Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Buckland and Emma Lewell-Buck

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

The hon. Lady raises an important point about summary-only offences, which, although relatively speaking might be not as serious as some other types of charge, have real effects upon the victims of domestic abuse. I have certainly drawn my mind to that issue throughout this crisis. I am confident, from the police activity I see, that arrests and charges continue and that a number of perpetrators are being charged within that time. Nothing has led me to believe that there should be a problem with regard to timely charging within the six-month time limit. That can be done, and then these people can be brought to justice.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

What recent assessment he has made of the trends in the level of violence on the secure estate for young people.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Buckland and Emma Lewell-Buck

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

My constituent Kelly Chandler suffered sexual abuse from her brother when she was a child. As an adult, she found the strength to report this to the police. Her brother then admitted that he did perpetrate this abuse. However, a legal loophole states that due to his age at the time of the abuse, he cannot be prosecuted. Kelly, after reliving this trauma, is being denied justice. When will this loophole be closed?

[Robert Buckland]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this individual case. I would be happy to discuss it further with her. There obviously seems to have been a prosecutorial decision, which is the responsibility of the Attorney General, but we will meet and discuss this troubling case further.

Immigration Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

Debate between Robert Buckland and Emma Lewell-Buck

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone.

I apologise to the Committee if I repeat some of the comments that have already been made by my hon. Friends, but I feel we can never hammer home enough the points that we are trying to make today.

I will mainly speak to amendments 226 and 227. Amendment 226 would provide a very basic level of support—just over £5 a day—for destitute families who have been refused asylum. These amendments have three aims: to make sure that vulnerable children are not left destitute; to ensure that families continue to engage with the Home Office; and to head off the danger that the removal of asylum support will in practice see a massive transfer of responsibilities and duties of care from central to local government.

The first point is the most simple and in some ways the most powerful. To be entirely blunt, cutting support will mean that innocent families and their children will go without food or shelter. The Minister noted last week the importance of considering the best interests of children. As a civilised and compassionate nation, we cannot ignore the impact that withdrawing support would have on children’s welfare, health and wellbeing, or the very real dangers that they could be exposed to as a result of their family’s destitution. Without a safety net, families will resort to extreme measures, often turning to illegal work that drives them into the embrace of criminal gangs.

Removing support is also entirely counterproductive, in that it does not have the desired effect of encouraging families to leave the UK. Witnesses at the Committee’s evidence sessions told us the same thing time and time again—you do not get people to leave the country by cutting off their only means of support. All it does is give them every incentive to disappear and to stop engaging with the Home Office. Families will do that because given a choice between destitution in the UK or returning to a homeland where they believe they may be killed or tortured, they will choose the former as the least worst option. When we consider some of the absolutely desperate steps that people have taken to reach the UK to begin with, and that they have risked their lives to make the journey to Britain, we should not underestimate what they will do to stay here.

Removing support forces these families to find other ways to survive, and makes them easy prey for criminal gangs who will ruthlessly exploit their vulnerability for profit. One of the aims of the Bill is to tackle illegal employment, and the very welcome Modern Slavery Act in the last Parliament was intended to help to fight terrible crimes such as human trafficking. By removing support for failed asylum seekers, the Government may undermine both those aims, by gifting the criminals who prey on desperation a new group of people to target and exploit.

The Government seem to think that by encouraging people to leave the UK they can make savings, but their approach just will not have the effect that they intend. If they want to save money, they will do it by engaging people in the process of return. Some 40% of returns are voluntary, and even those that are not voluntary are made much easier when we have records on people and consequently know where to find them. Keeping people on the books costs money, but nothing compared to the alternative. The best way to save money is to conclude cases as quickly as possible, and encouraging people to drop off the radar by removing their support does the exact opposite.

Last week, the Solicitor General stated that he would write to me with full details of how judicial reviews would be funded. Obviously, I am yet to receive such details and I wonder if he could provide them today or before the end of the week.

[The Solicitor General (Robert Buckland)]

I will write to the hon. Lady this week.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I thank the Solicitor General for that.

There is a further cost issue to consider, which is the impact the proposed change would have on local authorities. Last week, the Minister and I had a long discussion about the ongoing dialogue with local authorities. I stand by what I said last week. I am not convinced that discussing with local authorities the impact of these burdens that will be placed on them once the Bill is already in place is the right way to do things.

Asylum seekers who find themselves destitute will be scooped up by local authority services—statutory homelessness services, child protection services under the Children Act 1989, mental health services, adult social care services and so on.

Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Debate between Robert Buckland and Emma Lewell-Buck

Thursday 5th November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

Sorry for backtracking, but I am a little confused by the Minister’s reference to judicial review. Many families will not have the money to pay for such reviews, so who would fund them?

[The Solicitor General]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. I will get full clarification about the funding of applications in a moment and will come back to her.

If I may develop my point about the quality of decision making, several improvements have been made since 2010 in order to simplify policy and guidance. The introduction of a number of quality audit processes allows for the ongoing refinement of operating processes, which strengthens and enhances decision-making quality. The accumulation of those measures means that we now have tools and processes that help caseworkers to make more efficient, effective and fairer decisions in line with the relevant immigration rules and Home Office policy and guidance. I accept that there is still a way to go, but progress is being made.

Since 2010, UK Visas and Immigration has put in place measures to ensure the continuous review of its operations, so that proper feedback mechanisms can further improve quality and we ensure we make the right decision first time as often as possible. For example, UKVI has placed a focus on decision quality at the centre of caseworking objectives, introducing a quality objective in all caseworker objectives within performance appraisals. When it comes to ranking performance, the marking of quality assessment is an essential part of that process. Such measures are being put front and centre, which helps to answer the genuine queries and concerns of constituents, including mine.

The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North alluded to that. I am grateful to him for asking a number of parliamentary questions—in recent hours—about statistics that he regards as important indicators of the success or otherwise of measures that have been introduced in recent years. I note that some of the questions refer both to the power relating to EEA nationals and to section 94B. I am not making a criticism, but he asks a comprehensive range of questions, and we are today purely dealing with section 94B and not EEA nationals. Replies will be provided as soon as possible, but we must take care in reading across data from foreign national offender cases to all human rights cases. I think he would accept that. The case law clearly states that public interest is stronger when it comes to criminal cases, although there is of course a clear and strong public interest in the removal of any individual who has no right to be in the UK. I promise him that he will get answers to his questions.

The hon. Gentleman made the point about the best interests of children, which he wants in the Bill. May I give him some comfort? We already have primary legislation—section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009—that puts children’s best interests into print and are the guiding principles for decision makers when it comes to cases involving children. That is a sufficient safeguard, together with the guidance that we have debated and discussed, which will address the legitimate issues that he raises.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the difficulty of appealing from abroad. I accept, as did the Court of Appeal, that an out-of-country appeal will be, in many cases, less advantageous to an appellant than an in-country appeal. As I have said before, article 8 does not require the appellant to have access to the best possible appellate procedure or even to the most advantageous one. It requires access to a procedure that meets the essential requirements of effectiveness and fairness. I pray in aid the statistics that the Court used and that I mentioned this morning to give Members reassurance that we are in a situation in which there is not an obvious and clear detriment to appellants, bearing in mind the entry clearance statistics, which always involve out-of-UK appeals.

Care Bill [Lords]

Debate between Robert Buckland and Emma Lewell-Buck

Monday 10th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

My amendments 27 and 28 are on safeguarding. Clause 42 contains a raft of measures that will go some way to enhancing the powers and role of the authorities in dealing with disturbing and worrying cases of abuse or neglect, which we hear about all too often when it comes to the care of vulnerable adults.

Amendment 27 relates to the definition of abuse in clause 42(3), which rightly makes reference to financial abuse. We are all aware of the rising phenomenon of financial abuse, where older people and those with learning difficulties have been preyed on, sometimes by their own family, for financial gain. My worry is that, while a distinct reference to financial abuse is welcome, there is a danger of creating an imbalance that will make other forms of abuse less relevant or important.

Statistics from the Health and Social Care Information Centre on the number of safeguarding referrals in the last year for which records are available show that the most common causes or types of abuse are physical abuse and neglect. My concern is that they do not appear in the Bill. It would perhaps be better to have an amendment, along the lines of the one I have tabled, that acknowledges different types of abuse and refers the matter to guidance that could be carefully and comprehensively drafted, so that practitioners can be safe in the knowledge that one type of abuse does not take precedence over another. This is an issue that has been raised in the other place and in Committee here. The Government have said they are concerned that defining abuse further might restrict the scope of a local authority’s duty to inquire, but my concern, and the concern of organisations such as Mencap, is that not having a reference to other forms of abuse might lead to an undue focus on financial abuse only, to the detriment of others.

Amendment 28 would place a duty on relevant partners, such as those providing care and support, to notify the local authority if they believe an adult is at risk of abuse. It is clear that local authorities cannot be expected to identify all types of abuse themselves, or to rely on the good will of other people or agencies. If relevant partners, including providers of care, had a duty to report that adults were at risk of abuse, that would make their responsibilities clear, and would help to secure greater transparency. I, and others, fear that leaving the matter to guidance would pose a risk that the duty would not be taken seriously enough. A legal duty for relevant partners has already been introduced in Wales, and the amendment seeks to mirror that.

We are familiar with the existing framework relating to adult safeguarding boards and the joint agency working that takes place, but concerns that arise day in, day out are not always reported, and, sadly, there is also under-reporting of concerns from hospitals. While there are many examples of local excellence in the development of safeguarding procedures, I fear, as do others, that there will be too much of a patchwork and not enough of a national framework. It is essential for us to know, wherever we live, that the standards of reporting and obligations placed on agencies and other partners to make that all-important report about abuse are consistent. Because adults are often much more isolated than children and young people who are surrounded by a framework, a duty to report when an adult is at risk could be considered to be more crucial.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

I shall speak briefly about new clauses 17 and 18 and amendments 31 to 33, which stand in my name.

New clauses 17 and 18 go to the heart of the social care profession. They say a great deal about how much we value the care of vulnerable and older people. New clause 17 would reveal the full extent of poor employment practices in the care sector, including zero-hours contracts and failure to pay the national minimum wage. Good social care thrives on the provision of well-trained, motivated staff who can develop proper relationships with the people whom they visit, but we know that that does not happen. According to the Social Care Workforce Research Unit, more than 150,000 people in the care work force earn less than the national minimum wage. Poor pay not only affects employee morale, but makes it difficult to attract skilled staff and encourages high staff turnover. None of that is good for service users, who need to have confidence and trust in the people who visit them.

The Government promised to get tough on employers who do not pay the national minimum wage, but so far only five employers have been “named and shamed”. Not one of them was in the care sector, which is worrying given how widespread we know the problem to be. New clause 17 would give a clear picture of the state of the sector, and would create a foundation for possible action.

New clause 18 would create a requirement for local authorities to consider how the employment practices of providers they commission might affect the quality of care. The aim is to build checks into the system so that standards are not allowed to slip. Training is a particular concern: more than 40% of respondents to a Unison survey reported that they had not been given specialised training to deal with the specific needs of clients with conditions such as dementia. Nearly a quarter reported that they were required to carry out medical procedures or give medicine to clients when they had not been trained to do so. More worryingly, a care worker who spoke to me recently told me that it was standard practice in the agency to leave tablets for clients by their bedsides to save the cost of another visit later in the evening to ensure that the client had taken his or her medication. That means, essentially, that hundreds of vulnerable, confused people who are not in control of their own care are left to control their own medicine.

The issue of 15-minute care visits has rightly attracted considerable attention, not just because they often make the practicalities of care impossible, but because they eliminate almost any chance for a relationship to develop between carer and client. An under-reported crisis among older people is growing isolation, and the carer may be the only person to whom many of them speak on most days. That has real, measurable impacts on people’s well-being, and is made worse by those flying visits. New clause 18 would force authorities to take such factors into account when commissioning services.

A care worker on a zero-hours contract told me that it was common for 15 or 30- minute visits to be scheduled back to back, which gave him time to do only the bare minimum. He had no time to speak to his clients, or to go the extra mile to keep them comfortable. He often drops in on them in his spare time just to ensure that they are okay. On one occasion, he arrived at a client’s home to find that the man had fallen and needed to go to hospital. The man asked whether the care worker—a constituent of mine—could go with him, and my constituent rang his employers to see whether that was possible. He was told that it was not. It is extremely worrying to see cases in which social care has lost that basic element of compassion. Employers must be required to build some kind of flexibility into their practices.

My own experience in adult social care has convinced me that a general duty of well-being is simply not enough.