Drought Conditions: England
Matthew Patrick Excerpts(1 week ago)
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Emma Hardy
I recognise how important this is to the hon. Lady and her constituents. I made the promise on the call—I will reiterate it—that I want to work closely with all Members of Parliament who are directly impacted. I reassure her there are no current plans for the use of standpipes. Our declaration of severe drought means a slight change in prioritisation from the Environment Agency, which has that direction that public health must come first. It is looking at increasing monitoring. As a responsible Government, we are preparing for every scenario, but there are no immediate plans for standpipes. Our immediate request to all Members of Parliament is: please go and share the Let’s Save Water campaign, which is a national campaign that has been running all summer—hopefully some hon. Members have seen it—with the little kids in the blue tracksuits. I see some nodding; that is great. We should try to share that as much as we possibly can.
The hon. Lady is right to highlight resilience, which is a challenge with South East Water. Again, it is one of those companies that has islands and is unable to move water around. She was right to point that out as a problem, and we want to work with the company on that. Let us deal with this emergency right now, but what are its longer-term plans to have greater resilience? Those have to involve looking at the ability to move water around. She is right that that must involve working closely with Southern Water as well.
Matthew Patrick (Wirral West) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for her statement and the actions she is taking. It seems clear that climate change is playing its role, but, in her assessment, what else is contributing to this problem and what long-term steps are the Government taking to ensure that we are building up resilience to deal with the consequences of climate change for all of us?
Emma Hardy
To reiterate what I said at the beginning, we have had exceptionally low rainfall—the lowest in over a century—but my hon. Friend is absolutely right that we cannot keep saying that we expect our country to be soggy. We have whiplash weather now—we go from flood to drought. We could even be in a situation where I update the House on drought and then have to update it on flooding. That is the situation we now have in our country, which we expect to be turbocharged by how El Niño plays out over the winter and into the next year.
That is why we need resilient standards and why the water Bill matters so much. It is why water companies need to focus on public good rather than other priorities they may have had in the past. We need whole-scale change so that we have a system that is fit for the future, rather than the one we have at the moment, which seems to be based on water companies hoping that it might rain, which is simply not good enough. We are determined to change that through our Bill.
Oral Answers to Questions
Matthew Patrick Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Matthew Patrick (Wirral West) (Lab)
Irene Campbell (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
The Solicitor General (Lucy Rigby)
Earlier this month, we marked International Women’s Day, and it was very moving to hear the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), again record in this House the names of women and girls who were killed in the past year. The scale of violence against women and girls in this country is completely intolerable, which is why, under our plan for change, this Government have already taken concrete steps to tackle it, including the introduction of Raneem’s law to put domestic abuse experts into 999 control rooms.
Matthew Patrick
I thank the Solicitor General for her answer. Yesterday, I spoke to one of my constituents. When she was 14, she was raped by an adult whom she should have been able to trust. She woke up to him raping her. She has been carrying that with her for decades. Two years ago, she reported what happened to her and she has been fighting for her day in court all of that time. Can the Solicitor General please set out what the Government are doing to fix the broken system that is failing to deliver justice, and will she meet me to discuss how we can better support victim survivors such as my constituent?
The Solicitor General
I am very sorry to hear of the case that my hon. Friend raises. As he knows, this Government inherited a criminal justice system in crisis with a record Crown court backlog, meaning that far too many victims such as his constituent are waiting too long for their day in court. As part of the domestic abuse joint justice plan, in his local area the Crown Prosecution Service is trialling an enhanced partnership between Merseyside and Cheshire police and CPS prosecutors, to ensure that charging decisions, including in rape and serious sexual offence cases, are made more swiftly and stronger cases are brought from the outset, with a view to quicker and more successful prosecutions.
Oral Answers to Questions
Matthew Patrick Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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The Solicitor General
I am grateful to the hon. Member for his kind words, and I look forward to appearing before his Committee on 15 January. He is right to say that we need to be doing much more to support victims. He alluded to the review of the Crown courts; he will also know that the Lord Chancellor is taking steps to reduce the Crown court case load by increasing funding for sitting days, and further sitting days were announced yesterday—an extra 2,000, I believe.
Matthew Patrick (Wirral West) (Lab)
The Solicitor General
This Government have pledged to halve violence against women and girls within a decade as part of our plan for change, and securing prosecutions will be key to that. Our commitment to tackling violence against women and girls in this way is unprecedented, and it will require a wholesale change in how we think about and deal with these kinds of offences. Only through a truly cross-Government effort can it be achieved. As Solicitor General, I will work with colleagues in the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office to ensure that we deliver on that commitment.
Matthew Patrick
May I welcome my hon. Friend to her place? I know she will do a fantastic job. Crown Prosecution Service guidance recognises that perpetrators of economic abuse harm their victim-survivors not just during a relationship, but long after it has finished. When will CPS guidance be updated to reflect post-separation controlling and coercive behaviour being made a criminal offence, and what training on recognising such abuse is offered to the CPS?
The Solicitor General
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He has been working on this issue with survivors of economic abuse, and I know that he cares about it very deeply. Domestic abuse can take many insidious forms, and we must do everything we can to ensure that we are equipped to spot it and tackle it. The guidance to which he refers was updated earlier this year and is under regular review. I can also confirm that the CPS will take part in a further knowledge-sharing event on economic abuse, which will be delivered for police and prosecutors as part of the domestic abuse joint justice plan.