Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Glindon Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

The hon. Gentleman will no doubt have heard from reports of that particular session in the conference hosted by the Home Affairs Committee that I made it very clear that we approach this issue in a measured fashion. The number of visa applications for our universities has gone up 5% this year, with an 8% increase for Russell Group universities. I very clearly say to the sector that trying to talk down the offer we have is not in the best interests of the sector or of our country. I certainly look forward to continuing to work with the sector to ensure that we attract students to our world-class institutions.

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

4. What steps she is taking to reduce sickness and stress leave and raise morale in the police service.

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Mike Penning)]

The Home Office does not hold figures centrally on the number of police who go on sick leave with stress. We have a world-class police force, and the best way to get up police force morale is to support our police, and to say that they do a fantastic job and that we have the best police force in the world.

[Mrs Glindon]

In a recent survey on officers’ morale, the Police Federation found that nearly 5,000 officers are planning to leave the service within the next five years because of pay cuts and cuts in conditions. Another survey by Unison says that 75% of police staff feel increasingly stressed. Will the Minister heed the unions’ call to review the gap between rising demand for services and cutbacks to the workforce?

[Mike Penning]

As a trade unionist, I always listen to trade unions, but they are not always right. We will make sure that we listen very carefully. I have seen the figures for the slight increase in stress-related illness. We have committed £8 million to blue light services to try to help with stress and well-being. The best way to ensure that morale goes up in our police forces is for everybody in this House to support them and say what a fantastic job they do.

Immigration Bill

Mary Glindon Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

I want to address an issue that has not been covered today—I had hoped to address it when we discussed the new clauses tabled by my party. It is the issue of migrant workers who are legitimately in this country. A number of them were discovered at the former Swan Hunter site at Wallsend. They were living there in unsafe conditions. I pursued the issue and discovered that a local engineering company had hired them through an employment agency in Romania. It was a legitimate situation, because, under the law, temporary workers are allowed to work for a number of months in this country. However, what I did unearth, via the UK Border Agency, was that some of those workers were on permanent contracts.

I inquired at the jobcentre whether the jobs, which the company maintained they could not fill with local workers, could have been taken by welders. Everyone knows that the north-east, especially an area such as mine, is awash with people who have welding skills and who were employed in the former heavy industries. The jobcentre confirmed that there were in fact more than enough unemployed workers who could take the jobs. Not only were these east European workers living in unsafe conditions, but they were probably being paid less than the minimum wage and the going rate for that job.

Subsequently, the building in which the workers were living was brought up to scratch. After speaking to the employment agency in Romania about the workers on permanent contracts who should not have been here, the UK Border Agency allowed it to change the contracts to temporary contracts. Although people in Wallsend felt sorry for those workers who were living in such bad conditions, they were upset that they were coming over and being paid less for the work than skilled people in the area. I am sorry that we were not able to discuss those issues further or the new clauses proposed by those on the Labour Front Bench.

Alcohol Strategy

Mary Glindon Excerpts

Friday 23rd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making the point that pubs play a very important role in our communities. Pubs have nothing to fear from the minimum unit price that is being introduced today. That will not have an impact on them. I hope that we will see more people feeling able to go to pubs, particularly those in town centres which until now people have often felt unable to visit because of the brawling that they see in the streets. However, we will be looking very carefully in a number of areas to ensure that what we are doing is very clearly focused on those outlets that are bulk-discounting cheap alcohol, which enables people to get drunk before they go out, not affecting the pubs.

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

Why has the voluntary agreement that the Government said they had with the supermarkets failed?

[Mrs May]

I referred to it in my statement, but it has also been announced today that, as a result of agreement with industry, we will see something like 35 billion units—

International Women’s Day

Mary Glindon Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

On this day of celebration across the world, I would like to speak about an organisation known to us all, which now plays an important part in the lives of thousands of young women in this country: the Scout Association.

Girls and young women have been able to join the scouts for more than 20 years and last year, more girls than boys became scouts. That rise in young women’s membership has been highest in the Explorer section, which takes its members from among 14 to 18-year-olds. Nationally, half the adult scout leaders are women.

Although as a child I was only in the Brownies for a short while and never made it to the girl guides, I am a strong supporter of scouts and guides. I have seen at first hand the work that scouts have done in my constituency, particularly in deprived areas. I recently visited a new unit at St Stephen’s RC primary school in Longbenton, where the head teacher, Stephen Fallon, had discovered that some of his pupils had been responsible for antisocial behaviour in the local community. Working with Northumberland scout association, he has set up a new unit, which provides both girls and boys with opportunities in their young lives that would not otherwise be afforded them. Those opportunities are helping make those children good young citizens in North Tyneside.

As a result of that visit, I agreed to become an ambassador for Northumberland scout association and have learnt about Lookwide, the association’s development project, which specialises in working with disaffected young people aged between nine and 25 by providing them with a personal development programme. Those young people are not expected to join the scouts, but they gain a wide range of valuable life skills, combined with accredited and non-accredited qualifications, which put them on the right track for a fulfilling adult life. Many are progressing to employment, training and apprenticeships, which they would not have thought possible before joining the programme.

The scouting movement believes

“that young people develop most when they are ‘learning by doing’, when they are given responsibility, work in teams, take acceptable risks and think for themselves.”

I am glad that a movement with such a positive agenda to help young people reach their full potential decided to open its membership to girls and young women 20 years ago.

On international women’s day, I believe it is right to acknowledge and celebrate the Scout Association, which, across 261 countries worldwide, is giving so much to millions of young people, including more than 60,000 girls and young women in the UK who can have a better life and future because of it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Glindon Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I and my ministerial colleagues are aware of the correspondence between my hon. Friend and the UK Border Agency about this case. I understand perfectly—as the whole House will—how distressing and awful the case must be for his constituent, and of course I will happily meet him, and his constituent and his family to discuss the matter further.

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

Will the Home Secretary join me in wishing Northumbria police warm congratulations on the opening of the new area command at the north Tyneside headquarters, especially given that it was built with money from the Labour Government?

[Mrs May]

I rather hope I might at some stage be given an invitation to visit the new area command. May I say, however, given that Northumbria has been mentioned, that I was pleased to speak to Sue Sim recently, following the difficult time that Northumbria police had earlier this year in dealing with the case of Raoul Moat, to congratulate her on how she and her force dealt with that case?