Support for Children Entitled to Free School Meals

Debate between Rupa Huq and Catherine West

Wednesday 26th May 2021 Westminster Hall

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Thank you, Dr Huq, and I am sure I can keep my remarks to under five minutes.

Recommendation 1 of the Government’s food strategy was to

“make sure a generation of our most disadvantaged children do not get left behind”.

Eating well in childhood is the foundation stone of equality of opportunity, and it is essential for both physical and mental growth. A poorly nourished child will struggle to concentrate at school, and the debate has fleshed out that concept a lot. Unfortunately, the Minister’s winding-up speech did not give me much hope. I welcome the increases to many of the constituencies that she mentioned, but an increase in pupil premium, or an increase in funding for disadvantaged children, means that child poverty is increasing. That suggests the Prime Minister was wrong when he made his statement today, which the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) mentioned earlier.

A number of actions desperately need to be taken. No.1 is to pay as many people as possible not the minimum wage, but the real living wage, which is £9.50 in most of the UK and £10.85 in London. By the way, when I was a borough leader, we introduced the London living wage to all staff who worked in kitchens in schools at the same time as we introduced universal free school meals for every single primary school child. It was a great day when we did that.

No. 2 is that the £20 universal credit uplift must be made permanent, and we must urgently review the two- child limit. Let us not forget that over 50% of people using Trussell Trust food banks had never used one with children before, and that 1 million eight to 17-year-olds visited a food bank in December and January. We desperately need to review child benefit levels, which have been frozen, and we need to look at more help for families with fuel bills, water bills and council tax. I welcome the breathing space initiative that the Minister mentioned, but I do not think it is well known. I do not think there has been enough getting the message out, because far too many people are still in debt for certain financial products that are “buy now, pay later”, which very quickly become unaffordable.

People desperately need more help with housing costs, and we must look urgently at the privately rented sector, which tends to be very low quality. These days, it has lower-quality housing stock than in social housing, and people pay over a third of their income on expensive rent payments and childcare costs. [Interruption.] I think we have to end there, Dr Huq.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

You can carry on.

[Catherine West]

I accept that not all of those elements are in the Minister’s brief, but she did very well to cover some of them. I think all Members in the debate would like to put on record the wonderful work that is done in schools by the women who cook the meals, our school meals supervisors, all our teaching assistants and all our teachers. They play an important role in promoting good nutrition and sitting down to have a hot meal in the middle of the day. That has important elements, such as learning to use a knife and fork and learning to have conversations with adults—all the things that sitting around a table does.

I hope the Minister will take this to heart as we go forward and as she looks at the implications of the national food strategy for schools, so that we can hopefully go towards a high-quality approach to breakfast clubs and school meals. We need to get as much free fruit into schools as possible—that was another cut during the austerity years that needs to come back. We should also look at any provision that we can offer in secondary schools, because children do not stop being poor when they turn 13 and go to secondary school. They still need all that nutritional support and help.

We have had a good debate, and I thank all Members for being involved. I hope that the Minister will take some of the recommendations from the debate into Government policy, so that we can aspire to have a society where the 23 billionaires who were added to the rich list do not get to eat all the food, but where our poorer children get to have a nutritional and fully based diet as well.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered support for children entitled to free school meals.

Nagorno-Karabakh

Debate between Rupa Huq and Catherine West

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins. It was great to hear the very strong introductory speech from the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Armenia, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), and that of the vice-chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark). I look forward to the Minister’s response to my hon. Friend’s remarks about the banned cluster bombs and the potential violations of international humanitarian law.

As we have all heard, the conflict has had all the hallmarks of a truly dreadful modern international conflict: the use of heavy weapons in civilian areas, the involvement of third-party competence and regional powers, the impotence of several international organisations to facilitate peace at the beginning, an unfolding and tragic toll on the civilian population, the destruction of homes and infrastructure, and, as the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) said, the destruction of places of worship. Despite all that, the humanitarian catastrophe in Nagorno-Karabakh, and the wide-ranging regional geopolitical consequences, have really not had the attention that they deserve from the global community.

[Dr Huq]

British people with dual nationality have been caught up in a situation where people have been displaced or lost their homes—it is freezing cold at the moment—and, as my hon. Friend pointed out, illegal weapons are being used against people in the form of cluster bombs. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that there has been no full British ambassador in a couple of years, since the last one left, and that that just adds to the impression that the conflict is deprioritised for this Government?

[Catherine West]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. She has been a real champion, together with our hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (James Murray), in making the case not just for the diaspora here in the UK, who are really suffering, but for what is happening on the ground.

I have only three questions for the Minister, because I know that we are keen to hear her reply. Will she tell us what is happening with respect to the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent, which, earlier this week, were unable to access all the detained combatants, and have struggled to begin the tragic process of returning the deceased to their families? What role are the UK Government playing in that effort? Will the Minister address that immediate and pressing concern? In addition, the impact of covid-19 brings an extra difficult dimension to the conflict, adding further pressure on the health authorities in both countries in coping with the injured and the displaced.

My second question is on the role of Turkey, which many hon. Members have mentioned, including the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith), who was eloquent in his questioning of Turkey’s UK armaments. Has the Minister—as I have as shadow Minister, together with the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), who is shadow Minister for the Middle East—confronted the Turkish ambassador about the situation and the potential use of Syrian and Iraqi fighters? Turkey is an ally of the UK and is part of NATO; we should be able to have those frank conversations and hold our friends to account.

Finally, will the Minister tell us what she is doing with respect to Russia’s role and in bringing in the international community? This is not just about leaving it to Russia, which of course traditionally has the military pact. What effort is being made to breathe some life into the Minsk format and reinvigorate it so that the UK can play its role—for example, by tabling a proposal for a new resolution at the UN Security Council? Of course, all hon. Members want the conflict to stop and the peace process to be successful. We should all get behind the peace process, not just leave it to Russia’s protection of the Lachin corridor.

Police Funding: London

Debate between Rupa Huq and Catherine West

Wednesday 25th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Catherine West]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The debate is similar to the one about hospital closures: we want community-based services, but once hospitals are closed, it is easy to close those services without people noticing. The same rule applies to the 101 service.

Many people feel less safe in London. Figures from the Met suggest a 5% rise in crime overall between 2015-16 and 2016-17.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Has my hon. Friend, as I have, seen an upsurge in the number of people who have witnessed or experienced moped crime? Does she agree that the police need greater powers? Funding for response vehicles has been slashed to ribbons, as it has for everything else. My caseworker Milad, who is ex-Met, tells me that the police feel powerless to deal with moped crime, because criminals can exploit legal and procedural loopholes. The police need greater pursuit powers and legal protections. These cuts have consequences.

[Catherine West]

Indeed. Sadly, moped crime is increasingly prevalent in all our constituencies. We can debate whether to change the law, but first and foremost let us get bobbies back on the beat. If criminals see people they are a bit afraid of, they may be disinclined to jump on the back of a motorbike and steal from old ladies.

I habitually receive emails, letters and phone calls from constituents who want to feel safe and secure in their community and in our capital. Our ability to respond to terror attacks is being weakened; the number of armed officers has fallen by 10% since 2010. Meanwhile, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime fears that officer numbers in London are at risk of falling below 30,000 for the first time since 2003, despite the growing threat of terror and our rapidly growing population. The number of officers per capita has fallen 20% over the past five years. We face ever more austerity, ever more cuts, and the ever more inevitable closure of public services. There is a deep sense that the Government’s decisions are bypassing us completely and are failing to take into account the views of those affected.

The Government argue that the police can do more with less, but crime is being increasingly reported and is increasingly violent, including gun, knife and moped crime. Our emergency services put themselves in harm’s way every single day to protect us. Our police keep us safe. They are dedicated and professional, despite cuts to their resources. As Steve White, chair of the Police Federation, recently said:

“Whenever a crisis happens there is talk of ‘extra’ officers being put on patrol but these aren’t ‘extra’ officers. They are the same officers working longer shifts, or who have had days off cancelled and are being run ragged. This has a negative impact on their health and wellbeing, which has an impact on sickness levels, which has a further impact on their colleagues.”

The Government’s record is damning. They are led by a former Home Secretary who oversaw and enforced deep cost pressures that have left some in the police force demoralised—there were a record number of resignations from the Metropolitan police last year. In the forthcoming Budget, the Government have an opportunity to amend that record and put us back on the right track. They must increase overall real-terms funding for the police in November. The police must be given the resources they need, not 20,000 cuts.

The Mayor has warned that our city faces losing up to 4,000 police officers at a time of “unprecedented” challenges and that the £400 million gap may endanger the safety of residents. Just this month, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Mark Simmons told us that the Metropolitan police will stop investigating “lower level” crimes, including assaults and burglary, as a result of these cuts. The Met has sold off almost £1 billion-worth of London property over the past five years to fill its funding gap.

A recent cross-party report by the London Assembly’s budget and performance committee, chaired by Conservative Assembly member Gareth Bacon, found that even if these cost savings go to plan,

“the Met still faces a financial black-hole of £185 million over the next four years… Home Office Ministers appear to have ignored the advice of their own scrutiny panel and are underfunding the Met for the cost of policing an international capital city. Furthermore, their guidelines effectively prevent the Met from claiming any financial help for dealing with extraordinary events such as the London Bridge attack or the Grenfell fire.”

That is unjustified, unreasonable and unfair.

Police officers deserve their overdue pay rise, but it has fallen on the Met to find the money in its existing budget, which is already under attack. That is an additional pressure of £10.7 million—money that should come from central Government. The Mayor already increased the council tax police precept last year to fill some of the gap, but it is not enough. The Home Office still has not released the criteria that it will use to calculate the police general grant, but the Met expects further reductions of up to £700 million if the funding formula review goes ahead.

Uncertainty, with no official decision yet from the Home Office on general Government grant, prevents the Met from making considered and long-term financial decisions. The size of the budget for policing across the UK is too small, and it needs to be increased across the board and in our city. While the Government drag their feet, they do so in secret, unwilling to share calculations for how budgets are settled.

Some 70% of the Met’s funding comes from the Home Office, which must wake up and realise that, without urgent action, the headcount will fall further. We cannot protect our communities on the cheap. It has been a difficult year in keeping London and Londoners safe, with rising crime and escalating terror incidents. Throughout these events, our Metropolitan police have risen to the challenges. Let our Government now do the same.