Public Health Model to Reduce Youth Violence
Debate between Diane Abbott and Chuka Umunna(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Ms Abbott
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Similar projects are happening in some parts of London, but we are not doing it in the consistent way that the violence reduction unit in Scotland is doing it.
Let me say a little more about the underlying causes of crime. The recent report by the Social Mobility Commission, an advisory non-departmental public body to the Department for Education, highlights how poor the outlook is generally for young people. It is something of an indictment of this Government, conscious of what was said when the current Prime Minister took up office, that they have not tackled burning injustices for young people—they have created more injustices and exacerbated them. Under this Government, every aspect of young people’s lives, and every underlying cause of crime, has got worse. Sure Start has been savaged, the schools budget has been cut in real terms and per pupil, and school exclusions have risen. There is a very real connection between high levels of school exclusion and children ending up in pupil referral units, too many of which, sadly, despite the best efforts of people who work in them, are academies for crime. Housing has deteriorated, access to universities has worsened, the education maintenance allowance has been cut, fees have risen, and zero-hours contracts have increased—and those are often aimed at young people. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition asked after the Budget of 2011, “What have the Tories got against young people?”
All of this has consequences. The correlation between sharply lower living standards, worsening prospects, increased hopelessness and rising crime is well established. It is so well established as to have a causal element. The House should not just take my word for it. Metropolitan Police assistant chief commissioner Patricia Gallan, who spearheads Scotland Yard’s specialist crime operations in the fight against gun crime, homicides and high-harm and high-profile crimes, said:
“If we don’t invest at the beginning”
of children’s lives
“we’ll have to invest…in terms of criminal justice and in the prison system.”
Chuka Umunna
My right hon. Friend’s point about investment is absolutely key. If we invest in the early stages—I accept that this is not just a case of money, but ultimately money is an issue—we will save money for the public sector in the future. She talked about pupil referral units. It costs over £30,000 to put a young person through a PRU; if they are in mainstream education, it costs £5,000 to £6,000. If we invest to prevent them from getting wrapped up in the violence that leads to their being in the PRU, we will save money at the end of the day—although we should not be putting a price on the heads of our young people.
Ms Abbott
I thank my hon. Friend for his important intervention.
Nick Alston, the former Conservative police and crime commissioner for Essex, has said that austerity has had a negative impact on crime. The reality is that too many of this Government’s policies, particularly austerity, have exacerbated some of the underlying causes of the drift to criminality in our young people.
The issue of drill music has been raised. The Minister will be aware that, for as long as anyone can remember, people have sought to blame the music that young people listen to for their bad behaviour. Much of the drill music and videos are horrifying and appalling, but at the end of the day, the music is a reflection of those young people’s lives and realities. It is not a cause of violent crime.
Serious Violence Strategy
Debate between Diane Abbott and Chuka Umunna(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Ms Abbott
My hon. Friend is right. We talk about the lack of resources because the role of the police is not just to detect crime and prosecute; the role of the police is to be in communities and to know what is going on, and to be trusted stakeholders with whom community groups, parents, schools and others can work. If we do not have the police officers on the ground, that affects our ability to respond to serious violence, in more than one way. It is unclear from the Government’s published strategy whether there is any new money at all or if it has just been stripped from the existing police budget, which has already been cut in real terms since 2010.
When we look at stakeholders’ response to the strategy, we see their scepticism about the level of resources. The chair of the Local Government Association’s Safer and Stronger Communities Board said:
“Only with the right funding and powers can councils continue to make a difference to people’s lives by supporting families and young people and help tackle serious violent crime”.
The Association of Directors of Children’s Services said:
“The strategy emphasises the importance of local communities and partnerships yet provides little for local authorities to develop local responses”.
If Ministers are to be taken seriously on this issue, they have to listen to what stakeholders say about resources.
Chuka Umunna
I completely agree with the shadow Home Secretary on this resourcing issue. First, does she agree that no one on the Opposition Benches is saying that resources alone or more police numbers alone are going to solve this? The point is, though, that the current state of affairs makes it so much harder to address this problem. Secondly, on prevention, does she agree that it is high time that this country elevated the status of our youth workers? Too often, youth work is treated as a useful add-on or a voluntary activity, but we need to treat youth work in the same way as we treat teaching. Youth workers sometimes spend more time with our young people than teachers in our society.
Windrush
Debate between Diane Abbott and Chuka Umunna(5 years, 12 months ago)
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Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, that she will be graciously pleased to give directions that the following papers be provided to the Home Affairs Committee: all papers, correspondence and advice including emails and text messages, from 11 May 2010 up to and including 1 May 2018, to and between Ministers, senior officials and Special Advisers relating to policy decisions including on the Immigration Acts 2014 and 2016 with regard the Windrush generation cases, including deportations, detentions and refusal of re-entry, the setting of deportation and removal targets and their effect on the Windrush generation, and action taken within Government following the concerns raised by Caribbean Governments with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office including the original decision by the Prime Minister not to meet Caribbean Heads of Government and officials, and all copies of minutes and papers relating to the Cabinet’s Immigration Implementation Taskforce.
First, I congratulate the Home Secretary on his appointment and welcome him to his first full-scale parliamentary debate as Home Secretary.
On 22 June 1948 the Empire Windrush sailed into history, arriving at Tilbury docks, bringing workers from the Caribbean to respond to post-war labour shortages. There were 492 passengers in all, many of them children. Some of the men had served as soldiers in the British Army during the war, but many of the passengers had never travelled before, and many others were from deep rural Jamaica and had never been to a city approaching the size of London.
That ship gave its name to a whole generation, who came to this country from 1948 to 1973, and this debate is about them—patriotic, courageous men and women who helped to rebuild this country after the war.
Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
The history that my right hon. Friend tells is one that we should, of course, all be proud of. I was wondering whether she knew why Brixton and the area that I and the other hon. Members here represent became a hub for so many in the black community. First, we had deep bomb shelters, which were provided as the temporary accommodation for those who first arrived on Windrush, and, secondly, they settled in Brixton to be near the job centre because they wanted to work.
Ms Abbott
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding us of why Brixton was a focus for the Windrush generation. West London—Paddington, Notting Hill—was also a focus, largely because people got off at Paddington and looked for somewhere to live.
The Home Secretary has said that he “will do what it takes” to sort out the Windrush scandal, and I hope this afternoon’s debate will help him to understand the entirety of what it will take to revolve the scandal. This is not an issue that will go away.
Devolution and Growth across Britain
Debate between Diane Abbott and Chuka Umunna(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be a mistake to confuse London as a whole with the City of London, which is of course hugely powerful and wealthy? People in London would not understand if other city regions such as the northern powerhouse got devolved powers, particularly over health, that were then denied to Londoners.
Jobs and Business
Debate between Diane Abbott and Chuka Umunna(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Umunna
The Secretary of State says that it is not required. We will see. I fail to understand why legislation was needed for the green investment bank but not for his small business bank, but let us see. [Interruption.] Let me tell the welfare Secretary that I would love to have a general election, because then I might be able to occupy the Business Secretary’s post more quickly than he perhaps foresees. What we hear from most small businesses is that what the Government have done to increase access to finance and resolve the issues of the banking sector for the real economy has proved to be a let down.
Let me turn to skills and training. Weakness in specific intermediate or vocational skills is a business concern and a source of competitive disadvantage for the UK compared with our neighbours. With almost 1 million young people out of work—my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) referred to this—we must ensure that we have system that delivers people with the education and skills that our businesses need if they are to move into work. We could start by increasing the number of apprenticeships, but crucially boosting their quality too. We have heard the Secretary of State, like other Ministers, boasting about creating more than 1 million apprenticeships, but the number of 16 to 18-year-olds starting an apprenticeship in the first half of this academic year dropped by 12%. Indeed, two thirds of large companies in this country do not offer apprenticeships. We urgently need to improve on that and also protect the quality of apprenticeships, which is precisely the point made by Doug Richard and Jason Holt, whom the Secretary of State commissioned to do reports on apprenticeships.
The Queen’s Speech made a vague reference to a desire to ensure that it becomes typical for those leaving school to start a traineeship or an apprenticeship, but where was the jobs Bill we wanted that would have required large firms getting sizeable Government contracts to have active apprenticeships scheme, ensuring opportunities to work for the next generation? There was no such Bill. I still fail to understand why this Government will not proceed with that simple measure. Ministers released details of their plan for traineeships yesterday, which is a six-month programme of training and work experience to aid young people towards apprenticeships or employment. We will have to study the detail closely, but I note that they expect colleges to have the scheme up and running by August. That will be a challenge, given the very short notice.
On procurement, which should of course be used as part of an industrial strategy, the Government’s Bombardier decision earlier in this Parliament demonstrated their failure to account for the impact of procurement decisions on jobs and growth and on the strategic development of industrial capacity. We know that the story is the same with defence. The Government’s defence industrial strategy has been abandoned in favour of buying off the shelf from overseas. In making procurement decisions, we would take account of the impact on jobs when deciding to whom to award contracts. The French, the Dutch and the German Governments do that within EU law—the Business Secretary referred to it—and so would we. If this Government were serious about backing British industry, we would perhaps see them taking similar measures. Again, however, there was nothing about this in the Queen’s Speech.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
On the question of jobs and skills, training and apprenticeships, does my hon. Friend agree that black and minority ethnic young people in our great cities have been disproportionally hit by this economic crash, making it important that any strategy around jobs, skills and apprenticeships and even access to funds for entrepreneurship has within it structures and strategies to help those BME young people?
Mr Umunna
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Some things I support, such as the start-up loan scheme, could be of real benefit to our different diverse communities, particularly to young people and young entrepreneurs seeking to set up businesses. The problem up to now—I appreciate that James Caan is doing fantastic work on this—is that there has not been enough awareness of it. I have offered to help him raise such awareness in our different diverse communities.
Public Disorder
Debate between Diane Abbott and Chuka Umunna(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Air Passenger Duty
Debate between Diane Abbott and Chuka Umunna(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Ms Abbott
The hon. Gentleman has made his point very well indeed. Many of those people, particularly the older ones, have contributed to this country. Some of the generation who came to this country after the war helped to rebuild its public sector, and they have worked all their lives. As I have said, the sums of money involved might seem relatively minor to a Treasury official, but they represent a huge imposition on those people who love this country and who are almost invariably British citizens but who also have a great love for the country of their birth. One thing that makes this seem all the more unfair to those people is that air passenger duty is not charged on private aircraft. If this were really an environmental measure, one would expect it to be charged on private aircraft. I will come back to that point later.
It is my contention that air passenger duty is having a negative effect on British business. I have evidence that British business travellers are flying to the continent, then flying to the Caribbean from there, because it is cheaper to do so. Business travellers contribute £70 million to the British economy—money that is slowly being lost due to airport passenger duty charges. Aviation taxation is putting the UK at a competitive disadvantage in comparison with our European neighbours. This duty will incentivise the strengthening of alternative hubs to the UK both in and outside Europe. In the end, it could well reduce the number and connection of destinations served by UK airports.
Let me move on to tourism. I have been in the House quite a few years and I have lived to see Caribbean countries urged to restructure their economies and to move away from old-fashioned economies, such as those based on bananas and sugar, into financial services, which ended badly. Then they were encouraged to restructure the economy and diversify into tourism. Thus the Caribbean tourism industry now employs, directly and indirectly, more than 1.9 million people—11% of the region’s work force. In important tourist destinations such as Jamaica and Barbados, as much as 25% of the work force are engaged in tourism, while 60% of St Lucia’s gross domestic product derives from tourism. For the Barbados hotel industry, a significant number of holidaymakers are British, and there is no question that the tourism industry in the Caribbean has been damaged by the increases in this duty.
Arrivals from the UK to the Caribbean are now in decline, while those from other markets are increasing. The latest figure from the UK Office for National Statistics shows that visits to the Caribbean by UK residents in 2010 were 16% lower than for the same period in 2009. Visits to Barbados for the same period were 22% lower. For a tourist, as opposed to someone with family links to the region, the Florida Keys is now a cheaper destination. In respect of our air passenger duty arrangements, the whole system is wrong and it is having an effect on British citizens who happen to have links with the Caribbean.
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate on an incredibly important issue. I represent one of the constituencies with the biggest Caribbean diaspora populations in the country. It covers Brixton, for example, and this is a huge issue in my community. I endorse all my hon. Friend’s comments, but would add one more. If this measure were primarily about increasing sustainability and reducing emissions, one would have thought that the proceeds would be used for environmental purposes. My understanding is, however—I am sure the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—that the sums raised from this duty go back into the general pot. Will the Minister also answer a specific point that was put to me? How can it be fair to charge a greater level of tax to fly to Jamaica—there are many Jamaican families in my constituency—than to fly the whole way to Hawaii? I would appreciate an answer on that.
Ms Abbott
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes his point very well. He raised the question of the avowed environmental intent of the duty. I remember that when passenger duties were put forward under a Labour Government, Ministers said that they were there largely in order to help the environment and discourage unnecessary airline travel. This Government have stated that the rises in air passenger duty are partly intended to help achieve environmental goals.
Far be it for me to accuse any Government—whether it be my own or the present Government—of glossing over the reality, but the truth is that if APD were really about achieving environmental goals, it would be calculated differently. For instance, APD is calculated according to only one element of a given flight—the distance travelled, not according to whether the plane is full or half-empty. A whole range of other factors are relevant to environmental impacts, including the type and age of the aircraft, the time it spends in the air and how heavy it is, but the Government choose not to take those factors into account in calculating aviation tax rates.
As I have said, if this is really about the environment, why is no duty charged on private aircraft? The failure to establish a way of calculating the duty that would actually minimise the effect on the environment gives people the impression that, although Ministers may indeed believe in the environmental benefit, it may be no more than a pretext on the part of their officials.
If we want to persuade people to abandon planes for other forms of transport, it is surely logical for APD to bear more heavily on short-haul flights, to which there are genuine alternatives in the form of trains and boats. What, though, is the alternative for the retired nurse living in Hackney who wants to return to Jamaica every couple of years to see her friends and family? There is no such alternative, but we are imposing these big APD rates on her flight, or that of her family.
Having raised the issue under the last Government, I have taken the earliest possible opportunity to raise it again now.
Ms Abbott
My hon. Friend and I went on a number of delegations to Treasury Ministers, and found them—as Ministers always are—well-meaning, kindly and ostensibly understanding of our case. However, they were simply unable to stand up to their officials. We look to this new Treasury Minister for more stoutness of heart and firmness of purpose.
Mr Umunna
I think it important for us to send the public—our constituents—the message that this is not a party-political issue. I have obtained a very good House of Commons note on the subject, and I know that the hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands), who is sitting behind the Minister, made a number of excellent points about it in the debate on the Finance Bill in, I think, 2009.
Ms Abbott
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. I agree that this is not a party-political issue, but one on which Members on both sides of the House feel strongly. I also agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) that Ministers should show some fixity of purpose. The present method of calculation is indefensible in terms of both equity and environmental impact, and it could have a big impact on British business by removing the incentive for business-class travellers to make long-haul flights to the Caribbean from London rather than from the continental hub. It is bad for business, it is bad for the Caribbean’s economy—of which tourism is a vital part during an international downturn—and it is bad for British citizens with business interests or family members in the region who simply want to be able to travel at an affordable price.
I have pursued this issue for some time, but I have every hope that a new set of Treasury Ministers will view the arguments afresh, and will undertake to reconsider the way in which air passenger duty is calculated. We appreciate that the Treasury’s tax take must remain the same, and, as I said at the outset, we appreciate that there is a genuine environmental case for seeking to lessen air travel over time. However, we consider the present level of air passenger duty to be unfair, indefensible, and a burden on the Caribbean which this Government should seek to lift.