Hillsborough Disaster

Esther McVey Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)]

This debate has been a long time coming. The journey to get here has been a long, painful fight led by the families of the 96 victims, the people of Liverpool, the local papers—the Liverpool Daily Post and the Liverpool Echo—and football supporters. The support and the quest for answers have not diminished. Instead, they have gathered momentum over time. The family voices have stayed firm; the commitment to loved ones has been unshakeable. Finally, the families are here today to see this debate, so let us make sure that every politician of every party does right by them, allowing them complete access to all material—unedited and unredacted—so that they can understand what happened, and have answers and closure, perhaps a little peace, but most of all so that they can have some truth about what happened on 15 April 1989.

People say Liverpool is a close-knit community, but it is so much more than that. It is an extended family, and it is the compassion and the passion of the people of Liverpool that have supported the families in striving for the truth. When people talk of Hillsborough, they speak as though everyone from the city knew somebody there that day, and in a way they did. My cousins were there—safe, yes, but when a call came to the crowd, asking whether any police, medical staff or officers could come and help, my cousin stepped forward. He was one of those people, one of the fans asked to help the injured and to identify people. It was that help that was so cruelly and inaccurately misrepresented in the tabloids.

The Prime Minister accepted that the Hillsborough tragedy and its aftermath has left a deep wound on Merseyside. He has given an unqualified commitment to full disclosure of files relating to what happened. He agreed to this before today’s debate, but I still believe it is important that we are all here today, that this tragedy is given the importance it deserves and that voice is given to the 145,000 e-petitioners who voted in favour of today’s debate in the House. They want full disclosure, and they want all the families to have the final, ultimate say in what happens to the information.

An independent panel of experts, academics and archivists, headed by the Right Rev. James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool, has been appointed to oversee and make sense of the volume of documents. The families—those who have suffered most—must now be supported by the panel and by Government.

The political journey has come full circle. In too many instances, questions have been ducked. It has taken 22 years, and I want to be part of a Parliament and a Government who do right by the families who have carried so much pain for so long.

Let me close my speech by saying that it is time for words to come to an end. It is time for action. It is time to release all those documents in their entirety.

Liverpool Passport Office

Esther McVey Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Ellman]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his contribution and certainly agree. During the course of my contribution, I will suggest what I think needs to be done to redress the situation.

It is possible that, given the circumstances in which the permanent employment status was awarded, continuing with it was contrary to an interpretation of current departmental rules, but that is a very different proposition from any notion that it was illegal. We are, indeed, discussing a unique situation, and it required an imaginative and flexible approach. In any case, advisers advise, Ministers and their staff are responsible for decisions and the advice itself is influenced by the question posed. Where is the instruction from the Civil Service Commission to dismiss the 14 staff? Does such written instruction exist? If so, will the Minister publish both question and answer?

Correspondence from the then Liverpool regional manager in June 2010 refers to advice that the Civil Service Commission could make an exception to permit these employees to be made permanent staff. Annexe E of the internal review quotes the human resources business partner as stating:

“The Civil Service Commissioners recruitment principles do allow for some exceptions—I believe there could be a small opportunity to attempt these”.

[Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this important issue to the House. I should like to support the points she is making and add that given that this is a unique and extreme situation with many missing parts, perhaps the Minister could look at it again with fresh eyes.

[Mrs Ellman]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments and agree with everything she says.

I want to return to the question of whether there was another way of dealing with the matter. I have quoted the views expressed by the Liverpool office regional manager in June 2010, and I would now like to refer to Paul Luffman’s letter—the letter that was never sent from the Department to the Civil Service Commission. In referring to what has happened and what should be done about it, it says:

“I would like to discuss this directly and in detail with the Civil Service Commissioners to see whether IPS is able to use one of the exceptions to fair and open recruitment, before resorting to withdrawal of the contracts. I understand that the civil service commissioners recruitment principles do allow for some exceptions to fair and open recruitment, and I believe there could be an opportunity to attempt to use these (albeit retrospectively) to rectify the situation.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Esther McVey Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I welcome the hon. Lady to the Front Bench and congratulate her on her very rapid promotion. May I repeat what I said to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz)? There is a police investigation going on at the moment. It would clearly be inappropriate for me or my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to give any details about this case while the police investigation is going on. I am surprised that the shadow Home Secretary asked the hon. Lady to do that while a police investigation was going on.

[Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)]

3. What assessment she has made of the likely effect on the administrative burden on police forces of the establishment of the proposed national crime agency.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

14. What assessment she has made of the likely effect on the administrative burden on police forces of the establishment of the proposed national crime agency.

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

We believe there is a real need to bring a greater focus to the issue of organised crime and other national aspects of policing. The national crime agency will strengthen the operational response to organised crime and better secure our borders. The NCA will contribute to our aim of rationalising the national policing landscape, thereby driving out waste and increasing productivity.

[Esther McVey]

Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that the new joined-up approach of the national crime agency, which will also incorporate functions from the National Policing Improvement Agency, will not only provide efficiency savings but will give equal attention to the individual regions, mine being the north-west?

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. I assure her that in setting up the national crime agency we are considering efficiency, and efficiency savings. We will be changing the national policing landscape and it is important to put greater emphasis on serious organised crime. Organised crime is calculated to cost this country and society £20 billion to £40 billion a year and it is right that we should do something to enhance our fight against it.

Public Expenditure Reductions (Women)

Esther McVey Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

That will help some women, but it will not help women on benefits or the very lowest paid women. As I say, the way in which the figures add up means that women are still hit disproportionately.

In conclusion, I urge the Government, even at this late stage, to re-examine the decisions they have made. In particular, I urge the Minister to take seriously the Government’s legal obligation to assess the equality impact of the Budget on different groups, specifically men and women. I urge them to carry out and publish a gender equality impact assessment of the emergency Budget and to take mitigating actions where policies look set to hurt women disproportionately.

[Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)]

I am delighted that the hon. Lady has raised this issue in the Chamber tonight, because I have worked with women in business for the past 10 years. On everything that she talks about—every consequence, every dilemma and every situation that women are in—she has to look to her Government and ask why we are in this disastrous economic state, and she has to bear the responsibility for what is happening. The picture for women in business is mixed. The latest results coming out this week say that a third of women are now the main breadwinner, 39% earn more than their partners and 19%—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Could I just very gently say to the hon. Lady that if this is an intervention—and it is—it needs to come to a conclusion very soon?

[Esther McVey]

My point is that we have to move forward, and the Conservative party is looking at how to get the 150,000 women who are not setting up businesses—when compared with the number of men who are—to do so. That would be worth £7 billion to the economy. What would the hon. Lady’s advice be to women on how to even out the economy?

[Ms Abbott]

I shall not allow myself to be distracted by the hon. Lady, except to say that the reason why we face the necessity of making cuts on this scale is not Labour’s irresponsibility but greedy bankers’ irresponsibility —greedy, under-regulated bankers who almost crashed the world economy.

[Esther McVey]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Abbott]

I am afraid that I cannot, because I want to allow time for the Minister to reply.

I want the Minister to give us her assurance that, before making those cuts, the Government will carry out a full and robust gender equality impact assessment. We all know that savings have to be made; my argument is that they should not be made at the expense of women. We all know that we have to move forward; my argument is that women, certainly in my constituency, will not be able to do so with the ball and chain that welfare cuts and the removal of child tax credits represent. They will not be able to move forward, shackled as they will be by unfair and unthought-out cuts in welfare and public sector spending.

Fifty years ago we could not have had this debate. Fifty years ago there would not have been this many women in the Chamber to debate it. I am glad that Government Members have stayed for this debate. It is important, and women out there, in the country, want to know that their voice will be heard on issues to do with the economy and the potentially devastating cuts package with which the Government seek to meet the challenge of the deficit.