Departure of Previous Home Secretary

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Brendan Clarke-Smith]

The proof is in the resignation letter of the former Home Secretary. She herself outlined the reasons why she resigned from her position. She has been very clear about the ministerial code and about which areas of it she has breached. As we have said, other matters are to be treated separately. Once again, we are here today to discuss why the former Home Secretary resigned; we are not here to discuss other matters that involve internal party politics.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

The Minister may not want to discuss immigration policy today, but I hope he will share my deep concern at the written answer that I received from the Home Office on Tuesday, which revealed that nearly 900 asylum-seeking children under 16 had been accommodated in hotels. According to a report published this week by the chief inspector of borders and immigration, some of the hotel staff do not even have Disclosure and Barring Service clearance. Will the Minister go back to the Home Office immediately after this session and urge it to take action to get those children out of those hotels and into a place of safety?

[Brendan Clarke-Smith]

I am happy to pass that question on to those at the Home Office so that they can provide the hon. Lady with the information she seeks. Of course, we remain committed to safeguarding children, whether they are in this country or those that this country has received.

Health and Social Care Update

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 22nd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

It is great to see my hon. Friend; our constituencies cross the River Deben. I will look into that matter for him and respond to him.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State spoke about the importance of prevention and the impact of the cost of living crisis on health and wellbeing. Will she therefore work with colleagues across government, including those from the Department for Work and Pensions and from local authorities, to maximise the take-up of the Healthy Start scheme, which can address both maternal and child health and wellbeing, and help families with living costs?

[Dr Coffey]

Of course we will.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Value for money is on the face of the Bill; it is a crucial part of what will be going on. When the Bill has completed its passage, it will be issued alongside principles of procurement for Government bodies to follow. This will ensure that value for money is put front and centre, which, it must be said, was the essence of the hon. Lady’s question. She asks what we are doing to ensure value for money, then when we do something to ensure it, she does not like it.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

11. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the cost of phone calls to Government helplines on low-income households.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Michael Ellis)]

The Government are committed to answering calls from the public in a timely manner. Where Departments are experiencing surges in demand, performance is being monitored and staffing is being increased. For example, for the weekend of 1 July, the Home Office answered 77% of calls to its helplines within 30 seconds, with an average wait time of one minute and nine seconds.

[Kate Green]

By definition, women eligible for Healthy Start vouchers are on low incomes, but the cost of making calls to the helpline at local rates is prohibitive for many, contributing to the cost of poverty. Will the Minister undertake to speak to Health colleagues to see what can be done to minimise the cost of that helpline and, more generally, look at the cost of calls to helplines across Government that are specifically designed to enable people on low incomes to reach the services and benefits intended to help them?

[Michael Ellis]

We are always looking at these matters. The Department for Work and Pensions reviews the forecasted telephony demand and plans its resourcing accordingly to keep wait times down. All DWP customer telephone lines are freephone numbers. Separately, I should say that the DWP is digitising key parts of its service to increase efficiency.

Bill of Rights

Kate Green Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend for the painstaking groundwork he did in the Ministry of Justice, and to Sir Peter Gross and his panel. All that work substantially influenced the shape of the reforms that we are able to announce today; they would not have been possible without the hard work that my right hon. and learned Friend put in. He is right to point to the 2012 Brighton declaration, because the Strasbourg Court under Róbert Spanó—its latest President, who is Icelandic—has talked about shifting from an age of a living instrument to an age of subsidiarity. People talk about our relationship, and it is important that we stick to the convention, but it is also important that the European Court follows its own strictures.

My right hon. and learned Friend mentioned extraterritorial jurisdiction. I will certainly follow up on his advice, as the issue is also addressed in the Bill of Rights. Again, I thank him for his contribution.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

The Deputy Prime Minister is right about the priority that must be given to public protection, but may I urge him to proceed with care in reforming parole arrangements? Ministers have already taken measures that will give them a veto over the transfer of prisoners serving indeterminate sentences to open conditions, and he will know that there are real concerns that, as well as being procedurally unfair, such measures may increase the risk to public protection. Will he reassure the House that he will make public protection a priority over political gimmickry?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady for what she has said. I certainly agree that public protection is our overriding concern. The proposals for parole reform that we have published for consultation make it clear that, in the context of convicted murderers, rapists, terrorists and child killers, we want to ensure that there is a ministerial check in finely balanced cases where there is genuine risk to the public and to public confidence but it is hard to predict. If we agree on the principle of putting public protection first, I hope she will agree that that should command cross-party support.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (James Cartlidge)]

My hon. Friend is an absolute champion of her constituency and she is right to want it to get its place in the levelling-up agenda. As she said, the Ministry of Justice is already a major employer in Wrexham through HMP Berwyn, which employs around 750 staff directly and over 250 more through partner organisations. We also have two courts in Wrexham employing around 100 staff. The key point, as detailed in the levelling-up White Paper, is that our Department is committed to moving more than 2,000 roles from London to the regions by 2030, of which 500 roles will be moved to Wales as a demonstration of our full support for strengthening the Union. This will include a number of locations, particularly Wrexham.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

T3. Women leaving custody without a safe and secure home risk harm to themselves and to the public, but many of those women are not captured in official homelessness statistics. Will Ministers commit to rolling out the temporary accommodation service to all probation areas this year, and to extending support for vulnerable women to get into permanent housing beyond 12 weeks?

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Victoria Atkins)]

I thank the hon. Lady for her point about the important role that accommodation plays in resettling women. I know that she will take comfort from the fact that nearly 23% fewer women are in custody than in 2010, but of course work continues and we need to ensure that women as well as male prisoners are set up for their life on release. Although the prisons strategy White Paper focuses on the male estate, because that is where the majority of offenders reside, it applies equally to the female estate. I hope that the hon. Lady will take some time to look at resettlement passports, for example, to see what we believe can really make a difference to the life chances of those who are given that second chance.

Covid-19 Update

Kate Green Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are using them. It is also important that all manufacturers that want to supply lateral flow tests should pass the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s tests. That is what the public would expect.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

For the digitally excluded, the need to go online to obtain a code to take to a pharmacy in order to obtain their lateral flow tests has proven to be a real barrier. Can the Prime Minister say what assessment of the Government have made of the extent of this problem, and how it will be addressed?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. We try to make sure that we help people by delivering tests, and many pharmacies are more than happy to do it without an online booking.

Human Rights Legislation

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I think this is the first time that a consultation document has been put forward to the House of Commons. The hon. Gentleman is right that it has been much debated; we are now taking action. I am afraid that I disagree with him: we are very much focused on protecting and strengthening our tradition of freedom, of which I have given freedom of speech as an example.

Frankly, the hon. Gentleman has a choice to make. He can sit back and bask in the generalities of what he has said, or he can recognise, as the former Home Secretary and architect of the Human Rights Act does, that there has been abuse of the system and that if we reform and take our responsibilities in this House seriously, we can make a change for the better and introduce some much-needed common sense.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

The Justice Secretary has made much of his concerns about article 8, the right to family life. To the extent that it affects the best interests of children, it is of course a particularly important article. Can he assure me that the changes that he intends to bring in will in no way water down our obligations to serve children’s best interests, as prescribed in the Children Act 1989, or our obligations under the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, to which we are of course a signatory?

[Dominic Raab]

Of course we live up to our international obligations, and it is precisely partly the aim of these reforms to protect the bespoke, tailored approach to primary legislation when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable in our society, including through the Children Act.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the sad phenomena of last two or three decades is the way in which divisions in our society have grown deeper. It is vital that we heal, unify and level up, never more so than after the coronavirus pandemic. The communities of Rother Valley and others in South Yorkshire are at the heart of the Government’s commitment to making sure that opportunity is more equal. That is why my hon. Friend is such an effective voice for those communities that have been neglected in the past.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman will have read yesterday’s damning report from the Social Mobility Commission, which highlights a failure of coherence and effort across Government to address this important agenda. Will he put his personal authority and the weight of his Department behind developing and supporting a cross-Government strategy to ensure that we narrow inequalities and injustices?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I know that even before she was in this House she had a very distinguished career in speaking up for the disadvantaged, particularly children and young people, who need the helping hand of Government as well as the support of civil society in order to achieve everything they can. She is absolutely right: there is much more that we need to do. We have touched on schools, but there are many other areas where we need to improve what we do—from child and adolescent mental health services to making sure that those in care are better supported. She is absolutely right.

Covid-19: Strategy

Kate Green Excerpts

Monday 11th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Question No. 26 has been withdrawn, so we go to Kate Green.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab) [V]]

No one should be expected to take up or return to a job that is not safe, so can the Prime Minister confirm that there is no intention of changing the relaxation of rules on benefits conditionality? Doing so could pressure people to attend unsafe and risky workplaces.

European Union: Future Relationship

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend gets to the heart of the matter. Democratic accountability, as outlined brilliantly and eloquently by the father of the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) in this House and elsewhere, is something that all of us should celebrate, and that leaving the European Union allows us to enhance.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

The document rightly acknowledges the importance of the second-generation Schengen information system—SIS II —database, which holds millions of pieces of data on wanted or missing persons, including vulnerable children. The document also says that if by June insufficient progress has been made on ensuring the basis of an agreement by September, the Government will begin to make their own preparations for domestic priorities. Will the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster explain how he will protect this country properly if we have to sacrifice our access to millions of pieces of vital data and rely on an Interpol database that contains only a few hundred thousand records?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. We would like to continue having access not just to the Schengen information system II database, but to Prüm, ECRIS and a number of other law enforcement and criminal justice tools. Of course, we will have to see what approach the European Union takes. I am hopeful it will take a pragmatic approach, because it benefits just as much as we do, if not more, from our participation in these databases. Leaving the European Union allows us, through our controlling our own borders and laws, to improve homeland security in a number of ways, and we will always act in the interests of the British people.