Equal Franchise Act 1928

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

It is an absolute pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Ms Buck, and to speak under your chairmanship. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) for securing the debate and giving us all the opportunity to talk about this issue today. She treated us to a really excellent contribution, which I look forward to reading in Hansard, because she touched on so many salient and important current political points.

I want to talk about the history of all women in this year of feminist anniversaries. The centenary of partial suffrage for women is important, but the centenary that means most to me will come in 10 years’ time. The women of my family were unable to vote in 1918, 1922, ’23 or ’24 because they were working class—they did not own property and they were not married to a man who owned property. As my hon. Friend has said, more than half the adult women in the UK were denied suffrage for a decade longer.

My family were proud of the right that they won. I was told at a really early age that they did not care who I voted for—as if!—but I had to vote. Only by voting would I respect the fight and the sacrifices made to secure my franchise. We sometimes forget that the story of suffrage is not just middle-class and white. Suffrage fighters were black, Indian, and disabled, like May Billinghurst, who once used her wheelchair as a battering ram to escape a police cordon when she had been trapped by a group of men.

[Mr Dhesi]

Does my hon. Friend agree that individuals such as Princess Sophia Duleep Singh are often left out of history and not celebrated as much as some of their counterparts, and that that is something that we need to remedy in our history?

[Lyn Brown]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning Sophia Duleep Singh. She was indeed a doughty fighter, and all too often women like her have been written out of our history. He does us a great service by bringing her name into the debate.

Above all, for me, suffrage fighters were working-class. The first branch of the Women’s Social and Political Union was opened in my constituency in Canning Town, where my family lived. It was opened by Sylvia Pankhurst, but equally by the working-class women Minnie Baldock and Annie Kenney, who was a mill worker. It is fair to say that the Women’s Social and Political Union had become quite autocratic over time and the leadership appeared increasingly intimidated by the strength of the heavily working-class branches of east London, so those branches were expelled, along with Sylvia Pankhurst, and they formed the new East London Federation of Suffragettes.

The success of the group was massive. They organised among workers, including more than 5 million women who worked in factories during the first world war. They fought against deprivation in working-class communities, opening free milk depots for mums with young children and canteens that served affordable, nutritious food. That was so important then—and sadly now. They even opened a co-operative toy factory that paid a living wage. It included a crèche and, unsurprisingly, it recognised the needs of working mothers. At the time, working women were generally on poverty wages in munitions factories or they were sewing uniforms at home. However, the east London suffragettes stepped up their support for working communities and refused to allow the war to stop their campaign, continuing to build momentum for genuinely universal suffrage when others had, frankly, given up.

It is true that Sylvia Pankhurst’s socialist convictions were important to the movement but, as she recognised herself, it was the working-class women who were key. She said that working-class women were:

“not merely the argument of more fortunate people, but...fighters on their own account, despising mere platitudes...and demanding for themselves and their families a full share of the benefits of civilisation and progress.”

She was proved right. After she had been imprisoned and was weak from force-feeding, it was the women of the east of London who offered her protection.

[Jo Stevens]

Does my hon. Friend share my view that although it is brilliant to see the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, it would be as good to see a statue of Sylvia on Clerkenwell Green?

[Lyn Brown]

I certainly do, and perhaps we could do something about the Payne family, who took Sylvia in when she was weak. The Payne family came from Old Ford, which is kind of Hackney, kind of Tower Hamlets, and kind of Stratford—so that makes it mine—and they were shoemakers. Police officers tried to surround the house that Sylvia was in, but they were confronted by really strong women who simply stood firm and resolute and refused to move. Special branch officers attempted to bribe the women to withdraw and to allow them to use their rooms for surveillance. They offered decent money, but every single woman and family, I am proud to say, stood firm and refused to accept the bribes. They refused to move. I believe that, if the East London Federation had not put working-class women first, the anniversary that we are celebrating today would have taken much longer to achieve.

Those women stood on the shoulders of the match women who went on strike. They were from the same area and of the same stock. History is clear: the match women’s success in organising for themselves and fighting for their rights inspired London’s east end dockers to do the same. Those women were the wives, daughters, sisters and mothers of the dockers who went on strike the year after. The match women did not plead for inclusion in the labour movement, because they created it. They organised, fought and won against massive odds. They were instrumental in founding a political labour movement that continues to fight for fair pay and conditions for all Britain’s workers today.

I am happy that people know about those events through the wonderful work of the amazing historian Dr Louise Raw, whose sixth successful annual match women’s festival took place last Saturday. Louise and I have been campaigning for a proper memorial for the match women at the Bryant and May factory site in Bow where they worked. Progress is slow, but I am glad to tell the sisters present—and the brothers—that I reckon we will make it within the next 12 months. We have strong support from residents, historians and activists.

We are making some progress with recognition of our history as working-class women. However, Members will agree that we have a way to go, because in the east of London we have a Jack the Ripper museum that glamorises misogynist murders and turns the working-class women victims into mere props. At the same time, one of the victims, Annie Chapman, is buried in a pauper’s grave in Newham, and one of the match women’s leaders, Sarah Chapman—no relation, as it happens—is buried just a few metres away. Those are the stories that we need to tell and remember. Those are the people we need to memorialise—not a sad, sick man.

Why do we have a Jack the Ripper museum? The building was originally supposed to be a celebration of east end women but, according to newspaper reports, the developers lied. The travesty of the Ripper museum in Cable Street, of all places, may have a positive outcome yet, because the campaign for an east end women’s museum is stronger than ever. The campaigners aim to secure a permanent home for their exhibitions, which they expect to open in 2020. They are still talking about putting the museum in Barking—but I still have my dreams.

Learning about our history is important, because unless we know where we come from and who we are, it is hard to know where we can go. The history we talk about today can play a part in inspiring a new generation. Remembering our past helps us to understand our present and imagine our future. If more people knew about the true contribution of working-class women to the suffrage and labour movements, and the rights and prosperity in this society today, they would be less likely to overlook the amazing women who do that same work now. The potential that my working-class sisters have is enormous. They need the recognition and the space to achieve it.

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[Dawn Butler]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and I absolutely agree, because only then will we be able to measure how far we have come and what still needs to be done.

[Lyn Brown]

While my hon. Friend is advocating on behalf of the statues that we could build, maybe we could have a statue that had some of the working-class women around it, such as Minnie Baldock and Annie Kenney; maybe they could stand shoulder to shoulder with the other women she wants on the plinth. Maybe we could have a really big platform with lots of women from the suffrage movement standing tall.

[Dawn Butler]

How amazing would it be to walk around different parts of London and the country, and see statues of women, and learn about their history, and know that we have made that happen? People always bang on about Britain having had two female Prime Ministers. Well, we have a female Prime Minister—I am not saying that I want statues of the female Prime Minister going up all around the place, but I am saying that the female Prime Minister can make the decision. She can say, “Right, I will give the money for this to happen, so that we can embrace our rich and colourful and socialist history”, because our job is to give a voice to the voiceless and to uncover the hidden stories. Should I have missed out the word “socialist” there? [Laughter.] Our job is to put a name to “A.N. Other” and to “Anonymous”, to ensure that history becomes herstory, and that herstory paints a true picture of a moment in time.

Working-class women fought for all women, so when women of today fight for the select, privileged few, I find it hard to refer to them as feminists, and when they use their voice to amplify their privilege and ignore the cries of the less fortunate, I find it hard to support the cause wholeheartedly. I hope that in time people will use their power and privilege for progress. People often talk about the legacy that they will leave behind; I think that we need to talk about the foundation that we will leave behind. Women who are on the ladder of success should leave behind them the foundation for an escalator, and the women who are on the escalator of success should leave behind them the foundation for a lift, so that those women who come behind us get to that destination, quicker and more smoothly.

Ukraine (Flight MH17) and Gaza

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Jim Dowd.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Lady must have been renamed; or perhaps I was not clear enough. I called Jim Dowd.

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[Mr Speaker]

I am sorry about the identity crisis. I call Lyn Brown.

[Lyn Brown]

A reported 12,000-plus rockets have been fired into Gaza over the past 13 days, with more than 500 deaths and more than 80,000 Gazans displaced. May I simply ask the Prime Minister what pressure he is prepared to apply, if he will not pursue economic sanctions against Israel, to ensure that Israel complies with international humanitarian law and exercises the restraint that he says he wants to see?

[The Prime Minister]

The pressure we bring to bear, as a friend of Israel, is to be very clear in our interactions with it about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. The hon. Lady has got to consider—the figure she cites is actually now out of date; 1,850 rockets have been fired into Israel—that if we want a ceasefire, we have to ask ourselves this question: why has Hamas not accepted a ceasefire, when Israel repeatedly has?

Apprenticeships and Skills (Public Procurement Contracts) Bill

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Friday 1st November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne]

Were that to succeed, then yes, but the hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that some Government Departments, public bodies and local authorities would still be saying “We cannot do this.” Introducing legislation giving them the power to ask to be allowed to do it, if it is what they want to do, will make the position clear to all. The Bill is not prescriptive; it does not compel those bodies to act. On the contrary, it empowers them.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

When I read the Bill, I thought to myself “This is a wonderful Bill. It is all motherhood and apple pie. It is fabulous.” Now I am struggling to understand why there is so much Conservative resistance to a Bill that will simply give our young people a decent start in life. What can possibly be wrong with that?

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. I am confident that by the end of my speech and those of other Labour Members, the sceptics sitting opposite me will be won over to the cause of young people in their constituencies, which is equal to that of young people in Newham, Tameside, Salford, Hull, Newcastle, Liverpool, Birmingham, Scunthorpe and Scotland.

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[Andrew Gwynne]

For a young person. That can be carried out in a variety of ways, one of which the hon. Gentleman outlined. Of course, however, it would be incumbent on that company or group of companies to explain what it is doing as part of the bid process. It would then be down to the public body to determine whether that meets its aims and ambitions for its local economy, but he is right in what he says.

Through the Tameside apprenticeships scheme, the local council has committed to helping small companies such as the ones the hon. Gentleman mentioned to take on apprentices, in response to feedback received about the difficulties they may experience. Those difficulties relate particularly to the construction sector, and some other sectors, where an employer cannot guarantee that contracts will last for the full 12 months or more of the apprenticeship. Tameside apprenticeships, a partnership between Tameside council, Tameside college, New Charter housing trust and the Tameside learning provider network has set a target to achieve 100 additional apprenticeships in the borough in the next 12 months.

If the employer has to withdraw from the agreement, the council has undertaken to pay the apprentices’ wages for a month while a replacement employer is found. As I have already said, the 50:50 scheme set up by Tameside council also provides up to 50 apprenticeship grants of £1,000 each to employers who take on 16, 17 or 18-year-old Tameside residents. It has been a huge success.

Good apprenticeship opportunities are also offered by the local housing association, New Charter housing trust. During apprentice week this year, it showed its continued support for apprentices with a pledge to take on at least 20 people from April, doubling the number of apprentices from the previous year. The trust has apprentices in a range of roles across the company including in administration, domestic gas engineering, painting and decorating and plastering—all good apprenticeships that can offer a ladder to a future career. New Charter has also taken on a role as lead partner in a new housing apprenticeship scheme for Greater Manchester called “Foundations in Housing”, working with other housing associations across the county.

In the Stockport part of my constituency, there is the 100 apprenticeships in 100 days initiative. Stockport council, which, incidentally, is Liberal Democrat controlled—I do not often have good words to say about the Liberal Democrats but today I will break the habit of a lifetime, even though it is noticeable that no Liberal Democrats have turned up to support the Bill—has worked with local employers to get them to take on more apprentices. Within the 100 days, the scheme’s target of 100 apprentices was soon reached and the campaign will now run until mid-November. It has been such a success that it has secured about 152 extra apprentices so far.

I also want to consider some of the good work being done by central Government. We know that since July 2011, the Department of Work and Pensions has been operating its apprenticeships and skills requirement contract schedule, which requires:

“The Contractor shall and shall procure that its Sub-contractors shall take all reasonable steps to ensure that 5% of their employees are on a formal apprenticeship programme.”

We can see from that initiative how the same formula could be applied directly elsewhere and in other Government Departments beside the DWP. Many more apprenticeship places could be created if the Government really wanted to expand apprenticeships in the public sector and through public procurement. I believe that my Bill can help the Government to facilitate that.

What better spur to action can there be for the two thirds of businesses that still do not offer apprenticeships than the knowledge that they are crucial to the Government and to working with the Government? Government, whether local or national, realises that it must be the responsibility of public procurement to do all it can to give young people a chance to get experience as an apprentice. Having an hands-off approach is simply not good enough and I commend the Government for recognising that in at least one of their Departments.

As I said in my opening remarks, all Members of this House celebrate the value of apprenticeships in providing opportunities and developing the skills of our work force and our future work force. We need to have more quality apprenticeship opportunities, however, particularly for young people at a time when nearly 1 million young people are out of work. I believe that my Bill would be useful and helpful to the Government in promoting that. It is common sense that the Government and public authorities are uniquely placed to use the leverage of the money that they already spend on procurement of public services to promote skills training and to provide new apprenticeship opportunities. That should be part of the procurement process.

The Bill is a relatively simple idea. Every supplier winning public contracts worth more than £1 million may be required to offer apprenticeship opportunities if that is the desire of the relevant public body. The Bill is not prescriptive and it does not compel, but it does empower. It would mean that companies applying for certain public procurement projects could be asked to include and offer quality apprenticeships as part of their bid if the public body wants that. My Bill would ensure that all apprenticeships offered as part of a public procurement contract would have to be advertised to all local workers, ensuring that those looking for a job would have a chance to apply and to be successful.

My Bill focuses on advanced and higher level apprenticeships, at levels 3 and 4, to ensure that we have apprenticeships that can rival university degrees. We should consider that point, given that in my constituency 68% of young people—and no doubt a similar proportion in the constituencies of other right hon. and hon. Members—or 50% of young people across the country do not have the opportunity to obtain a higher education qualification.

[Lyn Brown]

My hon. Friend is most generous in giving way. In my constituency, a firm called Kesslers has an amazing apprenticeship programme. It takes young people from the local area and trains them up to a high level. Its biggest problem is that it cannot get the higher education sector to hear its needs so that it can take its apprenticeships even further up the educational tree. Does my hon. Friend agree that higher education has a part to play in apprenticeships and we must encourage the providers to supply the courses that are needed to allow our young people to go as far as they possibly can?

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the consequences of the provisions in my Bill will be a snowball effect. If public bodies, in particular, demand higher and advanced level qualifications as part of the apprenticeship deal more often, the greater the likelihood that higher education institutions will offer the qualifications that are relevant to the industries concerned. I think that from small things big things will grow. I am encouraged that my hon. Friend is in the Chamber today, because she speaks passionately about the job and work opportunities for her constituents. Like me, she represents a deprived community where educational opportunities are often the best route out of poverty. We know that in our communities public procurement is often the big spender. Using that money more wisely to help lift the job opportunities, skills and ambitions of young people in Newham and in Denton and Reddish is the best way of giving them opportunities for the future and of boosting the local economy.

As I said, many local authorities are already leading the way in their use of procurement to boost apprenticeship numbers. Not only my council, Tameside, but Knowsley, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool and many others are developing strategies to use procurement contracts to create local apprenticeship opportunities for young people. Other authorities such as Plymouth, Bury—the authority of the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) —Reading and Stockport are engaging actively with local employers to boost apprenticeship opportunities more generally.

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[Philip Davies]

As ever, I want to make some progress, and it could be argued that I am being thwarted in so doing. I do not want to be distracted today. I want to get on with it, as I always do, and I hope that I will satisfy the hon. Gentleman. But to return to the thrust of the argument that because I agree with virtually all the speech of the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish and some parts of the Bill, I must therefore support every Bill that has some parts with which I agree, that is not a view that I share. I agree with some parts of most Bills. An MEP once said to me that it is like having a cup of tea with some poison in it. Most of the tea might be fine, but no one would want to drink it. It is the little bit of poison that one must look for in legislation, not the general thrust.

[Lyn Brown]

The hon. Gentleman knows that I enjoy him very much on a Friday morning, and often listen to him with great interest. But I fear that I must press him on this point. Where is the poison in this four-clause Bill?

[Philip Davies]

I am still reeling from the hon. Lady’s opening remark. That is how rumours start in this place. It would probably be more damaging to her reputation than to mine if that rumour were to spread. I will try to come to the meat of the Bill and put to the back of my mind the temptation that she put in my mind about what happens on a Friday morning. For the record, it is the first I have known about it.

The reason I agree so much with what the hon. Gentleman said is that we need to go back to the purpose of apprenticeships. It is a shame that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) is no longer in his place because if I am wrong about this, he would have put me right. Apprenticeships date back to the reign of Elizabeth I.

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[Philip Davies]

Of course we agree on that, but I am not convinced that the Bill delivers that; if I were, I would agree with it. It could deliver false expectations and enable companies bidding for a contract to go through the motions of offering something that will not do the apprentice any good and benefit only those companies.

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not want a false prospectus to be put before young people to help a big company win a lucrative contract. A lot depends on how the initiatives are described. He describes them as he does, but if I describe them as I do, people might come to a different conclusion about whether we should support them.

[Lyn Brown]

I have mostly been paying rapt attention to what the hon. Gentleman has said. However, I have still failed to hear which clause causes such offence. I would be so grateful for a hint.

[Philip Davies]

Perhaps I have been speaking in Swahili.

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[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) on introducing such a Bill. I have never been so lucky as to be successful in the ballot, but perhaps if I am here for another year or so I might finally get the success that has eluded me.

My hon. Friend has also been lucky in the Minister who is on the Front Bench today—the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd)—as he is a decent and good man. He and I sat here for many Friday mornings putting the Sustainable Communities Bill through the House. I hesitate to suggest, because I realise that I might be damning his career badly by this, that he truly does understand this kind of soft regeneration issue. If one took the Sustainable Communities Bill down to its last detail, one could have argued that it was not necessary because we could have done all the things in it without having to pass legislation. However, it was an empowering Bill and it meant a lot to the third sector. So my argument is that not only is this Bill a good one in its own right, but it follows the trajectory taken by the Minister in his own private Member’s Bill that was passed under the previous Government. I therefore have a lot of faith that his response will be hopeful and positive, and will allow this Bill to progress to the next stages, to allow my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies)—I hope I may call him that—to table his amendments. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish would welcome him on the Committee.

I wish to draw on the experience of the London Legacy Development Corporation, which is undertaking excellent work in my constituency and neighbouring constituencies to transform the legacy of the Olympic games into an enduring benefit for local people. I hope that that legacy will endure for generations to come. Since October 2012, the LLDC has been delivering a large programme of construction works at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic park to clear the games-time overlay, including temporary venues, walkways and roads. It is connecting the park with the new roads, cycle paths and pedestrian paths that criss-cross over the site, connecting it to the surrounding area. It is also completing permanent venues, bridges and parklands for their legacy use.

The scheme is a £229 million transformation programme and it has presented the LLDC with its first opportunity to deliver against its strategic aim of being a catalyst for regeneration and convergence in east London and its public commitment in terms of the employment and skills benefit during post-games construction.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is making a compelling case about how public procurement can lever in those skills and training opportunities for young people in quite a deprived part of the country, but is it not the case that too few public bodies in her constituency in east London are making use of those opportunities? Would my Bill not help to lever in those extra training opportunities as an enabling power for those public bodies?

[Lyn Brown]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The reason I so want to talk about the LLDC is that it has an innovative way of delivery, which might help him in his arguments with our friend on the Government Benches about the issue of small companies not being able to deliver on this scale. We are talking about a new vehicle to achieve my hon. Friend’s aims.

May I say to my hon. Friend that I think he has missed an opportunity, but I am hoping he will correct that as we go on this afternoon, which is to draw attention to the wonderful Minister and encourage him, through our warm words and congratulations, and the heartfelt faith that we have in his abilities, to support the Bill today?

[Andrew Gwynne]

I do not wish to pile even more praise on the Minister, but I have every confidence that he shares our ambition to raise the skills and job opportunities of people in places such as Newham and Denton and Reddish and I am confident that when he comes to the Dispatch Box he will have lots of nice things to say about the Bill. We are not too far apart and what differences we have can be ironed out in Committee.

[Lyn Brown]

Indeed they can, and the Minister knows just how exciting such a Committee can be, having been through that process himself.

The LLDC’s focus has been on the creation of job and apprenticeship opportunities in legacy for local people, especially for young people and underrepresented groups who face significant barriers to entering or returning to the labour market. The principal vehicle for delivering those benefits has been embedding them as a requirement in procurement.

Through its social and economic policy, the legacy corporation has developed an approach that uses its procurement processes to assess a bidder’s track records and proposals for securing local social and economic benefits. I remind hon. Members that the LLDC is not some socialist organisation capturing the regeneration opportunities in east London. It is, in fact, a vehicle of the Mayor of London, who would not wish, I think, to be called “one of these outrageous socialist types”. He might possibly rail against such an accusation. It is his programme that has determined that the LLDC will use its procurement in this way.

One of the arguments made by the hon. Member for Shipley, who, sadly, is no longer in his place—I know that he has not left the Chamber because I am speaking—was that it would take too long to go through an assessment process for each of the preferred contractors to prefer the contractors who delivered on the apprenticeships. The gentleman who runs London obviously disagrees, because his processes are clearly about assessing a bidder’s track record and proposals for securing economic benefits and determining a contract based on those assessments. He also wishes to embed those commitments contractually and works in partnership with the contractors, operators, tenants and development partners to deliver them.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I do not wish to take the name of the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) in vain as he is not in his place—although he has left his presence in the Chamber in the shape of a lone copy of the Daily Mail. So let me ask my hon. Friend: is she aware whether the Mayor of London has had any problems with the European Commission as regards public procurement?

[Lyn Brown]

I am not. I would assume that we would have heard if there had been any particular difficulties with said establishment and the procurement processes for London.

As the Bill is not, as my hon. Friend said, about forcing people to do things, the important point is that the Mayor and his offices are working with contractors to develop and deliver his aims. It is not about forcing, but about enabling and empowering.

The Mayor also wants to focus on early intervention with contractors, so that they understand their requirements and co-ordinate delivery. That makes perfect sense to me.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Is it not a good thing that my Bill would give the Mayor of London the ability to say to those contractors, “As Mayor of London, I expect a certain proportion of the apprenticeships that you are providing to be of a higher or an advanced level”?

[Lyn Brown]

It is indeed, but the dialogue with the contractors is clearly what is essential in this process, and my hon. Friend’s Bill provides the Mayor of London and others with a vehicle to say to them, “See? It is here in black and white. It is law. I am entitled to do this. This is something I am enabled to do by Parliament, but I would like to work with you as a contractor, to get the best from you and from the programme.”

The Mayor also delivers and develops interventions with the borough partners, so all the London boroughs are enabled to be in partnership with the programme. He works with Jobcentre Plus—let us face it, that can only be a good thing—and he works with the Greater London authority to embed best practice and partnership working to support contractors in fulfilling their obligations. How can that be a bad thing? The Bill provides the Mayor of London and his organisations with the opportunity to show contractors that they are not acting illegally by undertaking this process.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Does my hon. Friend think it is a good or a bad thing that her constituents in West Ham will have access to job adverts in their local jobcentre, rather than having to guess where such opportunities are advertised?

[Lyn Brown]

I absolutely do think it is important that we are working with jobcentres. In Newham we have an excellent programme called Workplace, in which local employers work with the local council and Jobcentre Plus to advertise local positions locally before they are advertised regionally or nationally. That can only be a good thing in an area with the deprivation indices that we have. It is one way of embedding into the area an economic and social legacy for the people that I represent.

The other good thing about what the LLDC is doing is that it adds value and avoids duplication with the existing employment and skills provision of the London boroughs. We are not talking about something that becomes unwieldy, or that is not welcomed by the other host boroughs. When we are recreating infrastructure and targeting delivery according to the needs of the park, we ensure that it is done in the most cost-effective way.

The LLDC is tailoring its approach to the specific needs of the contracts in the programme. We are not asking employers to take on apprenticeships and to have apprenticeships that are not consistent with what they are contracted to undertake. That is another good thing. The Bill would not require the LLDC to change its modus operandi at all; it gives a platform on which the LLDC can base its apprenticeship programme. Obviously, it promotes best practice in recruitment and promotes the London living wage or the construction working board agreements—whichever is higher. I am sure that every Member in the Chamber would applaud that.

There is a strong client commitment to delivering jobs and apprenticeships, which means ensuring that these elements are sufficiently weighted in the pre-qualification questionnaire and invitation-to-tender evaluations. The Bill sends an important message to bidders about the importance of this agenda to the LLDC. The need for apprenticeships is there. It is in the pre-qualification questionnaire. If you want to—I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker; I know that you will not want to qualify as a contractor at the LLDC, although you could should you wish to, of course.

Any company that wishes to qualify to take a contract with the LLDC has to submit a completed questionnaire. One of the questions in it is, “Are you prepared to offer apprenticeships?” If the company is not prepared to do so, it might get a bit cross. It might think to itself, “Why should I have to?” The Bill will point to the fact that the LLDC is entitled to place that requirement in its pre-tender questionnaire.

The LLDC makes sure that contractors are aware of everything in its procurement pipeline, and uses the principle of relevancy to identify appropriate evaluation questions and weighting. Externally, the LLDC ensures that bidders are clear about the regeneration aims and objectives of the LLDC—convergence and so on. I know that we all understand what that means.

Crucially, the LLDC provides contractors with enough information to know what kind of commitment they are making. It specifies the commitment that companies will have to make in order to get the contract. It is clear that companies will be monitored, evaluated and held to account for what they deliver or fail to deliver. The Bill will make sure that those companies understand that the LLDC is not asking anything of them that it is not entitled to do.

The LLDC asks bidders to set targets for apprenticeships for under-represented groups such as black and minority ethnic communities, disabled people, previously unemployed people, people who have been unemployed for a very long time, and women. I hope you do not mind, Madam Deputy Speaker, if I digress for a moment and say that one of the things that I liked about the apprenticeship programme for the building of the Olympic sites was how it encouraged women into construction industries.

One of the things I learned from sitting in a digger truck and trying to excavate the earth at the Olympic park was that employers liked women using their equipment, because we are gentler on it and the equipment lasts longer if women are employed to use it. I know this from my own experience of driving a car and using the clutch, but my husband disagrees somewhat.

[Barbara Keeley]

Earlier I mentioned City West in Salford, which takes on apprentices. Those apprentices usually appear at city festivals, where I saw the best example I have ever seen of somebody plastering. That left me, and probably left that woman too, with the view that plastering is not something I will ever be good at. She persuaded me to try it. She was an excellent woman plastering apprentice, but this MP is not going that way.

[Lyn Brown]

I am not very good at icing cakes either.

[Diana Johnson]

I went to the Hull training awards last Friday in my constituency. The overall winner, the apprentice of the year, was a woman engineer, which I was delighted to see because we are missing out on a huge pool of talent among young women, who do not think engineering is for them. They make some of the very best engineers in this country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lyn Brown]

Indeed they do.

The LLDC also seeks a firm commitment to this approach in the procurement by its contractors, so not only is the LLDC looking at its own people, but at the secondary chain. The expectation of apprenticeships goes further than just the one tier. We know that a big contract is let to a contractor, who lets to subcontractors. The LLDC has ensured that procurement for apprenticeships goes further down the line than the initial contract. In future, should anybody ever query its right to do so, the LLDC will be able to point to the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish to show that it is quite entitled to ask for that commitment.

The LLDC will also evaluate its contractors on the proposals for working with boroughs to make sure that they are getting the most from those apprenticeships. I, like most hon. Members present, have an active third sector in the provision of training opportunities for young people. Community Links in my constituency is continually involved in finding young people who have become particularly disaffected at school or thereafter, helping to put them back on track. It will be able to refer to the LLDC a young person whom they think is right for an apprenticeship. That kind of partnership has real ramifications for our communities. If we ramp them up properly and use procurement in this way, and if we demonstrate by law that we, the LLDC and public bodies are entitled to use procurement in this very socially acceptable and socially manipulative way, we can see—

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is making a superb contribution today. I commend to her the work of Stockport Engineering Training Association Ltd in my constituency, a training company that has been established by industries in the north-west, mainly engineering, railway and nuclear industries, to provide training and apprenticeship opportunities for young people. It is concerned that the number of schemes coming through its centre has fallen in recent years. Should we not address that through public procurement?

[Lyn Brown]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Giving local authorities and procurement authorities the confidence that they can use procurement in this way to create apprenticeships and use it for the benefit and betterment of our communities can only be a good thing. I am sure that the Minister will not close his ears to our entreaties to allow the Bill to continue into Committee.

Surely it is in everybody’s interests that contractors deliver jobs and apprenticeships and make the commitment to them, as the LLDC has, as a key partner in east London, bringing significant locally based employment and skills infrastructure to support recruitment needs. It encourages an open and regular conversation with contractors and their supply chains, beginning immediately upon the contract being signed. As we know, it begins before that, because that is what good relationships are about, but, make no mistake, when the contract is signed, it is expected that the companies will deliver and honour the commitments that they have made to the apprenticeships in those local areas.

We need to ensure that the changing trends in the construction industry, such as the higher levels of subcontracting and shorter construction programmes, have made it difficult for some firms to offer traditional apprenticeships. In response to that issue, and to ensure delivery on the public commitments, the legacy corporation has commissioned REDS10. I want hon. Members to remember that name. I do not want any Government Members to have palpitations; this is not a socialist programme. REDS does not refer to the colour of its politics—

[Andrew Gwynne]

Shame.

[Lyn Brown]

It is indeed. It is merely a descriptive word that the LLDC has chosen to deliver the transformation job and apprenticeship brokerage project.

[Andrew Gwynne]

The more my hon. Friend goes on, the more I warm towards the Mayor of London.

[Lyn Brown]

I am afraid that my hon. Friend is encouraging me to sit down, but I will continue.

REDS10 is a National Apprenticeship Service-approved apprenticeship training agency—isn’t that a mouthful? It is contracted to work with prime and subcontractors to broker apprenticeships and job opportunities for local people in the Olympic park transformation programme. REDS10 takes on the apprentices, pays their wages, provides their training and then places them with the subcontractors, allowing them to complete their training across different projects and under the guidance of multiple firms. Therefore, we do not need to disadvantage firms in a supply chain that are unable to provide a full-scale apprenticeship. Instead, they can contract their part of an apprenticeship scheme from REDS10 and make a contribution, which is agreed in the contract with LLDC. Smaller firms are then enabled to participate in the supply chain. Is that not a great idea? Yes.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

It is a great idea, and it is being replicated across the country. Humberside Engineering Training Association, which I visited this time last week with my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) to meet apprentices, is doing exactly the same thing in Scunthorpe, in Tata and elsewhere.

[Lyn Brown]

By not excluding small firms from supply chains, we can set up vehicles that enable them to compete in the same way as larger firms. The apprenticeships requirement that the Bill would enable authorities to deliver will not preclude smaller firms from participating.

The ATA model has allowed the creation and delivery of apprenticeship opportunities that would not otherwise have been created. To date, it has seen a peak of 60 apprenticeships on site, the highest number on a single site in London in 2013. I am sure that we all congratulate them. The project has now moved into its follow-on phase, with the LLDC and REDS10 working closely with prime and subcontractors that have recently commenced work on site to secure opportunities for existing apprentices who are completing initial placements with contractors. By September 2013, 15 apprentices had been successfully moved to new placements and five had been moved into permanent employment. That is something we all want to see.

To deliver on its public commitments and support contractors, the LLDC set up a transformation job and apprenticeship brokerage project. The project is overseen by a construction operations group, chaired by the LLDC and with representation from key employment and skills service providers in east London. Since October 2012 the project has supported contractors, who in many cases exceeded their contractual commitments, because they see the benefit of training people not only in the skills they want them to have, but in the company ethos.

Once employers get engaged in such an organisation and become more au fait with having apprentices and the support of bigger organisations to enable the admin and those bits of the apprenticeship programme that they cannot deliver, they see that there is a genuine benefit for themselves. In order to reach that stage, however, employers need to be convinced that this place has legislated to enable the overall authority to provide such a programme. That is why the Bill is so relevant.

[Mr David Hamilton]

Midlothian council is the second smallest land-locked authority in the UK. It is currently building 1,500 council houses. One of the great things we found was that the contractors want a level playing field, because good companies that take on apprentices do not want to be disadvantaged by others not doing so. That would be supported by the Bill.

[Lyn Brown]

I absolutely agree, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend.

The London Legacy Development Corporation is aware of the transient nature of the work force in sectors such as construction and has asked its contractors to monitor the length of their workers’ residency. When we were building in preparation for the Olympic games, we were keen to make sure that local people, who were being severely disadvantaged by the construction process, were able to take advantage of the opportunities that came their way.

We set up lots of monitoring schemes to find out whether the people getting the jobs and apprenticeships came from the area. Unsurprisingly, people moved into the area to take up the jobs and apprenticeships and then moved out, taking with them their skills and spending power. That, obviously, is not great; we wanted to transform the local area and make sure that local people had the advantages.

[Bob Stewart]

Has the hon. Lady any idea of how many people who were apprentices for the Olympic build successfully moved into permanent employment as a consequence of that training? Do we have that figure?

[Lyn Brown]

I am not sure whether the figure is available, but I will check that out and pass a note to the hon. Gentleman as it would interest me too. However, we did discover that apprentices based in Salford, Gateshead and Newcastle came with their firms to the Olympic park to complete their apprenticeships. Although we got additional apprenticeships, the Olympics provided opportunities for companies based elsewhere in the UK to bring their work forces down and keep them employed while we waited for the worst of the recession in building to move on or for additional work to be found.

[Barbara Keeley]

I want to return to my hon. Friend’s earlier point about young women. There is a question about young people moving on to permanent jobs. I do not know whether my hon. Friend is aware of it, but a report out today states that three times more young women are employed in low-paid, low-skilled jobs. The proportion of the group about whom we are worried, the 16-to-24 year-olds, in jobs such as cleaning offices and hotels—of which there are plenty in the area of London my hon. Friend is talking about—has increased from 7% to 21%. Sadly, only 1% of the young women are working in skilled trades, compared with 20% of the young men.

Is there anything in the regeneration around the Olympic park that gives hope that those young women will not carry on in those unskilled trades of cleaning offices and hotels, but get opportunities through apprenticeships to do something more skilled?

[Lyn Brown]

I am happy to tell my hon. Friend that the LLDC has reported that its targets for BME communities, women and people who have been unemployed for a long period have all been met. It did say that employment for disabled people had been slightly under target, mainly due to non-declaration at the point of induction; people are not recorded as disabled in an apprenticeship because they do not self-identify at the point of application. The LLDC has done a sterling job.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is making a compelling point. Apprenticeships are not a silver bullet in respect of employment; there is no guarantee of a job at the end of them. However, the real benefit is that upskilling the work force, giving them experience, skills and more advanced qualifications, opens so many more doors for them.

[Lyn Brown]

That is absolutely true, as many of us will know from people we meet in our surgeries and at our tea and coffee mornings. We also know it from the history of our own families. That has become of great relevance to me since I began to research my family tree following the speech I made in this place about the match-women’s strike. I was absolutely convinced that my mother must have had personal knowledge of the strike through oral history given the amount of detail she gave about it. I am still trying to get there, but I am absolutely sure that I am going to find that one of my family had at least a connection with those amazing and heroic women. So yes, I do agree that, as we know from our own experience in our own families, apprenticeships can be the essential first step on the rung of a ladder to a successful career.

In July 2013, the LLDC carried out an on-site survey that asked over half the work force—780 people out of 1,555—what their length of residency in the borough was, and 85% said that they lived in the London borough of Newham and had been for over a year. Even if they had come to the host borough only to participate in the games, to find a job through the games or because they had got a job or an apprenticeship at the games, they were still there a year later. I realise that a year is not a massive commitment to a community. I have traced my family back to the 1880s, and they have been resident in my constituency since then; I have to say that that is not bad. I am not expecting that of the trained apprentices who came through the LLDC, but their being there for a year indicates some kind of commitment to living in the area in which they were trained and given an opportunity.

Using this model of procurement to support and sustain good-quality apprenticeships strikes me as an absolutely excellent and commendable example for other public bodies to follow. This Bill is very much needed in order for the bodies involved to be able to be confident in their interaction with their supply chain. I am so grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing it to us today.

I urge the Government—the really decent Minister on the Front Bench and other hon. Members—to support the Bill and ensure that we can provide more opportunities, more training and more apprenticeships, and get more companies involved in the regeneration of our communities. That is what we are being asked to do today, and I ask the Government please to listen. I know the Minister may have been given a brief that tells him that he should not support a Bill such as this. We went through this with his Sustainable Communities Bill. If he had followed such advice, his Bill would not have got through. I urge him to be brave: support the Bill, support apprentices, and let us do the decent thing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Diana Johnson]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend puts the point so well. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) has always been a strong champion of ensuring that young people have the opportunities that they should have. Any Member who has read his book about his early life, which tells of his disadvantaged background and lack of opportunities, will understand why he wants to stand up and fight for young people.

I want to talk about the Bill from a business perspective. When I was growing up, my dad was an electrician and he had a small business. He trained as an electrician during the second world war and when he left the forces, he set up a small business with his sister, my Auntie Betty. My dad took the view throughout all his life in business that it was incumbent on him to train the next generation of electricians. I remember growing up in my household and hearing my dad say that he wanted to give a chance to young lads leaving school. He used to say that it was outrageous that some of the other, bigger businesses in the area—his was a very small business—did not train apprentices, and yet when a young person finished their apprenticeship, those businesses would go straight in to try to poach them to work for them without going through all the hard work that my dad did to train them.

I knew from a very early age how important it was to give young people those opportunities, and how good people in business—small businesses and others as well—who had a local commitment to their area and communities understood that they were there not only to provide services, but to make sure that young folk had an opportunity to train and get the skills they needed.

[Lyn Brown]

Given the example that my hon. Friend has just given, would it not be the right thing to do to ensure that supply chains from public procurement reward people like her dad who do the right thing? Those firms would get the subcontract from big procurement contracts and I think that would be the right way to go.

[Diana Johnson]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend puts the point very well.

My dad’s business carried on for many years because he was a good business man who did the right thing, and my brother, who was an apprentice electrician and did his training, now runs the business. He is doing exactly what my dad said he should do—training apprentices and the electricians of the future—but whenever I see him, he tells me about issues with public procurement. For example, if a school needs to be rewired and the local authority is putting the contracts out to tender, some local authorities take into account whether local firms have apprentices, and that is a good thing, but they do not all do that. It is really frustrating for local businesses that are doing the right thing to feel that they are not being rewarded in the way that they should be because other companies that are cutting corners and are out to make a fast buck do not invest in local people and local communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wright]

But does the hon. Gentleman not agree that, in order for the opportunities to be cast as wide as possible, young people should be made aware of them. There could be teachers, schools and colleges who are not aware of what is on offer. As I just said, I am keen to see these opportunities advertised in jobcentres, but I am also keen to table amendments in Committee to ensure that schools, colleges and others in the community are made aware of them.

[Lyn Brown]

I find it remarkable that some Government Members do not seem to understand that the taxpayer’s pound should be made to go further. Normally, we hear quite a different argument from them. Why can they not see that taxpayers’ money should be enabling young people to get the skills they need to find work?

[Mr Wright]

Absolutely. In these straitened financial times, why are we not squeezing the taxpayer’s pound still further, for the long term, to ensure that young people have a good career decades into the future? I cannot understand it either. I share my hon. Friend’s disbelief.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hurd]

There is a problem, and we are wasting the potential of 1 million young people in this country. Apprenticeships are part of the response to that, as I have said, and the Government are very proud that we have effectively doubled the number of apprenticeships each year compared with 2008-09. We are in no way complacent, because as Labour Members have said, there is still a great deal more that can be done.

As for whether the law is needed, the point was powerfully made by Government Back Benchers that the existing law and procurement policy give the permission that the hon. Gentleman seeks. I would go further than that. A private Member’s Bill that I, as a Minister, picked up and championed, the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, extended that permission. The Act, which came into force in January with cross-party support, places a requirement on commissioners to consider the economic, environmental and social benefits of their approaches to procurement before the process starts. They must also consider whether they should consult on these issues. I put it to the hon. Gentleman that that process, with which contracting authorities around the country, particularly Liverpool and Birmingham, are very engaged, could include consideration of the benefits of any potential apprenticeships to be created under the contract. That is another tool in the box for those who are seeking to develop intelligent models of procurement and trying to squeeze as much value as possible out of every public pound that they are spending. That is exactly what we are trying to encourage.

[Lyn Brown]

I am so disappointed. I genuinely thought that the Minister would be able to listen and work his way through this. How much public money does he think is being wasted by not being used to procure apprenticeships in this country?

Voting Age

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Fabian Hamilton]

I answered that point when I responded to my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield. My judgment, as a parent of three children and as someone who regularly meets young people, is that 16-plus is the age at which young people are mature enough to make the sort of decisions we expect when they cast a vote. I do not believe that that is the case for five and six-year-olds are, although they vote in some school council elections.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I would like to tell my hon. Friend about the young mayor of Newham, who has a £25,000 budget. In the most recent vote for our young mayor, 13,500 young people voted. That shows a thirst for engagement, and I think it is a thirst that we should recognise.

[Fabian Hamilton]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. That is precisely the point I am trying to make. I was coming on to talk about school councils, because I have been impressed by the enthusiasm for voting, and by the interest, knowledge and understanding of what happens in a primary or a secondary school and of what a school council can achieve. It is on a very small scale, but it is a very good start. As the hon. Member for Bristol West said, if people get into the habit of voting at that young age, perhaps we will see a much higher turnout at elections.

I want to take Members back to what was a low point in this country’s electoral history: the police and crime commissioner elections. I am not going to rehearse the reasons why those elections had such a poor turnout—in west Yorkshire, it was 13.7%—but I venture to suggest that if 16-year-olds had had the right to vote on 15 November, turnout might have been over 15%. That is still an absolutely appalling figure, but it would have made some difference. There was a thirst for and an interest in voting among young people—even in those elections, which were so badly publicised. Indeed, when I visited Roundhay high school last Friday, I was asked about the turnout of those elections and the reasons why they had taken place in November in the first place.

When I was at school—a long, long time ago, in the ’60s and ’70s—we studied a subject called civics. I know that that has since evolved, but I found civics very useful, and its modern counterpart, of course, is far more useful. The point about that subject was to understand the institutions of government, both locally and nationally. How many Members have had e-mails and letters from constituents—many such constituents are pretty mature, certainly well over 16 or 18—saying, “Dear Member of Parliament, I want you to do something about the state of the streets in my area”, or saying that they want them to sort out their council house, their property, or the windows? They believe us to be councillors, too. I even got an e-mail the other day from somebody that began, “Dear Councillor Hamilton”. She wanted me to sort out what was purely a local authority issue, and I had to point out that I have not been a councillor for 15 years.

My point is that if 16-year-olds were able to vote, the education they were receiving at school about our governmental institutions, about how our constitution actually works, would be far more pertinent and relevant, because the next year or the next month—whenever they pass the age of 16—while they were still studying, they could cast their vote in a local authority election that has a direct relevance to them, and now, of course, in the five-yearly police and crime commissioner elections, too.

We have an age of consent of 16. At 16, people can drive a scooter. At 16, people can fight for their country—[Interruption.] Sorry; people can join the Army at 16. At 17, they can drive a car. At 16, they can get married with parental permission.

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr David]

Yes, that is the concern, in essence. The Minister has confidently predicted that the carry-over will be 66%, but I have yet to hear on what he bases that figure. The Electoral Commission is bemused, too. I mentioned that earlier and I will be interested to hear whether he reiterates the totally unsubstantiated figure of 66% for postal and proxy votes.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I am sure that my hon. Friend has had many conversations with Government Members about the Bill. Will he enlighten us about what will happen if the figure in areas such as mine falls drastically below 66%, as I expect it will? Are the Government proposing any safety net?

[Mr David]

It is for the Government to speak for themselves about their proposals. The Electoral Commission has said that it is concerned about that potential problem and believes it should be tackled through the allocation of resources. We will consider the matter when we discuss the provisions that fall much later in the Bill, but I do not think that the Government are taking the question of addressing the problem at all seriously. If they were, the simplest thing would be to do what the Select Committee recommended and ensure that the same carry-over arrangements apply to proxy and postal voters as to everybody else. The case has not been made for treating postal and proxy votes differently.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Edwards]

I shall speak briefly to amendment 20, which would increase the length of time that those on the current electoral register remained on the revised register after the introduction of individual electoral registration. The current proposal from the UK Government is that existing registrations will be removed at the end of the second new canvass if people have not provided the required data for individual electoral registration. The effect will be that concerns about a cliff-edge drop in the completeness of the registers, as we saw when they dropped by 11% in Northern Ireland, will be postponed until after the 2015 Westminster general election. This means that the first elections to be held without the roll-on from the pre-IER electoral roll will be the National Assembly for Wales elections in May 2016.

Although I recognise that one election must, at some point, be the first election to be held wholly under IER, I am concerned that the elections to the National Assembly for Wales will be the guinea pig, particularly because if the proposals in the Green Paper on electoral arrangements for the National Assembly for Wales are implemented, the electoral roll arrangements will be used as the basis for determining constituencies. I shall give my opinion on that very interesting Green Paper on another occasion.

The change-over from the current system to IER is fraught with difficulties, and the length of time for the change-over should be as long as necessary to ensure that there are no adverse effects, and certainly should not be rushed. As I say, I am particularly concerned about the possible effects on the National Assembly elections in 2016, and I hope the Government will take this opportunity to push back the final date for the removal of all pre-IER registrations to ensure that the handover is as smooth as possible, without the cliff-edge drop in registration that we fear.

[Lyn Brown]

The hon. Gentleman is clearly as concerned about his area and the effect on voter registration as I am about mine. Does he think that his local authority will have the resources to deal effectively with the problems that will arise and to keep on the electoral register as many people as possible who are entitled to vote?

[Jonathan Edwards]

That is an interesting point. On the way down on the train this morning, I was reading a report on the experience in Northern Ireland. It said that it was difficult to envisage the changes being pushed through uniformly in a short period. A longer period of introduction would therefore be better for all concerned.

Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I would like to point out some of the problems with what has been suggested by the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), whose Bill this is. Every piece of legislation has a territorial extent clause at its end. Let us consider the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, which is currently in Committee. The hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) has been chairing some of its sittings, so he knows what I am talking about. Clause 117 states that the Bill, as a whole, applies to England and Wales, and then explains which clauses apply more widely. There is no lack of clarity about the legal status of Bills before the House.

Clearly, the hon. Lady’s underlying concern is that people are taking views on legislation that affects parts of the United Kingdom beyond those in which their constituencies are located. If that is her concern, she should have presented a Bill making that case. However, she has presented a different and flawed Bill.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill undermines the basic principle that all Members are equal?

[Helen Goodman]

Of course, my hon. Friend is absolutely correct.

Counter-terrorism

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I think someone shouted, “What’s that got to do with it?” but it is important that all parties try to ensure that they are fully representative of all parts of the community. As we have learned in the Conservative party, it is not enough just to open the doors and invite people in; we have to go out and ask people in, so that we can say to people in every community that they are represented in whatever party they would like to support for whatever reason they would like to support it.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

Can the Prime Minister tell us anything about the reported counter-terrorism raids that have taken place in four homes in east London?

[The Prime Minister]

I can tell the hon. Lady that an arrest was made in connection with a group of people at Sellafield today. That is a matter for the police, but if there is further information to update her with, perhaps my office can contact her.