Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

First, let me congratulate my hon. Friend on his personal contribution to increasing UK trade with China. He will want to know that there was an increase in visit visas issued to Chinese nationals of 6% last year. In December, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary set out a range of improvements to the visa process, particularly to support business customers, and they will be implemented this year.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

5. What steps she is taking to improve the performance of the UK Border Agency.

[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Mark Harper)]

We have taken a number of steps to improve the performance of the UK Border Agency. As the Prime Minister said earlier today in his speech, we face a big task of turning around the tanker that is the UK Border Agency, and we will be setting out the next stages of those reforms shortly.

[Lorely Burt]

My constituent, Pooja Ramchandani, has been waiting for more than a year for a decision on her application for further leave to remain. The UK Border Agency target is for 75% of applications to be resolved within four weeks, and it has attributed the delay to additional work caused by the Olympics. Can the Minister confirm when the Olympics will cease to be another excuse given to people such as my constituent, a single mother whose child has permission for leave to remain?

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend raises a specific case, and if she contacts my office afterwards, I will certainly look into it. Generally, on in-country performance, we have acknowledged that the UKBA was not delivering within its service standards in the past year. By the end of this month, however, it will be delivering the required performance standards in those cases, and I hope that that improvement will be sustained.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. I was aware that public opinion polling showed that eight in 10 British adults support the Prime Minister’s pledge to reduce net migration from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands. I am encouraged by the fact that such a high percentage of Labour voters also support the target—it is just a pity that that message has not got through to Labour Front Benchers.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

T2. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

Next month, Sir Jonathan Evans will move on from his role as director general of the Security Service, and I wish to pay tribute to Sir Jonathan for the 33 years he has dedicated to the service. During that time his contributions have varied from investigating counter-espionage, developing and implementing key policies on security, and, most recently, countering the threat of international terrorism. He has experienced the service evolving over the years and as director general has led the service through particularly challenging times of change and unrest, including the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings. His tireless work helped to ensure the delivery of a safe and successful Olympic and Paralympic games last year. I commend and thank him for his invaluable contribution to public safety and national security.

[Lorely Burt]

Recent Government legislation seeks to abolish appeals for family visitors, but one third of appeals currently succeed. Would it not be better to get a proper decision in the first place than to go through the whole process all over again?

[Mrs May]

We looked at this issue closely and what is clear is that in a significant number of cases the initial decision was not wrong on the basis of the information available at the time it was taken; in so many cases further information is put into the system between the initial decision and the appeal, and the appeal is then decided on a different basis. It is slightly cheaper, and it will take less time, for individuals to make a further application rather than going through the appeals process. As this is the only part of the visit visa system that has this appeal, we think it is right that we change the rules for this particular category.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman knows this area very well as a result of his long experience in the sector. He will be aware that we did a full consultation before we introduced the changes to tier 4 rules, and that we rolled them out in three tranches in order to give the sector time to adjust to them. He is wrong on this point: we deliberately protected the university sector, and the UCAS figures that we have just seen show that international student acceptances to universities are up by 4%. Our education sector is open for business.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

I very much welcome the coalition Government’s efforts to manage and control immigration, but does the Minister agree that we would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater if we were to exclude specialist temporary workers who were the existing employees of British companies? We cannot say to inward investors, “We want your money, but we don’t want your workers or your expertise to help us to grow the company.”

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Lady will know that we have a cap on skilled workers, and that, so far, we have not come anywhere near to it taking effect. No business that has wanted to hire a skilled worker who meets the requirements has been unable to do so. Our policies are sound: we are keeping control of immigration but contributing very successfully to economic growth.

Women (Government Policies)

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

Let me begin by adding to those of others my congratulations to the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jon Ashworth). I can see that he is no token man, as I know that he has a two-week old baby and I can see the shadows under his eyes from here. I welcome his comments celebrating the cultural diversity of his constituency. Clearly, he is going to be a great advocate for Leicester South.

I think that the previous Labour Government and this coalition Government have a lot in common. We both want to redress the imbalances between men and women through public policy. It is fair to say that Labour did many things that benefited women, such as increasing the maximum age for children at which parents could apply for flexible working. That change followed a very similar private Member’s Bill that I had introduced the year before, which would have extended the right of request to the parents of children up to the age of 18. My Bill was unceremoniously voted down by Labour, which then reintroduced the measures in a form that applied to the parents of children up to the age of 16. I do not mind the previous Government’s doing that: they saw a good idea and grabbed it. Indeed, I think we should all work together more to pool our best ideas, particularly in the current, grave economic circumstances. That might be too radical a notion for this debate and this Parliament given the way things have been going so far but it is an aspiration of mine. I am very glad that this Government are consulting on extending the right to request for all employees. That will remove the stigma when some staff have a right that is denied to others. It will also acknowledge the fact that employees are more loyal and productive when there is an acknowledgement that they should be able to have a reasonable work-life balance.

Another thing that Labour did that particularly benefited women was allowing any years they spent caring for others to count towards pension entitlements in future. Why the Labour Government never restored the earnings link during their 13 years is beyond me. Why would they not have done that if they believed that the economy was strong, not knowing that the so-called growth was based on a house of cards and unsustainable debt? How much more difficult has it been for us, while we are trying to deal with the biggest deficit in peacetime history, to redress some of those injustices at the same time? We put our actions where our mouth was and immediately committed to restoring the earnings link with the triple guarantee. A much fairer and better pensions system that will raise the level of a single person’s pension to £140 in today’s money will be introduced by the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), who has responsibility for pensions. That system will help the poorest pensioners more than anything that was introduced by the previous Government. Of course, the poorest pensioners are mostly women. Two thirds of people on pension credit are women and the average woman receives £40 less per week in her state pension compared with men. Even with the changes brought in by Labour, it would have been 2050 before pensions were equalised between the sexes.

Something else that will greatly help is the move to the universal credit system of benefits, which has been mentioned by several hon. Members, rather than the complex system that we currently use. That change will mean that work always pays and will encourage people to return to work rather than stay at home on benefits because that is more financially beneficial.

[Sheila Gilmore]

But surely even in the Government’s projections and the impact assessments of the Welfare Reform Bill, it would be an exaggeration to say that work will always pay, particularly for those people who have child care costs.

[Lorely Burt]

The Government are investing more than £3 billion in this, but every single factor cannot be taken into account in determining whether the outcome will be better or not. The Government are looking into what we can do about child care costs. The hon. Lady raises an important issue, which I know is being taken very seriously by my hon. Friends on the Front Bench.

Under the proposed system, 31% of women who are entitled to benefits will be better off than they are at the moment. In addition, women returning to work after having children will be able to build up their hours gradually without being unfairly penalised by the system. It will also help take-up. In 2008-09 only 80% of people took up child tax credits. There has been much discussion about that today. I hope that changing to a simpler system will ensure that those who need the money get it.

However, I agree with the sentiments expressed in the motion about the disproportionate effect of the planned increase in the pension age on women born between December 1953 and October 1954. I am delighted to see that the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate, has come into the Chamber. I declare an interest: I am one of those women. Although I expect still to be going like a train at the age of 70, I entirely understand where those women are coming from and the unfairness of imposing change too late for many to do anything about it. I therefore ask my hon. Friend the Pensions Minister to do all he can to ensure that the proposal is reconsidered and a measure introduced that will be a little fairer to that tranche of women.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am glad the hon. Lady has made that plea to her party colleague, the Pensions Minister. I am sure that many other colleagues will make the same point. Does she agree that women who are upset and worried about the change need a decision soon? It is causing many of them great anxiety and stress, and they cannot be expected to go on for months wondering whether there is to be a change or whether they will have to put up with the unfair increase in their pension age.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lorely Burt]

I agree, and I am sure my hon. Friend the Pensions Minister listened to every word that the hon. Gentleman and I have said.

Let me move on to Sure Start centres. I am amazed that the Opposition have the temerity to accuse us of closing centres, when the centres that have been closed were predominantly in Labour-run council areas. The Government are not cutting Sure Start centres and have made sure that there is enough funding in the early intervention grant to retain a network of Sure Start centres. Not a single Liberal Democrat council has closed a Sure Start centre, and in my own patch, in Solihull, we have extended their remit from the narrow strictures prescribed by Labour.

[Barbara Keeley]

Does the hon. Lady think there might be a connection with the fact that many Labour councils, particularly in the north, had seen cuts of something like £100 million in their budgets? It is hard to protect any services in that situation, and no services can be left out.

[Lorely Burt]

Perhaps it is a matter of priorities. Economic inequalities still abound in this country. Despite the good old Equal Opportunities Act now reaching its fifth decade, women working full time still earn, on average, 15.5% less than men. That is not good enough. Raising the tax threshold has helped women, who made up 60% of the 900,000 people lifted out of tax altogether. In the spending review we ensured that the lowest paid public sector workers, 65.5% of whom were women, were protected from the public sector pay freeze, as the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) mentioned.

The world of work is therefore one area of public policy that we can use to try and level the playing field between men and women, but let us also consider self-employment and women-owned companies. We know that a third more women-owned start-ups fail in the UK than in the US; we know that 20 years ago the US took affirmative action on procurement; and we know that today there are proportionately twice as many women-owned businesses in the US as in the UK. One area where the Government have taken action is in the field of procurement, with reference to small businesses. We aspire to achieve 25% of goods and services procurement for Government Departments from small businesses.

But women-owned businesses are not even on the Government’s radar. If we are spending taxpayers’ money, should we not know who we are procuring from? If we are measuring how many small businesses we are procuring from, how much more difficult would it be to measure how many women-owned businesses we are procuring from? It makes good business sense to procure from companies run by people who look like those being supplied to. It makes good business sense for boards of directors to have a critical mass of people who think with the left side of their brains, as well as those who think with the right side—I caricature.

We have had the Davies report on women on boards, and I wait with bated breath to see whether companies will respond. The Home Secretary said that the early indicators are positive, but companies had better shape up, otherwise I will be pressing the Government to get tough with boards that think that certain people have a monopoly on innovation, creativity and plain old common sense.

I have already mentioned flexible working. I want to commend the Government for their work on flexible parental leave, for facilitating better solutions for parents and companies in how that leave is taken and for modifications to the working time directive affecting the interaction of annual leave, sick leave and family-friendly leave. It is good news that the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that 100,000 more women started work, compared with 18,000 men, so it is not all doom and gloom.

There is probably no single aspect of Government policy that does not affect women in some way. We are short of time so I will refer to only one more point: the suggestion in the media today that we are to rethink the proposal to reduce sentences by half for those who plead guilty to rape charges. I worry about that policy. Of course it is good to have a confession that avoids the added trauma for rape victims of having to testify and be cross-examined, but halving a rapist’s sentence just for confessing sticks in my craw. We must consider why only 6% of rape reports result in a conviction. There is no glory for any Government in this respect. We must do better and there has to be some kind of cultural change.

We all want the same thing: a more even playing field for women. The Government are striving to maintain and increase fairness in the most difficult and trying circumstances. I certainly do not think that we have everything right, but with a little good will on all sides we can work together to do this. I will be lobbying my hon. Friends to do the right thing.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

The winding-up speeches will begin at five minutes to 4 and four Members wish to speak, so they each have a shade under five minutes in which to do so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I rather hope I might at some stage be given an invitation to visit the new area command. May I say, however, given that Northumbria has been mentioned, that I was pleased to speak to Sue Sim recently, following the difficult time that Northumbria police had earlier this year in dealing with the case of Raoul Moat, to congratulate her on how she and her force dealt with that case?

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

Many international companies contemplating investment in the UK are being put off by the fact that inter-company transfers are defined as coming under the immigration cap. Inter-company transfers mean more jobs for British workers, and they do not stay in the United Kingdom. Will Ministers look at the rules placing inter-company transfers under the immigration cap, otherwise we run the risk of saying, “Yes, we are open for business, but you cannot come in”?

[Damian Green]

I am happy to assure my hon. Friend and the companies in her constituency that, under the interim cap operating now, inter-company transfers are not covered—they are outside the cap—so there is no reason for any business to be worried about that now. Obviously, for the permanent cap that will come in from next April, we are considering the best way to enable businesses to operate successfully in the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

The fact is that we have one of the most expensive criminal justice systems in the world. The test of its effectiveness is not the amount of money that we spend on it, but how efficient it is. Tomorrow I shall discuss with the inspectorate of constabulary the administrative and bureaucratic obstacles that impact on the police in inefficient court processes, which we must tackle.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

7. What steps she plans to take to implement the proposed cap on net immigration.

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

The limit on work-based routes is being implemented in three stages: first, consultation on the annual limit; secondly, the introduction of an interim limit, which took effect on 19 July in order to prevent a surge in numbers in advance of the final limit; and thirdly, the full annual limit which will be implemented in April 2011.

[Lorely Burt]

I am grateful for that answer. It is very important that we are mindful that there are a lot of unemployed British people, and that they need jobs. It is important that jobs go to British workers and EU citizens. However, will the Minister reassure me that if we reach the cap at the other end of the spectrum, where there are highly skilled jobs in specific areas, we have the ability to exercise flexibility?