truth is that our ability to prevent conflict is still hampered by a gap between the commitments states have made and the reality of their actions.”
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I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. She talked about waiting until the end of the conflict. On 17 December 1942, the then Foreign Secretary made clear in the House what Britain’s attitude would be at the end of hostilities to those who had committed the massacre of the Jews in Europe. Does my hon. Friend think that a similar statement today of what the international community’s attitude will be at the conclusion of hostilities to those who are committing genocide in the middle east would be welcome?
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Indeed I do.We must learn the lessons of the past. It is right that the international community should shoulder a burden of guilt for failing the victims in Rwanda. Those of us who have been to Rwanda a number of times know how many people still suffer as a result of our failure to act promptly then. Let us act now and be bold enough to call this genocide what it is. Let us avoid the regret that so many now feel about that past failure and not acting more promptly to go to the aid of those who suffered so severely in Rwanda in the early 1990s.What has been our response to the middle eastern genocide perpetrated by Daesh to date? In the time I have left, I want to talk about the Government’s response, as I understand it—the Minister may correct me. I believe that the Government say that they have a long-standing policy that any judgments on whether genocide has occurred are a matter for the international judicial system. Their approach appears to be to refrain from expressing an opinion on whether genocide has occurred until the international judicial system makes such a declaration. However, why can Parliament not make a declaration?I respectfully suggest to the Minister that there are perhaps four reasons—probably more—why the Government should reconsider their approach. First, I find it remarkable that the UK is willing to declare itself not competent to judge whether the conditions for genocide, which I have described, have been met, particularly in a case as clear as this. If the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the US Government and the European Parliament, none of which are judicial bodies, can declare a genocide, why cannot we?Secondly, as I understand it, the Government have previously been willing to express their view on genocides that neither the UN nor the International Criminal Court have ruled upon, such as the case of Cambodia. Thirdly, the Government’s approach is frustratingly circular. We are told that nothing can be done until the ICC or the UN declares genocide, but historically neither have been willing to do so without international pressure. This is potentially a recipe for doing nothing. I know that the Minister is an extremely genuine person and is deeply concerned about matters of justice of this nature, but is it acceptable for this country to effectively risk doing nothing on this particular issue of declaring genocide—I am sure that is not true elsewhere—when we sincerely wish to pursue an ethical foreign policy?Fourthly, and perhaps most importantly, we have a moral duty to speak out and do what we can for the religious minorities that, even now, are being horribly persecuted at the brutal hands of Daesh. Staying silent in the face of such evil is not an option.
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I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. What she says about silence is important. The way that Christians, Yazidis and other minorities are being targeted in the areas controlled by Daesh is appalling. I hear a lot about it from my constituents, but I do not hear about it more widely than that. Encouraging further discussions in this House would help to raise awareness of the persecution of Christians and other minorities.
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I thank the hon. Lady for that comment. The issue certainly needs much closer attention in this place and more broadly in our country. The dignity of the people who are suffering so horribly cries out for it.I want to digress for a moment, to refer to an announcement that was made in the House last Wednesday. The Minister may be able to assist us by clarifying it. Many Members were left with the impression that only states can commit genocide. I have the greatest respect for the Minister of State, Department for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne), and I have no doubt that he gave that response with total sincerity, but will the Minister responding to today’s debate clarify the advice that he was given? As I understand it—I stand to be corrected—all that is needed for a non-state party to be found guilty of genocide is for the UN Security Council to confer jurisdiction on the ICC, and for the ICC to agree that a genocide is taking place. That cannot happen without lobbying from our Government, so we should press the UN Security Council to take action accordingly.An amendment to the Immigration Bill was introduced yesterday in another place. If passed, it would have presumed that victims of genocide meet certain conditions for asylum in the UK, and it would have put that determination in the hands of a High Court judge. I watched that debate, after which the amendment was narrowly defeated late last night. Although some of the contributors had reservations about its wording, which I believe is why they felt they could not support it, the support for it was much wider than the vote reflected on the principle that we need to call these atrocities what they are: genocide.I am focusing on that narrow point today. I seek support for a motion to be introduced in the terms that I referred to—“That this House believe that religious minorities in the middle east are suffering genocide.” That would enable us to refer the matter to the UN, so that the International Criminal Court could proceed with examining what is happening in the middle east.In the debate in the other place last night, the Minister responding to the debate proposed that“the appropriate way forward would be to consider a Motion of this House, directed to Her Majesty’s Government as to how they should address or not address the issues that pertain here with regard to whether there has been genocide.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 March 2016; Vol. 769, c. 2177.]If my understanding that such a motion could be brought before the House is correct, will the Minister consider whether it would be appropriate for the Government to bring it forward? As he knows, such a motion introduced by a Back Bencher would have little chance of being considered by the House in the immediate future. Will the Minister consider whether the Government should introduce such a motion and arrange for a vote on this issue? If I understood the Minister in the other place correctly, the Government proposed that amicable solution. May I now press for it to be made possible?Will the Minister confirm that we should be pushing for international recognition of, and action against, these unspeakable crimes, and for them to be declared as genocide? We can and should express an opinion, so that we can lead the charge at the international level and bring those who are committing such atrocious evils to justice
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Thursday, 17 March 2016
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
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I rise to support the Budget statement, particularly for the support it gives to small businesses. Of the 4,000 businesses in my Congleton constituency, all but a handful are small and medium-sized enterprises, started up and sustained by hard-working individuals and their supportive families. It is right to champion the value of and encourage SMEs, which are the lifeblood of my local economy.It is a truism, but it is well said that every big business started small. When Lord Digby Jones was head of the CBI he said that“without businesses there are no taxes and without taxes there are no schools or hospitals.”I am therefore delighted that the Chancellor is taking 600,000 small businesses across the country out of bearing the burden of any business rates at all, while another 250,000 firms receive a reduction in those rates. This will save small businesses £6.7 billion over the next five years, enabling them to take on more staff, invest and grow. I know it will be warmly welcomed in my constituency.Welcome, too, are the new tax-free allowances of £1,000 a year for micro-entrepreneurs who trade goods or rent property online on a small scale. Positive, too, are reductions in capital gains tax, the reform of stamp duty on commercial premises to help small firms move to bigger premises and, for incorporated businesses, the substantial reduction in corporation tax to 17% in 2020—down from 28% in 2010. This means that we will have the lowest corporation tax in the G20, and it will benefit more than a million businesses.For 3 million self-employed people, the cancellation of class 2 national insurance contributions is also welcome. Some may say, “Well, that’s only a saving of £2.80 a week”, but that fails to appreciate that many small businesses live on the margins, particularly in the early years, as I know from experience. My husband and I had to sell our home to keep our business going, and live above our offices with our first child, with the staff tea and coffee-making area being our kitchen.My story is not unusual, and I mention it only because that is so and because I know that, just as Government support for small business matters, so does Government support for the families who stand behind the businesses. Stable families contribute to a stable economy. If we want small business to flourish, we need families to flourish, too. It is important to note that these are related: the one sustains and supports the other. I therefore greatly welcome the Government’s commitment to including family stability measures in their life chances strategy. However, just as family stability supports business, family breakdown has a negative impact on productivity. According to a survey conducted by Resolution, the family justice organisation, one in seven workers said that relationship breakdown had had a negative impact on their businesses’ productivity.In his Budget statement, the Chancellor said:“We as Conservatives understand that tax affects behaviour.”I welcome that, and I therefore also welcome the tax on sugary drinks, which the Chancellor is introducing to incentivise healthy behaviour. He said many times that it was“to help children’s health and wellbeing”,and that this was“a Government not afraid to put the next generation first.”—[Official Report, 16 March 2016; Vol. 607, c. 964.]May I urge the Chancellor also to do what he can to encourage healthy family relationships for our next generation? -
The marriage tax allowance that the Chancellor has introduced is still very low. Moreover, its aim is not, as has been claimed, to encourage people to get married and stay married, but simply to remove the disadvantages in the overall tax and benefit system that are incurred by women who look after their children at home. Will my hon. Friend say a word about the allowance, and about how we should upgrade it?
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I will, and I thank my hon. Friend for raising the issue.The Prime Minister said recently:“Families are the best anti-poverty measure ever invented. They are a welfare, education and counselling system all wrapped up into one.”I have heard that the cost to the national health service of treating child obesity has been estimated at £5 billion. By contrast, the cost of breakdown is £48 billion. Increased investment in relationship strengthening to help to prevent that would be money well spent. According to a survey carried out by the Department for Education, every pound invested in strengthening family relationships would save the Treasury £11.50. I believe that spending on creating healthy relationships for the next generation is as valid as promoting that generation’s physical health and wellbeing. Few Members can disagree with the principle that such early intervention is key if a child’s life chances are to be maximised, or with the principle that maximum support should be given to children in the areas of greatest need.Let me end by making a few practical suggestions. The Chancellor would do well to think again about the transferable tax allowance for married couples. He should consider refocusing it on the families with the youngest children. That would be an exponential investment, as the highest rate of family breakdown occurs in families with children under three. By focusing the scheme on couples with low incomes and children under five, and doubling the amount receivable to about £9 a week, the Treasury could offer more substantial support for some of the country’s lowest earners and neediest families, and could do so at no extra cost, because there is an underspend in the money already allocated for the purpose in a previous Budget. A further nuance would be to target for greater take-up those living in the 100 housing estates that the Prime Minister identified for regeneration, and those living in the 100 local government wards with the highest levels of family breakdown.Perhaps the Chancellor could also consider using any remaining underspend to strengthen parenting and relationship support. A practical suggestion from the Centre for Social Justice is the provision of an online one-stop shop to give families information about local relationship support.Strengthening families by supporting healthy relationships should be an aspiration for the Government. Reversing family breakdown and building strong and stable family life as a foundation block of a healthy society must be our ambition. That would really put the next generation first, and it also makes sound economic sense. If we want our productivity to flourish, families must do so as well
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Wednesday, 9 March 2016
Enterprise Bill [Lords] - - Sunday Trading Amendment
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con): I rise to support amendment 1, which bears my name on the amendment paper.
The Conservative party views family as being at the heart of a strong society, which is what we all want. Many Members have said that the Conservative manifesto made no mention of any changes to the Sunday trading rules, but it did have something to say about the importance of supporting family life. It pledged to
“back the institution of marriage”
and
“help families stay together and handle the stresses of modern life”.
It also recognised family breakdown as one of the four root cause of poverty.
5.45 pm
At the end of the previous Parliament, the Prime Minister instituted the family test, saying:
“We can’t go on having government taking decisions like this which ignore the impact on the family.”
However, that is just what we would do today if we were to pass the Bill without amendment 1.
Analysis by the Social Market Foundation says that the Government proposals disregard the family test. It says that Sunday working encroaches on family time; that fathers working on Sundays miss out disproportionately on time with their children, and not just on Sundays but throughout the week when their children are out; and that children whose parents have to work on Sundays often spend less time doing constructive activities that contribute to their development, such as reading and pursuing interests and sports. In other words, the policy is also at odds with the Government’s life chances agenda.
Perhaps that is why the impact assessment, which includes the family test assessment, has been published only today. It is wholly unacceptable for it to have been published at midday today. It contains 129 paragraphs and several annexes, and not one Member has said that they have been able to read it before this debate. A cursory glance at the document, however, shows that paragraph 98 states:
“To the extent that Sundays are family gathering days, there is a potential for families to be negatively affected if members are more likely to work or work longer on Sundays.”
Paragraph 100 states:
“A large number of the individual respondents to the public consultation felt that families would be negatively affected”,
but then goes on to say that
“this was not a representative survey”.
This was a Government consultation that had more than 7,000 responses; how can that not be a representative survey?
Let us be clear—there is no other way to put it—that these proposals are anti-family. I urge Members to vote for amendment 1 and to vote down the proposals in the Bill, because they are wrong. They are bad for families and bad for small business. There is no economic case and the public do not want them. In fact, when presenting the proposals to the Bill Committee, the only support that the Minister could cite was from retailers in the west end and Knightsbridge. To put it plainly, that is not sufficient basis on which to change regulations. The
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Government have no legitimate rationale or mandate for these changes, so I urge colleagues to vote for amendment 1 and against the proposals in the Bill.
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