Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Helen Hayes and Grant Shapps

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

T7. Many families in my constituency who are terrified about their increasing energy bills cannot simply turn down the heat come 1 April. They include families with disabled children, whose winter payment will long since have been spent. Why do the Government think that it is acceptable for energy companies to continue to rake in sky-high profits, while families on low incomes with disabled children continue to struggle?

[Grant Shapps]

I sometimes worry that some Opposition Members do not properly set the context. The reason that we are paying sky-high bills is that Putin invaded a democratic neighbour, which pushed up energy bills. This Government have stood by the public by paying half of everyone’s energy bills. Judge us by our record. We will say more shortly.

Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse: Final Report

Debate between Helen Hayes and Grant Shapps

Monday 24th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

Absolutely, I will undertake to do that as a matter of priority. The National Crime Agency, GCHQ and a whole network of undercover officers and others work constantly on tackling organised exploitative crime through a programme. One thing that has struck me in my first few days in this office is the number of warrants that I have to sign off dealing with gangs who are exploiting children. My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the scale of the issue, and our determination to stamp it out and work with our partners in enforcement agencies knows no bounds.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

As one of the Members representing a part of the London Borough of Lambeth, with my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) sitting next to me, I pay tribute to all the victims and survivors of abuse suffered by children and young people in the care of Lambeth Council. It is a shameful period in the history of our borough. I also pay tribute to those whose lives were cut short as a result of the harm and trauma they suffered, and who are not here to see and read the vindication of their experiences as set out in the final ICSA report. It is a responsibility of us all to ensure that such shame can never again come to our communities, but we delude ourselves if we tell each other that children are safe everywhere in the UK today. We face a situation where 16 and 17-year-olds are routinely placed in unregulated accommodation, putting them at risk of abuse and exploitation; 222 vulnerable asylum-seeking children have gone missing from Home Office-procured accommodation and half of all local authority children’s services departments are currently rated inadequate or requiring improvement, so they cannot possibly be doing the best job of protecting the children in their care. What urgent work will the Home Secretary be doing on a cross-departmental basis to ensure that horrors such as those exposed by this report can never happen again?

[Grant Shapps]

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for calling out what has happened in Lambeth and elsewhere; I have nothing to add to her words where that is concerned. A number of hon. Members have raised issues concerning unaccompanied children, particularly those seeking asylum. The accommodation care means that they should be moved within 15 days, but I think that needs to be done quicker, if at all possible. We have also set up a programme of paying local authorities, increasing placement offers to councils by £6,000 to accommodate every child. She asks about cross-Government work—I should possibly add cross-party work—and that is under way, led by my the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies). I will be taking a personal interest in the matter all the way through and convening meetings with other Secretaries of State to tackle the problem from every possible angle.

Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan

Debate between Helen Hayes and Grant Shapps

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I will make a bit of progress.

For anyone who claims we are failing to deliver Northern Powerhouse Rail, I want to set the record straight. Northern Powerhouse Rail is going ahead. It is going to bring faster services, there will be big capacity increases, and it is going to do this in the most logical and efficient way. [Interruption.] There are those—and I hear the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell)—who say all we are doing is electrifying the trans-Pennine route. That is wrong. We are actually investing £23 billion to build Northern Powerhouse Rail and unlock east-west travel across the north of England. [Interruption.] Yes, we are. Trains from Leeds will reach Manchester in just 33 minutes, cutting journey times almost in half. Seating capacity between Leeds and Liverpool will more than treble as a result of the integrated rail plan, and the journey between Leeds and Bradford will take just 12 minutes.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

Can the Secretary of State confirm that, while he is letting down passengers across the north and the midlands, he is also letting down passengers in London? Can he confirm what conversations he has had with his colleagues in the north of England about the 43,000 jobs that will be put at risk if he does not agree further emergency funding for Transport for London? Can he say why he is neglecting our transport system in London three days from the current emergency funding running out?

[Grant Shapps]

At the risk of straying outside the bounds of the debate, I have already paid £4.1 billion to TfL to ensure the services can carry on running. I hope that, as a London MP, the hon. Lady will have a word with the Mayor of London and ask him where the plan he should have sent to us on 18 November is, because that is what is preventing a further settlement to a system we have of course always said we will support.