Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Kemi Badenoch

Wednesday 30th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

The seed enterprise investment scheme is one of three tax-advantaged venture capital schemes that provide tax incentives to individuals who invest in companies at various stages of growth. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to talk about the world-leading generosity of this scheme. I will find out whether a Minister in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy or the Treasury is available to meet her and her constituents on this specific issue.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

9. What discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on energy costs for disabled people.

Elections Bill

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Kemi Badenoch

Report stage
Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point and shows that we have carried out thorough investigations into the impact. I am pleased that pilots such as the one in Swindon have been able to prove the Government’s case.

Turning to the Government amendments on franchise measures, there are two technical amendments to schedule 7 for the EU citizen voting and candidacy provisions. Amendment 116 seeks to apply provisions in the Bill to amend the voting and candidacy rights of European citizens to the relevant elections in the City of London, which are governed by a unique legislative frame- work. It was therefore necessary to conduct additional investigations and engagement in order to finalise the provisions for inclusion in the Bill. The effect of the amendment is to bring City of London ward elections into line with those of the rest of England.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

The Government themselves say time and again that EU citizens make such a contribution to the UK. Does the Minister agree that it seems a cynical move that EU citizens with settled status will now be disenfranchised?

[Kemi Badenoch]

We had multiple discussions on EU citizenship when we debated Brexit legislation. These are technical amendments to City of London voting rights, and some relate to the business franchise as well, so the hon. Lady’s remarks are not relevant to this piece of legislation.

Amendment 117 is a minor technical amendment that corrects an oversight in the drafting and makes no changes to the effect or scope of the Bill. It reinserts a cross-reference to the definition of “qualifying Commonwealth citizen” in section 79 of the Local Government Act 1972. This will prevent any ambiguity and will ensure a common understanding of the term in this instance.

The technical amendments to the digital imprints provisions will ensure that the new regime clearly delivers the policy intent. On new clause 12 and related consequential amendments, it was always the policy intention for the enforcement of digital imprints to broadly mirror the enforcement of the print regime. Since introduction, we have identified that, although certain types of material were already included in the provisions for unpaid material, it was not sufficiently clear that they were captured in the provisions for paid-for materials and, as drafted, would not fall to be enforced by the Electoral Commission.

The amendments will ensure that the enforcement responsibilities of the police and the Electoral Commission can be correctly assigned and are consistent across all material. That will enable the commission, in practice, to enforce material about registered parties and referendums, as well as material about categories of candidates, future candidates and holders of elected office. That is broadly in line with the existing split of responsibilities between the enforcement authorities in the print regime. There may be a degree of overlap between material about categories of candidates, future candidates and holders of elected office, and material that is about more than one particular candidate, future candidate or holder of elected office. In these instances, it is for the authorities to establish, based on the particular facts, where the enforcement responsibility lies.

These amendments will make the provisions easier for campaigners to understand and for the authorities to enforce, while delivering a regime that provides transparency for voters across a wide range of campaigning material. The amendments will also clarify that no electronic campaigning material, be it paid or unpaid, needs to make express mention of the candidate, party, future candidate, elected office holder or outcome of the referendum it relates to in order to be in scope of the regime. By clarifying that, the amendments will remove any uncertainty.

The remaining Government amendments to the digital imprints clauses are, again, small technical clarifications. Amendment 20 amends the definitions of candidates, future candidates and elected office holders so as to include those of municipal elections in the City of London, ensuring that a consistent approach is applied to the transparency of unpaid electronic and printed campaign material.

Amendment 25 simply clarifies that the imprint rules will apply only to unpaid material wholly or mainly related to referendums when published during the referendum period. That ensures that the regime takes a proportionate approach, providing transparency around material when it is most likely to be shared and therefore influence the outcome of a referendum.

Finally, I will turn to the last set of amendments relating to the measures in the Bill on the Electoral Commission. Amendments 13 to 15 seek to future-proof the appointment mechanism of Ministers to the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission. As currently drafted, clause 15 enables a Minister of the Crown with responsibilities for the constitution appointed by the Prime Minister to deputise for the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, following the Transfer of Functions (Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities) Order 2021. Several transfer of functions orders have been needed over recent years to ensure appropriate Government membership of the Speaker’s committee. It is an unnecessarily burdensome process that could be avoided by future-proofing these provisions against future machinery of government changes or changes in ministerial responsibilities.

Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Kemi Badenoch

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. What he has described is part of the climate of intimidation surrounding the report’s authors, which I condemned in my statement and which has just been demonstrated by the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler).

I read in today’s paper that the Runnymede Trust is now the subject of a complaint to the Charity Commission. One complaint refers to the behaviour of the trust’s CEO and staff towards ethnic minorities who have a different approach to racial equality. Some of that behaviour includes calling a black Conservative a “house negro” and horrific views on mixed-race relationships expressed by one staff member, comparing white people having relationships with black people to slave masters sleeping with their slaves. I do not believe that these actions are appropriate for a charity committed to racial equality.

This is a good time to remind the House that the current chair of the Runnymede Trust applied to be the Labour candidate for Poplar and Limehouse in 2019, but failed to make the shortlist. I would be keen to know whether the shadow Minister condemns those sorts of remarks, or believes that they are acceptable so long as they are targeted at people she disagrees with.[Official Report, 22 April 2021, Vol. 692, c. 5MC.]

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Ethnic minority communities have suffered disproportionate numbers of deaths from covid-19. The Sewell report fails to recognise that structural racism underlies many socioeconomic inequalities. There is an interconnectivity between different forms of disadvantage and discrimination but, at the heart of it, is structural racism. It is important for the Government to recognise that. Will the Government commit to working with organisations such as Operation Black Vote to implement a covid-19 race equality strategy that looks in particular at health inequalities and makes sure that the lived experience of people from ethnic minority backgrounds is listened to?

[Kemi Badenoch]

The hon. Lady will know that I have been reporting to this House quarterly on the very work that she describes—the effect that covid-19 has had on ethnic minority people and other vulnerable groups. We have explained the reasons for the causes of those disparities. The Public Health England report had a qualitative review, which talked about people’s experiences of racism in the system.

What we have to do now, however, is to ensure that we protect people. Our strategy at the moment is around vaccines. We have been doing everything we can to increase vaccine uptake, including significant amounts of work—which I reported to the House in February—on increasing vaccine uptake among ethnic minority groups where a large percentage of vaccine hesitancy remains, again much of it caused by misrepresentation and misinformation. I hope that the hon. Lady and members of her party will work with us in government on tackling misinformation and disinformation and will encourage those vulnerable groups to get vaccinated.

Covid-19: Ethnic Minority Disparities

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Kemi Badenoch

Monday 1st March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

My right hon. Friend raises a very good point. I congratulate all of her constituents who are doing important work in the community by raising awareness of what is happening with covid-19, and ensuring that people have access to the best advice and guidance. It is critical that we continue to support those community champions. That is one of the reasons that we are funding the community champions scheme, which ensures that we improve the reach of official public health guidance and other messaging or communications about the virus into those hard-to-reach areas.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD) [V]]

In the year to September 2020, the drop in employment for people from ethnic minorities was 26 times higher than for white workers. Unless the Government take meaningful action to address workforce inequalities, including the ethnicity pay gap, the fall-out from covid will make these glaring inequalities even worse. May I ask again: will the Government finally commit to bringing forward the long-awaited ethnicity pay gap reporting?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I believe that we have answered this question before; if memory serves me correctly, I think I have written to the hon. Lady on this subject. It is something that the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities is looking at. The commission will be reporting shortly and will be able to give a statement on ethnicity pay reporting. I would like the hon. Lady to send me her statistics about workforce inequality; they are not statistics with which I am familiar, and it would be very interesting to look at the evidence base on that.