Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is a great champion of adopters and all those who help to give children a loving and stable home. He is quite right, we have so far focused on supporting employed parents, but local authorities have the power to provide discretionary payments equivalent to maternity allowance for self-employed adopters as well.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Q9. We know that, at times of economic hardship, suicide rates are likely to rise too. We saw that after the 2008 crash. As well as doing more to support people through the cost of living crisis, will the Prime Minister commit to doing more to support excellent suicide prevention campaigns such as CALM—the Campaign Against Living Miserably—and also implement Labour’s pledge to let anyone in need of it to be able to access mental health counselling within a month and to end waiting lists?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady is entirely right. We must focus ever more on mental health. That is why we are putting another £2.3 billion into supporting mental health, which includes suicide prevention and the many wonderful charities that help people with their conditions. All I can say is that it would be a good thing if, across the Floor of this House, we had support for the spending that we are putting in.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for rightly raising the concerns of his constituents. I know that Members across the House will have constituents in similar positions. Sir Robert will give evidence to the inquiry on 11 and 12 July, so just a few weeks from now, and the Government will need to reflect very carefully on his evidence to the inquiry in considering his study. But the points my hon. Friend makes are very valid and have been noted. There are complex factors to take into consideration and we will be doing just that.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

3. What steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help ensure food security preparedness as part of his Department’s national resilience strategy.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Steve Barclay)]

The Government are working closely with the food industry to ensure that the UK’s food security is resilient to shocks. The resilience strategy will be published this summer and will reflect a range of global resilience issues.

[Kerry McCarthy]

This situation has become increasingly urgent because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has seriously disrupted global food supplies. Will the Minister comment on rumours that the Government are reportedly abandoning many of the recommendations in the national food strategy, on which their response is long overdue, including measures that would help us to improve our food security?

[Steve Barclay]

We are working in partnership with the food industry—indeed, only yesterday I chaired a roundtable with industry representatives—and also working in partnership across the United Kingdom. We had representatives from the devolved Administrations there yesterday for what is a common purpose. We all want to see resilience, given the pressure on food prices, and we are working in partnership with industry representatives to take that strategy forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

A recent report showed that thousands of severely mentally ill prisoners who had been assessed as requiring hospitalisation were not being transferred because of the shortage of NHS beds, or they were facing long delays. Does the Secretary of State agree with the director of the Prison Reform Trust who said that this guarantees that

“people will leave prison in a worst state than when they came in, with every likelihood that the behaviour that originally led to their arrest and conviction will continue”?

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the hon. Lady. I think that there will cross-party support for the work that we are doing with the mental health Bill announced in the Queen’s Speech, absolutely ending prison as a place of safety, if you like, for those with mental health issues and making sure that those who are seriously mentally unwell can be transferred into secure hospitals. I recently met the Health and Social Care Secretary to expedite those arrangements.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend, as a former magistrate with much additional knowledge of probation issues, speaks about these matters with huge expertise. I do pay tribute to the resident judge, and indeed to all members of the judiciary. They are, of course, independent from Government, and they have huge responsibilities. As I said during my first appearance at the Dispatch Box, we owe a huge debt to all our judiciary as well as all our clerks and all those who work in our courts for keeping justice going during the pandemic, and we can repay them by taking every possible measure to reduce the backlog.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

16. What steps his Department is taking with youth custody centres to help prevent reoffending.

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

The number of children entering the youth justice system has fallen by 81% in the last decade and the number of children on the secure estate has fallen by about three quarters. We are, however, developing a more specialised workforce focused on rehabilitation, because we accept that that is how to help these young people to move away from a life of crime. Every prison officer on the youth estate is now funded to take up a qualification in youth justice by next year. We have also created specialist youth justice worker officers, who are trained to work with children, and we already have 284 in post.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I hope that the Minister has been talking to her colleague the Housing Minister about his plans to regulate supported housing, which were announced last week and which we very much welcome. Will she now talk to him about the need to ensure that if 16 and 17-year-olds are released from custody and it is not appropriate for them to go back to their family home, they are not placed in unregulated housing?

[Victoria Atkins]

Very much so. As I said in answer to previous questions, home is a vital part of rehabilitation and cutting reoffending. We know about some of the particular pressures that young people can face if, for example, they have been drawn into county lines gangs, and the geographical location of their home may be a pertinent element in their reoffending or their vulnerability to reoffending. I am happy to confirm that I will be speaking to the Housing Minister. I am also drawing together a cross-Whitehall group of Ministers to discuss how we can tackle youth offending at the earliest stages, not just when a child reaches the justice system.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

Work on the Santiago Network is under way. Submissions are being requested from parties. As my hon. Friend knows, it is a two-year programme. We want to ensure that by the end of the year, and by COP27, we have operationalised the Santiago Network, and that there is funding available to provide technical support to countries that need it.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I thank the President for attending the meeting on small island developing states recently; they really appreciated that. If global warming is kept at 2°, we will lose 99% of our coral reefs; if it is at 1.5°, we will lose 70%. It seems particularly appropriate, with COP27 being held in Sharm el-Sheikh, that that should be a priority. Could the President tell us whether it will be?

[Alok Sharma]

It is absolutely a priority. The hon. Lady makes particular reference to support provided for adaptation, and as I said we reached a commitment at COP26 for developed nations to double the amount of money going towards adaptation finance by 2025. I want to ensure that we are on trajectory by the time we get to Sharm el-Sheikh.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

5. What steps he is taking to facilitate open and transparent public procurement.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

8. What steps he is taking to facilitate open and transparent public procurement.

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

14. What steps he is taking to ensure that underperforming Government contractors may not apply for further Government contracts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

One of the opportunities of Brexit is that we will be able to encourage people to buy more from SMEs, which tend to be UK-based rather than from overseas. Opening up procurement has the effect of ensuring that more British companies get contracts, and that is a good thing to be doing, but there is always a balance to be struck between ensuring that one buys cheaply and efficiently and supporting British companies. I believe that British companies can out-compete, and be as efficient as, anyone in the world, and that that is how procurement ought to operate.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The Government spend £2 billion every year on food for schools, hospitals, prisons and so on. When they eventually respond to the national food strategy, will they accept its recommendations on reforming procurement rules so that food purchased with taxpayers’ money is always healthy and sustainable—and will the Minister confirm that foie gras will not be on the menu?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I do not think we need to go into my personal dietary habits. I have mainly been giving free publicity to Cadbury Creme Eggs over the years, rather than going into the details of whether or not I like foie gras—although people may be able to guess what the answer is.

As for the strategy for procurement of food, one of the things it will do is allow social benefit to be taken into account. It will not just be about value for money, although value for money is inevitably fundamental to all procurement, so it will be possible for people to make decisions on a broader range of issues.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I can tell him that the people of Orpington and elsewhere will receive support if they do not qualify for the council tax rebate from the £144 million fund that he rightly mentions.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

5. How does the Prime Minister think it looks, when we are in a cost of living crisis, with our constituents struggling to put food on the table or coats on their kids’ backs, and members of his Cabinet are throwing their toys out of the pram because they want to eat foie gras and wear fur?

[The Prime Minister]

We are tackling the cost of living crisis, which is caused by a global inflation spike, with everything that we can. I thank my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in particular for what he is doing to abate the costs of energy—lifting the living wage by the biggest ever amount and helping people on universal credit. The single best thing that we have done on the cost of living is making sure that we have millions more people into work. There are 430,000 more in employment now than there were before the pandemic began. That is how we are tackling the cost of living, and we will get on with it.

Covid-19 Update

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That is right. We will encourage people to do so, but it will not be compulsory.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who talked about the severe shortages of lateral flow tests in pharmacies, the Prime Minister was incredibly dismissive and seemed to suggest that my hon. Friend was making it all up. The Prime Minister might like to speak to my constituent who both phoned and emailed me on Monday desperate to go to work the next day as a crucial frontline NHS worker but who could not get his hands on a test. I ended up popping round myself with some spare tests. Can the Prime Minister assure me that from now on my constituent will be able to get the tests that he needs when he needs them, so that he can go to work and do his job in the NHS?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady really must not misrepresent what I said. I began by saying that I shared the frustrations of people up and down the country who had been unable to get the tests that they wanted. I also pointed out that we had huge demand for tests that we were doing our level best to meet, that we tripled supply, that we were making tests in this country on a scale never seen before, and that we were doing more testing than any other country in Europe. Those are positives. I fully accept that it has been difficult for people to get tests, but we are stepping up supply the whole time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend for that, as he is absolutely right: those are two core drivers of reoffending. So in the White Paper we set out plans to deliver a prisoner education service that will focus not only on the big challenges we see with inmates on numeracy and literacy, but on encouraging vocational qualifications—a step up during their course in prison. We will be driving better outcomes on work by implementing dedicated employment advisers in prisons and a digital tool to match prisoners to jobs on release.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

One way of preventing reoffending would be to make sure that appropriate sentences are imposed in the first place, so what is the Minister doing to ensure that pre-sentence reports are available before prisoners are jailed or given alternative community sentences?

[Dominic Raab]

I do not see these things as binary opposites; we need to see robust punishment and robust deterrence. I am disappointed that Opposition Members voted against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which would end automatic release at the halfway point. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) wants to vote against stronger sentences for dangerous criminals, he can stand on that record. But in answer to the hon. Lady’s question, let me say that we are looking at all the other drivers: drugs rehabilitation and, in particular, drugs recovery wings in prisons; vocational educational training; and, crucially, providing hope and the chance to get inmates into work, be it during their time in prison or while they are on licence.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

What is important is that we ensure that people are not coerced into conversion therapy, but it is also important to protect freedom of speech, the ability of adults to consent and the freedom to express the teachings of—[Interruption.] I hear Opposition Members asking whether freedom of speech is a good thing. Yes, it is.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

9. What steps she is taking with the Secretary of State for Education to help ensure that autistic children receive appropriate educational support under equalities legislation.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Will Quince)]

Education settings are required to make reasonable adjustments for disabled children, including those with autism, under the Equality Act 2010. The “SEND code of practice” sets out detailed guidance on meeting children’s needs. Through the new autism strategy, published in July, the Government set out our vision to make life fundamentally better for autistic people by 2026, including in education.

[Kerry McCarthy]

A recent report from the National Autistic Society said that a quarter of autistic children can wait more than three years to receive the extra support they need. Does the Minister agree that that is an equalities issue? What conversations will he have in the Department for Education to ensure that schools and councils get the funding that they need to carry out special educational needs and disabilities assessments and make the right provision?

[Will Quince]

As an Education Minister, of course I want every child to fulfil their potential. I am committed to speaking to and working with children, families, parents, carers and SEND experts, including the National Autistic Society, which I met this week as part of a stakeholder roundtable. I am always happy to listen to the voices of sector leaders and I would be happy to meet the hon. Lady.