Parliamentary Representation

Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Anne Begg

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House welcomes the fact that there are now more women hon. Members and hon. Members from Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities than in any previous Parliament; notes that the need for greater diversity in the House has been accepted by the leadership of the three main political parties at Westminster; is concerned that increased competition for seats at the 2015 General Election may leave under-represented groups more poorly represented among approved candidates, and in the House thereafter, unless mechanisms are employed to tackle continuing inequalities during candidate selection; and calls on the Government and political parties to fulfil commitments made in response to the Speaker’s Conference (on Parliamentary Representation) in 2010, including the commitment to secure the publication by all parties of diversity data on candidate selections.

I thank you, Mr Speaker, and the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us time this afternoon to debate the important issue of the representation of this House. If Parliament and, indeed, the Government are to be successful and to be able to make the best decisions for the country, the people taking those decisions need more closely to reflect the society we purport to represent. I make that point because the desire for a Parliament made up of Members from a wide range of backgrounds comes not from some political correctness, but from the belief that a Parliament that does not reflect society will not be effective.

The proposal in the coalition agreement to give anonymity to people charged with rape horrified female MPs from all political parties, who united to force the Government to back down. If only one or two MPs had objected, would the coalition have changed its mind? Probably not—but the critical mass of female MPs, speaking with a common voice, made the Government realise they had got things badly wrong.

There should be a place in this mother of Parliaments for individuals from all sections of society. We should ask ourselves why certain groups are under-represented. The reason is not that the electorate will not vote for women, people with disabilities, people who are gay or people from ethnic minorities—they clearly will; otherwise many of us would not be here—but that political parties do not choose enough candidates from diverse backgrounds to fight winnable seats. Furthermore, if not enough of those candidates want to become an MP, we must examine how we do our business and how we run our politics and our Parliament to identify the barriers. Many of those people would make excellent MPs, and the loss of their expertise and talents results in a diminished Parliament. Such a Parliament could lose legitimacy; indeed, it might never have had legitimacy because it had never been properly representative.

Why are we having a debate on this subject, more than three years away from the next general election? The timing is pertinent for three reasons. Two years ago yesterday, the final report from the Speaker’s Conference on representation was published. One of its recommendations was that there should be a debate on the Floor of the House every two years to review progress. Well, we are one day out, but in parliamentary terms I think that that is pretty close.

The second reason for holding the debate is that, although this Parliament is more diverse than previous ones, we still have some way to go before the House of Commons reflects the population more closely. Only 22% of MPs are women and only 4% are from an ethnic minority, and the proportion of those who have a disability or are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender falls far short of the numbers in society. Establishing a lasting improvement in the diversity of Parliament, however, requires cultural change. There is no quick fix: it is necessary to keep making the arguments and to keep refocusing people’s minds on the need to tackle under-representation.

The third reason for the debate is that the gatekeepers to the selection of MPs, the political parties, have already begun to select their candidates for the 2015 general election. That election will be accompanied by a reduction in the number of MPs, and it is therefore important that the leaders of the political parties are reminded of the commitments that they made to the Speaker’s Conference to take action to improve the diversity of candidates. At the 2015 election, established MPs will have to fight each other for their seats, and those who lose in the selection process could be promised a vacant seat elsewhere. The parties might therefore be tempted to suspend their attempts to select candidates from different backgrounds, preferring instead to look after existing MPs. It could therefore be harder for candidates from under-represented groups to be selected. As a result, the next Parliament could be even less diverse than this one.

Members who do not think that could happen need look only at the 2005 election in Scotland, when we faced the abolition of 13 seats. The Labour party’s use of all-women shortlists was suspended in Scotland, and the number of women MPs dropped. At the UK election that year, however, for the first time in history more than 50% of the new Labour intake were women. That shows that mechanisms such as all-women shortlists work, and that when they stop operating the number of women who are selected, and consequently elected, drops.

[Fiona O’Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

As someone who benefited from an all-women shortlist, I wonder whether my hon. Friend would go further and address the issue for working-class women. Does she support my view that we should have a ceiling on the amount that a candidate can spend during the election process, and that they should have to declare donations?

[Dame Anne Begg]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. There are enormous economic barriers that prevent not only women but people from lower socio-economic groups from getting into Parliament. The political parties should certainly look at her suggestion in relation to their selection process, and consider capping the amount that can be spent. At the moment, it can get into the thousands, and that can rule out many candidates.

Pensions Bill [Lords]

Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Anne Begg

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dame Anne Begg]

I may be Chair of the Select Committee, but I am afraid that I have no direct say in what should be in a Labour or any other manifesto. However, common sense tells us that whoever is in power after the next election—the Liberal Democrats might have a majority then, and might want to reverse the arrangement—voting against the amendment tonight will remove any chance of our ever finding a solution for this group of women. Events will have moved on, the timetable will have been set, and the pension age will have already changed by the time of the next election. That is what I mean about the lack of time in which to plan.

I hope that Members will accept that it is wrong that this anomaly has been created. I hope that those who have listened to the women in their constituencies will do the right thing tonight, and will vote for the Opposition amendment. That is what I shall be doing.

[Fiona O’Donnell]

I am genuinely grateful for the opportunity to support the amendment to which my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Gregg McClymont) spoke so eloquently. I welcome him to the Dispatch Box.

Many women in my constituency have contacted me about this issue, and none of those who have contacted me over the weekend, yesterday or today have expressed the view that the Government have gone far enough; they all support the amendment. I found it almost stomach-turning to hear the hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott) congratulate herself on winning this concession from the Government. I do not think that even Labour Members should take credit for the achievement—lacking though it is in ambition—and I certainly do not think that the Liberal Democrats should do so. I wish that some of the honourable and good Liberal Democrat members of the Bill Committee mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Malcolm Wicks) had had the guts and the principle to propose similar amendments when they had the opportunity. This feels a bit like Groundhog Day: it is the Health and Social Care Bill all over again.

Credit for the victory, such as it is, lies with all the women who have written to us, e-mailed us, telephoned us, and come to the House to make their case. They have said, “We will not sit back and let the Government do this to us.” Every evening as I leave this place, I see a touching reminder in the poster in the tube station showing those women, although I must confess that at first I considered it rather strange that there was also a man in the photograph, and wondered what that could be about. The fact is that this change will have an impact not just on the women concerned, but on the families for whom they have made plans. In the light of the rising cost of child care, they have asked themselves, “When can I help my sons and daughters to make better lives for themselves and their families?” I have to say that I think my sons and my daughter have similar plans for me, which I intend to resist for as long as possible.

The Government, particularly the Liberal Democrats, have not just broken their promise to women; they have broken their promise to their families as well. What an appalling lack of ambition from a Government! They have repeatedly called on Labour Members to say how we would pay for our proposals, so let me give them a couple of examples. Through the future jobs fund, they could take a million young people off the dole queue so that they were back at work and contributing to the system. They could scrap their top-down reorganisation of the NHS. They could ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government whether he has any money left in the pocket where he found the bin money. This is not about arithmetic; it is about political will. It is about the Government saying, “We believe that this is something worth doing, and it is something to which we will commit ourselves.”

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Anne Begg

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dame Anne Begg]

I suspect that many hon. Members will want to speak particularly about the removal of the higher-rate mobility allowance from residential care, so I shall not talk about that in any detail, but I think it is merely the top of a very pernicious iceberg, and the proposed amendments attempt to allay our concerns on that. This issue has captured the public imagination because it seems so grossly unfair and because people cannot understand what kind of Government would take away the independence of the, by definition, most disabled people in our community because they happen to live in a residential home or, for those whose families might lose access to an adapted vehicle, because they happen to go to a residential school.

I want to look more widely at the Government’s reasons for seeing fit to wipe away everything that was the DLA and bring in a new benefit called the personal independence payment. Let me address the Government’s analysis, or rather their argument—I should not have said analysis because part of the problem is that there has been no proper analysis and it is very difficult to get any data to suggest that some of what they have said is true; that might be the case for individual cases, but it is not widespread. The fact that the hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott) had to ask for some of those data may show that the Government lumbered into the whole area without knowing the details, and that their proposals were based on some perception of prejudice, or the need to save money, a point to which I shall return.

What were the criticisms that the Government laid at the door of DLA? They said there were no regular reassessments. That is easy to sort. We can put in regular reassessments for certain people. The Government said that too many people were getting DLA for life. Is that too much of a problem? If a person is quadriplegic after a cataclysmic accident, I am not sure they will get better. The reason many people who at present depend on DLA are so frightened by the changes is that they have an award for life; they do not have to worry about more reassessments. They have gone through assessments. They know they are profoundly disabled. Anybody looking at them can tell they are profoundly disabled, so why on earth do they yet again have to go through an assessment?

Another criticism of DLA was that some people were getting it automatically based on their condition. I challenge the Minister to tell us what it is about the condition of people who cannot feed themselves, cannot dress themselves, cannot move from one seated position to another, cannot walk or go to the toilet themselves that means they have to be assessed for their need for extra costs for care and mobility. I cannot think of a reason. Why should there not be an assumption that those individuals have their extra costs for care and mobility covered by DLA? That is what it was all about.

The Government’s main argument was that DLA was not well understood. That is not my experience from talking to people who receive DLA. It was one of the few benefits they did understand. DLA was for the extra mobility and care costs associated with disability. Compare that to the confusing rules for tax credits, or the in-work benefits or disability premiums associated with jobseeker’s allowance, employment and support allowance or incapacity benefit. We could look at contributory ESA as well. Those are confusing. The one benefit for disabled people that was clear—they knew what it was for—was disability living allowance. That is what they tell me and I am sure it is what they have told the Government. The vast majority of responses to the Government’s consultation made exactly that point: people valued DLA so greatly that they were frightened they might lose it.

Another criticism the Government have made of DLA is that the form was too long and complicated. That would be easy to sort. Make it shorter, make it less complicated and maybe put it online. There were solutions.

Those are the main criticisms of DLA that the Government have come up with, but none of them could not have been solved by some changes to the existing allowance. It did not require the sweeping away of DLA and its replacement with a new benefit, with new criteria. If the criteria were out of date, some of them could have been changed, but there was and is no need to change all of them. People who depend on DLA at present as a large part of their income are terrified, because they do not know what lies ahead. If the system is as bad as, according to the Government, it is at the moment, those people are worried that whatever the Government come up with will not be suitable for their needs. I have to tell the hon. Member for Cardiff Central that the previous Government did not collect data on double-funding mobility allowance in care homes, because they were not advocating the removal of DLA from that group of people.

The things that are particularly good but often forgotten about DLA include the fact that it is an in-work and out-of-work benefit. That element will become increasingly important as the Government proceed with their welfare reforms to put work obligations on people with profound disabilities. Anyone who is not assessed as being in the support group for ESA will have a work obligation. However, if those who end up in the work-related activity group find that they no longer qualify for DLA, it will be all the harder for them to find a job or to do the work-related activity that the Government expect them to do, because the extra financing to make that possible will have been removed.

The best thing about DLA was that we had for the first time in this country a benefit that followed the social model of disability, rather than the medical model. There is a worry that the clock will be turned back. The Government call their new benefit the personal independence payment, but DLA was a personal independence payment, so they did not need to change the benefit. DLA is personalised and represents what the Government say they want the benefit system to be because it is a dynamic benefit, which means that it helps people to lead an independent life by going out to work, visiting friends and doing all the things that everyone else takes for granted. Such independence includes the ability to live in the community, which can be achieved if a person can buy in care and get someone to come in to look after their care needs. All those things exist under DLA, so why is there a need to make a fundamental change to something that was not broken? Why fix something that was working reasonably well? No one would have complained if the Government had done a bit of tweaking, but such a fundamental change makes people especially worried.

The Red Book states that the Government want to cut 20% from the DLA budget. That means that the pot will be 20% smaller, but given the cost of reassessing everyone, about which we have heard today, the reduction in payments will be more than 20%, because some of the money that would have gone to disabled people so that they could live their lives will be invested into the private company that will carry out the reassessments. Given the difficulties of the ESA, there is suspicion about the accuracy of the reassessments. Even though Professor Harrington has made recommendations, there are still fears and worries about the way in which the work capability assessment is working, and disabled people’s experience of that assessment makes them especially worried about what will happen under PIP.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

Does my hon. Friend agree that anxiety is especially high among people with mental health problems? We have recently heard reports of a number of suicides, so we need to be able to offer people reassurance about the process.