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Debate between Mark Pritchard and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jackson]

That is a fair question, but many of them are older and are very unlikely to need to go to accident and emergency or their maternity unit. Many of them are unlikely to be putting their grandchildren in primary schools, too. There is a balance to be struck between the use of public services and the resources needed.

I accept that the hon. Gentleman might have touched on an important issue in that there are hot spots in respect of such demands, however. In my constituency we have food processing, agriculture, horticulture, packaging and logistics, and younger people will come over with their partners and have children and there will be a big strain on schools, but I accept that might not be the case in the west country or the south of England. It will only be the case in hot spots. One of the things that the Government need to do is reboot the migration impact forum, specifically to assist local authorities. One issue is the number of children who come into a school but are gone at the end of the academic year, for instance. The Government need to look at this.

The Government also need to ensure that everyone who comes to this country is properly exercising their treaty obligations. That is all we are asking. We need to do some work on contributory pensions with the Germans and other key partners.

[Mark Pritchard]

Is it not clear today that, should there be a breakaway Scotland, it would have to endure uncontrolled immigration while England, post a renegotiation with Europe under the Prime Minister, would have controlled immigration?

[Mr Jackson]

My hon. Friend makes a pertinent point, although it is a hypothetical situation, as I think the people of Scotland are sensible enough to vote the right way on 18 September and reject the narrow chauvinistic nationalism of the Scottish National party. They know which side their bread is buttered on, and they will remain part of our great United Kingdom.

I strongly welcome the Modern Slavery Bill. We in Peterborough and the fens have seen some very unpleasant, distressing and nasty cases of modern slavery around agriculture and horticulture. We have seen the ghastly conditions some people have been forced to live in, the way they have been physically maltreated and assaulted, the way they have been lied to and traduced and cajoled into a terrible lifestyle—a twilight world of abuse—by some pretty unscrupulous criminal gangs. One of the enduring legacies of our Government, which we will proudly defend our record on next May, is this Modern Slavery Bill, because we believe politics is in many respects a moral imperative, and, for us, if we rescue even one person from this ghastly twilight world, we will have succeeded.

I therefore think it is right that we are targeting individuals, but we need to look at the poor conditions that some of those individuals are housed in, too. We need to look at section 215 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which some local authorities are using to tidy up neighbourhoods that are affected by these slum houses.

I pay tribute to Anthony Steen, the former Member for Totnes, for the fantastic work that he has done over the years. He was leading, encouraging and proselytising on this issue eight years ago, before it became fashionable. He has done a great job, and I hope that the Bill will be a testament to him. We have made good progress in this area, but there is more to do. The watchwords of the legislation should be “tough but fair”. We need better collaborative working with other European Union countries and better inter-agency working. The Bill represents an excellent start, and the Ministers involved should be very proud of their efforts.

UK Relations with China

Debate between Mark Pritchard and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mark Pritchard]

The InterContinental Hotels Group is an important British company employing a lot of people around the world. Clearly, it must make commercial decisions with the information available. I would hope that it had some dialogue not only with the Chinese authorities but with Tibetans in exile and the people in Tibet who are being oppressed by the Chinese authorities. I will come to Tibet later in my speech. If InterContinental did not consult, I hope that it will learn lessons from the example of Tibet.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

To return to the point that my hon. Friend made about the sharing of crucial information about critical infrastructure with foreign powers, is he aware of the book written some years ago by Richard Clarke, former Assistant Secretary of State in the US State Department, which makes it clear that the Chinese have an advanced cyber-warfare capability that could be aimed at critical infrastructure, including utilities, across the United States and Europe?

[Mark Pritchard]

I have not read that book, but I am not surprised, because I am not as well-read as my hon. Friend, as he knows. He reads about three or four books a week, which is even more than my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson). My hon. Friend makes a serious point. It is interesting that the last director-general of the security service, unusually, named China among the countries, notably Russia, that regularly try to infiltrate Government IT systems. Cyber-security is an issue. The Russian and Chinese states must desist from trying to penetrate our systems. I am glad that the coalition Government have invested a record amount in ensuring that we have resilient and robust systems and can counter cyber-attacks. He raises an important point.

The recent announcement by the Chancellor will also allow Chinese banks to submit applications to set up branches here in Britain, giving them full access to their reserves. Both announcements will have wide-ranging benefits for the City of London and will make it much easier for British firms to invest in China, both of which are good news for UK jobs and investment.

There will be a new, simplified and streamlined visa application process, which is also welcome. The UK is already the No. 1 destination for Chinese investment in Europe, attracting £2 billion in 2012 alone, and under the new visa regime, that is likely to increase further.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Pritchard]

In my experience, the Chinese people are generous and open-hearted, but we are talking about the Chinese Government and the ruling elite. Aid cannot be disaggregated from China’s muscular expansionism or its territorial disputes in the region, not only with the Philippines but with Russia, Vietnam and other countries.

As an aside, the international community has to make it crystal clear that it will act in unison to stand fast against any Chinese aggression. The Chinese are unlikely to act against a country that has, for example, a military treaty with the United States, such as the Philippines or Thailand, but some countries do not have such a treaty, including Vietnam. The international community must prepare for such an event to ensure that it is united in its response. If we did not respond—I am referring not to military action but to a timely, swift and overwhelming diplomatic and political response—it would be seen as appeasement, as the weakness of the west, and would give a green light to China to continue its expansionism in the region. We would be giving over other islands in the area and giving up on countries. That would be a dangerous time for the world, and the balance of power might shift overnight if we did not have a resolute response.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

Before my hon. Friend moves on to animal welfare, I want to address Tibet. He talks about the international community being minded to take a tough approach, but as we speak there are human rights abuses in Tibet. There is self-immolation, and dissidents are being driven into the Dharamsala mountains. There is collective punishment and an attempt to eradicate the culture and language of Tibet. Is that not something on which the international community should be taking a tough stance, rather than kowtowing and acquiescing in the bullying of China when, for instance, the Dalai Lama visits various international communities?

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. The interventions are getting longer and longer. I hope there might be a bit of discipline. The frequency is fine, but the length is getting a tad like a speech.

Child Sexual Exploitation

Debate between Mark Pritchard and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood). She is a first-class MP, and her constituents have every right to be proud of her, particularly for bringing forward this important and timely debate.

A lot of this discussion has centred on care facilities, orphanages and children’s homes, and rightly so, not least because of recent headlines. We have also heard about the exploitation and sexual abuse of children within nuclear or orthodox families, in private homes, and within public schools. The problem is widespread, and I, too, support those who have called on the Government to launch a wide-ranging inquiry into this issue.

Children do not choose their parents or the family circumstances into which they are born, but the tone of many comments made in this place, not today—this debate has been very measured—but in the recent past, have fundamentally misunderstood the problem. When talking about children in care, some people talk about vulnerable children, but it is the environment in which they often find themselves that is vulnerable. It is an environment not of their choosing, an environment that, in a way, can be directed and changed by the state. Despite some bad examples, as we have seen in recent weeks, the majority of people working in care homes, orphanages and child care facilities do so with due diligence, professionalism, and love, care and affection.

I speak with some authority, because I spent the first six years of my life in an orphanage. Having been to the orphanage reunion last week, I can tell hon. Members that every person there spoke highly of all the carers. I do not have one single bad memory. Perhaps I am lucky. Perhaps I am blessed. But it is important to put that on the record. The majority of people providing care do it with love, professionalism and dedication. I pay tribute to those who showed me love for the first six years of my life. There are those who, in the first six years of their life in a so-called orthodox family, do not enjoy the same level of care and love. So, although there are bad apples, the majority are doing a good job every hour of every day of every week. I pay tribute to them.

There is a wider issue about exploitation: what the state is doing and not doing. We have rightly focused on sexual exploitation, but the fact is that the taxpayer spends £250,000 for each of the 5,000 children in care facilities today. There are a total of 90,000 in care each year, and 60,000 in care right now—it ebbs and flows over the year—but 5,000 are currently in full-time care. Someone mentioned Oliver Twist. I think I am the only member of the Oliver Twist club. I remember being in the Dining Room, and somebody said, “Oh what’s that tie, Pritchard? What club is that?” I said, “It’s the Oliver Twist club,” and he said, “I’ve never heard of that.”

Perhaps today, more people have heard about it. It is for those people who I believe all have a God-given skill or ability. Some will end up as fantastic mechanics, artists or scientists, so it is absolutely correct that the state gets this right. It is absolutely wrong that too many children in care leave with no qualifications. It does not mean that they do not have brains, intelligence or an intellect. Too many children leaving care end up homeless, in prostitution or on the wrong side of the law. Not only is it wrong and bad value for money for the taxpayer to spend nearly £1 billion a year for the 5,000 children in full-time care, it is also morally wrong that we are sending them out to a life often locked into poverty or crime because the state has failed to monitor their educational achievement or lack of it.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a compelling personal speech. Will he join me in paying tribute to the unsung heroes of family life and the care system, the grandparents and extended kin? They do an heroic job, often taking care of the children of their children who are afflicted with drug and alcohol problems or other family issues.

[Mark Pritchard]

I am very happy to do that. I would like the Government to be more imaginative and innovative in the tax system—as I think the Conservative Opposition said before the election—in recognising the work of grandparents and rewarding them for it, because where the family works well, it is obviously the best place for children to grow up.

I have huge respect for the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), the new children’s Minister, as I did for his predecessor. I am excited about his promotion, because I know that he has great personal knowledge of fostering and adoption. This is an opportunity for him as an individual Minister and for the Government. As I said in a speech last week in the Chamber—albeit a speech on Europe—if we are not making a difference in this place, what is the point of being here? While there is strategic focus in the media, the Government and the nation as a whole, this is perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the coalition Government to make a real difference by changing the way children are fostered, making changes to the adoption system and fundamentally changing the way we look after children in full-time care.

As I mentioned, my view is that everybody has something to contribute—everybody has a God-given ability or talent. Therefore I hope the Government will bring forward definitive and precise measures to tackle the issues arising from the mistakes made in the past—to be fair, under successive Governments—where children left care with the list of problems that I outlined earlier, costing the taxpayer even more money, by the way, as the homelessness bill, the criminal justice bill and the bill for getting people off drugs and alcohol rises.

Police (Public Trust)

Debate between Mark Pritchard and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Wednesday 13th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mark Pritchard]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. He is right to highlight good practice and good police work when he sees it and so, too, are Members across all parties. Indeed, I hope that I have highlighted such things in trying to balance my speech.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on making an intelligent and compelling argument, but are not senior police officers acting perfectly rationally in taking their lead from organisations such as the Association of Chief Police Officers, whose leadership considers it appropriate to give a running commentary on the fiscal decisions of the democratically elected Government? There is also an institutionalised lack of accountability because local police officers are essentially accountable only to the Home Office, not to elected officials or the people whom they serve at local level.

[Mark Pritchard]

My hon. Friend brings considerable experience to bear, and he is absolutely right that senior officers in particular should stay out of politics, law making and social work and refrain from commenting on important fiscal and Treasury matters. Clearly, they have a view about their police budgets, but if far more police officers spent more time actually doing the job of policing, perhaps crime would be down even further. I agree with my hon. Friend, and he is absolutely right to raise the issue.

I hope that the police will very much embrace the reforms that the Government are introducing, rather than rejecting and repelling them. Chief officers should avoid being alarmist and offering up alarmist comments and overreaction in the debate about the public deficit. They can and will form part of the reform process, but they cannot write their own terms, for that would avoid the real and lasting reform that modern policing needs if it is to re-engage with the public and public trust is to be restored where it has been lost.

I end as I began—by paying tribute to the many police officers who undertake their job day in, day out in a professional, dedicated and often courageous manner. Such hard-working officers, of whom there are many in my own police constabulary area of West Mercia, are similarly frustrated by colleagues in the police force who lie, commit perjury, sell private details to the tabloid media and break the Official Secrets Act. Like the public, they are fed up of lazy and incompetent police officers. Such officers should—I say this as a slight aside—be subject to an annual fitness test and certainly to better leadership and discipline, as I have suggested.

Policing remains a high and noble vocation. The United Kingdom has some of the most dedicated and professional officers in the world, but unless there is a marked change in leadership and discipline, the rooting out of corruption and the sacking of incompetent officers, as well as an avoidance of the growing “them and us” approach to policing the public, whom we all serve, public trust in policing will continue to ebb away. That is not in the police’s interest or the public interest, and it is certainly not in the national interest. Let us see a revival of police discipline and leadership; we will then see a restoration of public trust in policing.