Police Grant Report

Debate between Louise Haigh and Steve McCabe

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

I want to start, as the Minister did, by paying tribute to the men and women who serve in our police service. The counterpart to this debate took place a little under a year ago, and no one could have imagined the unspeakable series of attacks that would follow in 2017. Throughout, our police service officers have risen to the highest standards of bravery, dedication and duty, truly honouring the founding principles of policing in the process. Chief among that covenant is that our police service depends ultimately on public support. After a year in which we have seen officers run into danger to keep the public safe, the police can rarely have counted on such strong public support as they enjoy today.

But I know from speaking to those officers that they are tired of warm words, backed up with no action from politicians. Today they are under sustained pressure the like of which the service has rarely, if ever, encountered, and today we have heard that there is not to be a single extra penny from central Government for local police forces.

Before I go into the detail of the funding settlement before us, I want to deal with the demand that the Minister says he recognises the police are under. Between 2010 and 2017 the average number of 101 and 999 calls has rocketed; in South Yorkshire it has tripled. Just last year 999 calls increased by 15%. Forces such as the West Midlands police are receiving the number of calls on one day in June that they used to receive only on new year’s eve. In the last year overall crime has risen by 15%, the largest increase since records began, violent crime is up by 20%, robberies by 29% and sexual offences by 23%. Last year over 1.4 million more people than the year before experienced antisocial behaviour, while the number of orders handed out fell by a quarter. Yet those are only a tiny proportion of the issues our police have to deal with.

On becoming Home Secretary, the now Prime Minister told the police their only “mission” was

“to cut crime. No more, and no less”,

but 83% of calls to command and control centres are non-crime-related. They are calls associated with mental health—last year the Met took an average of one mental health call every five minutes—or with missing persons, a demand that has tripled for some forces over the last seven years. They are associated with a raft of vulnerabilities, because, as other services buckle, the police are relied upon more than ever as the social service of last resort.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, contrary to what the Minister has alleged, what Labour Members are doing today is standing up for their constituents and voting against cuts that are unsafe and putting our constituents at risk?

[Louise Haigh]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Today we will be voting against a completely inappropriate police funding settlement that leaves our communities exposed and the public at risk.

On top of all the demand I have listed, there is the unprecedented terrorist threat our country now faces. It is frankly unbelievable that, as the National Police Chiefs’ Council has recognised, the report before us fails to meet those growing needs and exposes gaps in the protection of the public.

So we have no choice but to vote against the motion tonight. We do so for three key reasons. First, the report prescribes an eighth consecutive year of real-terms cuts in Home Office funding. Secondly, it pushes the burden on to hard-pressed local taxpayers, and the very areas that have seen the most substantial cuts will get the least, inevitably creating a lottery of winners and losers that has no place for public safety. Thirdly, it fails to meet the needs identified by police chiefs, first and foremost in the area of counter-terrorism but also in local policing.

Work Capability Assessments

Debate between Louise Haigh and Steve McCabe

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Louise Haigh]

Again, my hon. Friend has neatly anticipated my next point, which is that the Office for Budget Responsibility has identified ESA and PIP as a major risk to planned public spending targets, given the uncertainty of the estimates. The NAO has gone so far as to say that PIP and disability living allowance performance issues have been the main contributing factor in the Department’s inability to save any money in the spending review period up to 2015.

It is clear that both the Government and contractors are failing on their own terms, yet still the cash is handed over to failing contractors. We are locked into long contracts whereby Departments do not have the capability to improve performance. The original policy itself is flawed, but it is in the treatment of individuals unlucky enough to come into contact with the system that the whole rotten trade-off between cost cutting by the Government and profit maximisation by Maximus is most apparent. Specific cases abound, and I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House would be able to relay evidence of deeply concerning practice, which is why it is interesting to note that not a single Government Back Bencher is in the Chamber today. I will list a few from my case load.

One man with learning difficulties whose case was highlighted to me attended his work capability assessment, but during the assessment his support worker was shocked at the lack of care and attention given to him. When the assessment came through, there were some glaring factual errors, but none the less his ESA was docked, just in case he was in any doubt about what comes first—the person or the profit. On making his request for mandatory reconsideration, he was appalled to find out that he would be ineligible for ESA, which was his lifeline, until the reconsideration decision was made, and he was unable to meet the conditions placed on him for jobseeker’s allowance. He now faces months of waiting until his tribunal, and potentially an annual battle if assessors continue to lack understanding of his learning difficulty.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Whatever my hon. Friend’s views about the contractors, does she agree that it is the Government’s responsibility to secure contractors whose assessors have sufficient knowledge of progressive conditions such as muscular dystrophy and sufficient awareness and training in areas such as learning disabilities? The contractors are not primarily responsible for that; is it not the Government’s responsibility?

[Louise Haigh]

Of course, I completely agree. The Government’s policy sets the direction for the contractors, which is why the contractors have such a huge gap in their understanding, particularly of mental health issues.

In another case, one of my constituents applied for a home visit after being unable to make their assessment. She has now been waiting for more than two years and still has not received a date. Throughout that time, she has been surviving on a reduced rate and is struggling, as anyone would, to get by. She is just one of 280,000 people in an enormous backlog.

Despite the fact that the Government have made it notably harder for people to appeal their decisions, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) mentioned, the latest figures show that 54% of appeals result in decisions being overturned. As in the case of the first constituent I mentioned, there seems to be an alarming trend of cases being rejected based on factual errors or even—I hesitate to say this—falsification. I have had several cases of people telling me that their assessment report bears absolutely no relation to the assessment that they experienced with Maximus or Atos. I am sure that other hon. Members have heard similar evidence. One or two cases could be dismissed as an honest mistake, but the situation appears to reveal a disconcerting pattern of behaviour that indicates that the trade-off between cost cutting and profit maximisation is being felt by very vulnerable people.

Maximus is not doing this to make a loss or out of the kindness of its heart, and it is failing on performance, which goes to the heart of the issue. Even if the Government were more concerned with the interests and wellbeing of the user, it would be extremely difficult for them to hold the contractors’ feet to the fire.

Education and Adoption Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Louise Haigh and Steve McCabe

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Steve McCabe]

Annie Crombie, the chair of the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies—a woman with a wealth of experience in the field and who has previously worked closely with the Government on adoption matters—emphasised quality and specialisms as the key factors in any new arrangements. Would the Minister require those in any construction developed to carry out adoption functions, and how would he indicate or specify such a thing?

During the evidence session, Anna Sharkey, the chief executive of Adoption Focus, expressed her concerns, like my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West, that the size and criteria for the new arrangements needed to be considered carefully. I press the Minister on what, in his mind, he is trying to design. What does success look like and how can he be sure that he has got this right?

I noticed that, during the evidence session, the Minister asked about the risk of being overly prescriptive and he has referred to Sir Martin Narey’s comments on that. The chief executive of Coram indicated that obviously there would be a problem if we devoted too much energy to trying to design the perfect arrangements in advance. She was worried that that may divert people from the key task of successfully placing children. I absolutely understand those concerns and I understand the Minister’s caution. I stress again that I support him in his wish to secure more successful adoptions and prevent unnecessary delays that could well leave children languishing in the care system when they need a fresh start and a chance to rebuild their lives.

Alison O’Sullivan, the president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, pointed out that, while children should not languish in the system, we should not automatically assume that waiting means languishing. It is not necessarily a bad thing that children are waiting because the right family placement must be found. There is a slight problem with the notion of time. Of course, we do not want unnecessary delays—I know, from my experience in a previous life, how damaging that can be—but if the existing care arrangements are good and well managed, waiting need not necessarily be bad.

For example, it would be perfectly sensible to wait to find the right placement when trying to get siblings adopted together or to place a child with particular difficulties, disabilities or special needs. Mrs O’Sullivan reminded us that while children are waiting, our duty remains the same. We have to ensure that those arrangements are the highest quality care that we are capable of providing.

Carol Homden reminded us of the store she places in concurrent planning. It is not necessary for social workers to assume that they will go down a single planning track, to the exclusion of all else. It is perfectly possible for a department to adopt a set of planning arrangements so that it can say, “This outcome is desirable or worth trying to achieve.” That will be most obvious when considering the possibility of a planned return home, which may be worth trying to achieve, but it makes perfect sense simultaneously to plan for adoption because a planned return home might not happen.

What exactly is the governing factor in the constructions and consortium arrangements that the Minister has in mind? Many of the people to whom I have spoken have commented on the fact that this legislation is particularly narrow. It is as if we are not paying sufficient attention to other care situations. We find ourselves thinking that the key factor is only to think about adoption and the speed of adoption in order to convince ourselves that if adoption is not taking place, waiting is intrinsically bad.

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The Bill makes it seem that the Government feel that adoption is the only solution for children in care. Figures from the Fostering Network show that, of the 65,000 children and young people in care, only 4,000 want or need to be adopted. Adoption is not an appropriate solution for the vast majority of children in care, who might be in care only temporarily. He is right on that point.

[Steve McCabe]

When only about 5% of children in the care system at any given point are likely to be adopted, it is dangerous if we become too focused on adoption to the exclusion of all else. The difficulties are obvious.

Returning to the notion of waiting, we need to be concerned about the quality of the care arrangement or placement that a child is experiencing now. I fear the unintended risk of saying, “We are pursuing adoption, and the focus must be on making that happen.” That is almost like being in a waiting room or a transport lounge, and the danger is that we will not place sufficient attention or focus on the quality of the care that the child is currently experiencing, which would be a dereliction of duty.