Stella Creasy MP: speeches

Speeches

• 6 Dec 2024 · European Union (Withdrawal Arrangements) Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech and it is one that he and I have lived and breathed as Members elected prior to 2024 and indeed prior to 2019, when the legislation at the heart of this matter was constructed in this place. We were on the Opposition Benches at the time and we all had to look at the concept of international relations and what would happen because of the Brexit votes. It was striking that the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) promoting this legislation talked as if that had never happened. We have been there before in all of this. There are no perfect solutions; that is part of the challenge that Brexit created for all of us. But in looking at what we do next, understanding that breaching international protocols has consequences is as important as thinking about what we do when we breach those international protocols, as we did with Brexit.

• 6 Dec 2024 · European Union (Withdrawal Arrangements) Bill · Hansard source

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  I appreciate the hon. and learned Gentleman’s passion. He also needs to be honest with this Chamber that the laws he is talking about include human rights laws, and the basic, equal treatment of everybody in Northern Ireland. His legislation would rip up the very foundation of democracy, which is that everybody is equal. Does he not need to be honest with this Chamber that the 300 laws he is talking about include equal human rights?

• 6 Dec 2024 · European Union (Withdrawal Arrangements) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

• 6 Dec 2024 · European Union (Withdrawal Arrangements) Bill · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 6 Dec 2024 · European Union (Withdrawal Arrangements) Bill · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman is right. He and I may disagree about how to resolve it though, which is what I want to ask him about so that I do not misunderstand him. That disagreement was about the right to remedy being removed from people in Northern Ireland seeking asylum; in other words, it was the right to petition to an external court to uphold your rights. This Bill removes the domestic legal effect of article 2 of the Windsor framework and breaches paragraphs 1 and 2 of article 4 of the EU-UK withdrawal agreement, which require that individuals be enabled “to rely directly” on the provisions of that treaty. Does the right hon. Gentleman think that is right? Many of us believe that there is a libertarian argument for a third-party court to uphold the rights of citizens, whether that relates to contract law and what they are sold or to their basic human rights. Is he saying that his resolution is that the right for citizens to petition a third party to protect themselves against the Government should be removed from the people of Northern Ireland?

• 6 Dec 2024 · European Union (Withdrawal Arrangements) Bill · Hansard source

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  I wish I could understand—perhaps my hon. Friend can help me out with this. If, on the one hand, the European Union is a source of colonisation that has this disrespect towards the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, but, on the other hand, as part of a trade agreement we would simply trust each other to mutually enforce each other’s rules without any level of oversight, at what point do we start trusting these colonisers, as opposed to recognising that as part of an international trade treaty, we both have to stick to the same set of rules and see them upheld?

• 3 Dec 2024 · National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  It is clear that the Government are working hard to get this right, but may I press the Minister on the point about the employment allowance? What he says about doubling the threshold is welcome, particularly when it comes to childcare provision, and we all want an expansion of childcare places. He will be aware that the employment allowance doubling that he is talking about will apply to state-provided childcare places, but not to private and co-operative nurseries. Some 85% of places are in private and co-operative nurseries, so will he look at extending the employment allowance that he is giving to state nurseries to private and co-operative nurseries, so we can support the expansion of childcare?

• 3 Dec 2024 · National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 3 Dec 2024 · Money and Pensions Service · Hansard source

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  5. What assessment she has made of the adequacy of funding for the Money and Pensions Service.

• 3 Dec 2024 · Money and Pensions Service · Hansard source

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  New research from the Centre for Responsible Credit shows that 7.5 million people in this country are going without the debt advice that they need. We are in a cost of living crisis, so services are severely stretched. The Money and Pensions Service underestimates need by excluding people who are behind with their bills. That means that the financial levy that it proposes is not what it needs to be. Since a third of those who need financial help borrow from buy now, pay later lenders, and given the delay in regulating those companies, will the Minister meet me to look at the funding model of the financial levy and what more we can do to ensure that those profiting from exploiting our constituents pay to repair the damage?

• 2 Dec 2024 · Children and Bereavement · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. It is a privilege to be part of a debate that reflects Parliament and politics at its best, which happens when we see the injustices and the suffering that have befallen those whom we represent, and we seek to make sure that they never happen again. I start by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Kevin Bonavia) for eloquently opening the debate, to Mark and John, and to the hon. Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson). Time passing does not make it easier for them; it makes it more important that we have not yet dealt with the situation that they are in. I am grateful to have heard about their experiences and to contribute to this debate with those experiences at the centre. We are speaking for thousands of people in this country, of all ages, who have lost a parent. In my short contribution, I will raise with the Minister some examples that I have dealt with as a constituency MP. They are the cases that nobody ever wants to see. When a young child comes through our door in that position, it takes all our courage not to burst into tears when we hear their heartbreaking story, but that becomes even more of a challenge when we realise that services are not built to wrap around them. It seems so obvious that we must do everything we can for this young person, because an awful thing has happened to them, but that is not a given. Sadly, I have dealt with several children who, as Mark lost his father, have lost their parents to murder—horrific, public murders in my local community. It seems obvious that those children would be traumatised. One child was there when it happened, but we are still struggling to get them counselling; it is not a given. The school does not have any understanding of what needs to provided. That does not mean that people at the school do not want to help, but it is so out of their worldview that that could happen, so counselling is not in place. The family have been trying to push for it for some time, but it is still a work in progress. Ironically, we have now discovered that a child can get counselling if they view a murder or are a witness, but not if it has just happened to a member of their family or to a parent. This petition tells us about the need to recognise that children are traumatised in that way—they are traumatised by the loss of a parent whether they see it or not—so we must get counselling in. That seems so obvious, but it is not consistent. The counselling services are there, so it is a question of joining them up. I hope that the Minister can take that back to her Department. I have also seen, for children who have lost parents to terminal illness, that counselling is not an expected part of the conversation about what we can do. It has come up only in relation to whether we can keep the child in school, but that seems too late. I would wager that the hon. Member for South Shropshire feels that, in his experience, one reason he got to that point was that nobody intervened early enough; indeed, they tried to stop the conversation rather than recognise how traumatic it would be for him. It is therefore not just about providing counselling when something horrific has happened, but about recognising how horrific it is to lose a parent at such a young age—full stop. That would make a real difference.

• 2 Dec 2024 · Children and Bereavement · Hansard source

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  One of the reasons it is important to have counselling in schools is that, when I think about the partners who I have worked with who have lost somebody, we want to try to take as many burdens off their shoulders as possible and recognise that they are dealing with grief too. This debate focuses on children, but there is a need to join up the welfare system to support families. They have lost somebody—they have lost an income provider—and often, the time that the remaining parent wants to spend with their child is taken away because they have to work to try to make up the loss of income. We should be able to join that up. I first became involved in many of these issues when I worked with the brilliant Widowed and Young with parents who were not married, where the impact was that families would lose an income provider who was not recognised. The children were clearly suffering, but in those cases the mums, and in one case the dad, were having to think about all the practical things, such as bills and how to keep a roof above their head. They did not have as much time to be with their children, which in itself caused grief and harm to them. We managed to get the allowance for bereaved widows extended to non-married partners, but we did not really look to challenge the idea that somehow, after 18 months, a child and a family should have recovered to the extent that there would be no impact. That affects our ability to help children. There is another scenario I want to raise with the Minister, which addresses the first petition about data. I recently had a case that really floored me, of two children who lost their mother and then, shortly afterwards, their father—it was just extraordinary. We relied on their family members to help them, but because those family members did not have immigration status here in the UK, the children, who were British citizens, lost all their rights and were living in absolute, abject poverty. My community in Walthamstow brilliantly picked them up to try to help them while we resolved their immigration status, but the children’s rights here were gone as soon as their parents died. It got me thinking about how many other families might be in that position. I asked the Ministry of Justice about children who have legal guardians, because that was what these family members had become for those children. It was sorting out their status that then opened up doors for the children, which took far too long—more than a year. We do not have a record of how many orphans are in this country. Think about the worst thing that could possibly happen: someone loses one parent and then the second, or maybe even loses both together. The state does not know how many of those children there are, so I asked the Ministry of Justice about the numbers of children being allocated a legal guardian because both parents had passed away. The Ministry of Justice told me, in answer to a written question, that while it thought that the information was held in court records, it was not uniformly gathered. That means the Minister’s job is doubly difficult, because she will not know how many children have no guaranteed guardian to pick any of these issues up, whether that is counselling or their financial position. It seems obvious that, as corporate parents, we ought to know how many children are in the position of sadly losing both parents. I make a plea that we make counselling a given. It must not be something to be asked and fought for and sought out, whereby hopefully the local Member of Parliament knows about Victim Support or another charity, even though those charities do brilliant things. We must organise counselling for every child who loses a parent and do that through schools, partly to take some of the weight off the parent who is grieving. We must also start to act as corporate parents and record how many orphans there are. I hope that the number is infinitesimal, but for the two I came across in Walthamstow, I have never felt more impotent as an MP. We were trying to stop them living in horrific circumstances in which they had lost all support, funding and assistance, while we as a community were gathering together school uniforms for them and the foodbanks had to be there every single day. I would be horrified if there were more children in that position, but since we do not know, we must do more to gather basic data to understand what is happening to some children in this country. We hope that it is a scenario we never have to deal with, but we sadly know that it is not the case. That is why it is so important that the House, as it does at its best, hears the stories and sees the reality of the messiness of human life, and acts. These petitions call on us to act on scenarios that sadly happen more than we might realise, and which we do not know the full extent of. I know the Minister shares my concern and compassion for people in that position and will want to do all she can. We must help her in lobbying her colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Justice for a better dataset of the children in that position. I know that is a view we hold across the House. Again, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage for introducing the petition so eloquently.

• 26 Nov 2024 · Release of Alaa Abd el-Fattah · Hansard source

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  Alaa’s friends and family, whom I have the privilege of representing as my constituents, just want their brother, uncle and son home safe. Previously, the Foreign Secretary—who has worked hard on this issue and, as he says, has raised it with the Egyptians—has talked about what we could do if the Egyptians will not restore consular access. They still have not done that, so could the Foreign Secretary update us? I know this House speaks as one in standing and demanding that Alaa be freed and able to come home to his family for this Christmas, but what more can and will the Foreign Secretary do if the Egyptians will not restore consular access for the family?

• 26 Nov 2024 · COP29 · Hansard source

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  My constituents are very proud that one of our own, Samia Dumbuya, was part of the Future Leaders Network working with the UK Youth Climate Coalition at Baku. I know that the Secretary of State will agree that young people need to be at the heart of what comes next following COP. They welcome the proposed NDCs, but they now need a direct and dedicated place in making them happen. Can he tell us what formal mechanism for the oversight and delivery of the reduction of emissions by 81% by 2035 he envisages for the young people of the UK?

• 19 Nov 2024 · Occupied Palestinian Territories: Humanitarian Situation · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; she is making a very powerful case and many of us share her deep concern for the children in Gaza. Does she recognise, as I do, that the time has probably now come for the UK to use its full range of diplomatic powers to express its concerns, particularly regarding the comments in the last 24 hours by Finance Minister Smotrich, who has called for Israel to permanently occupy Gaza as a means of getting the hostages home? The hostage families do not want that; Israeli communities oppose it. So, does she agree that it is time for us to stand with all those Israelis and Palestinians against that kind of extremist language, because it does not help the people of Gaza and it will not end this crisis?

• 18 Nov 2024 · Financial Services: Mansion House Speech · Hansard source

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  Members from across the House have long called for financial regulation of “buy now, pay later” companies. Because of the delay in regulating those companies, a third of people seeking debt advice do so because of them. The Woolard report in 2021 identified the urgency of the FCA regulating the industry as soon as possible. I welcome the Government’s commitment to regulating them, but I am bemused, as many are, as to why it will take until 2026 for the regulations to take effect and for our constituents to be protected. Everybody knows that regulation needs to happen, and what the regulations are, and the FCA has been waiting since 2021 to do it—so why are we giving these legal loan sharks two Christmases-worth of presents, and allowing them to exploit our vulnerable constituents in this cost of living crisis?

• 18 Nov 2024 · Children’s Social Care · Hansard source

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  Having spent 14 years watching children’s services struggle in the way the Secretary of State outlines, with serious case reviews often being the moment of intervention, I heartily welcome the emphasis on early intervention, and what she says about the responsibility that we all have. She will know that there has been much discussion about the concept of corporate parenting. What is her thinking on that, and what role does she see for us as Members of Parliament? At the moment, relationships across the country are clearly too inconsistent. That is to the detriment of safeguarding, and indeed of our young people.

• 29 Oct 2024 · Israel: UNRWA Ban · Hansard source

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  With winter on its way, as the Minister said, it is vital that we are clear about the importance of aid and of challenging all who obstruct it. The Israeli Finance Minister said that the starvation of 2 million people in Gaza might be “justified and moral” in order to free the hostages. Let us be clear: the hostage families do not think that. The Israeli National Security Minister backed the protests against aid convoys reaching Gaza. I understand why the Minister says that she will not give a running commentary on sanctions, but if we do not have sanctions now, what else is open to us to send the clear message that aid must get to Gaza immediately?

• 23 Oct 2024 · Paternity Leave and Pay · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Shaun Davies) on securing this long-overdue debate. Previous debates have had a minimal turnout, so it is fantastic to see so many people here. I also pay tribute to the Dad Shift and the original campaigners Pregnant Then Screwed and Joeli Brearley. Joeli Brearley came up with the pancake test: if we consistently put mums and dads in two different boxes, with mums looking after babies and dads having to go back to work after those first two weeks, when you have just realised that the meconium will eventually stop, it is mums who learn how to feed the child pancakes and dads who do not. It is mums who will get why some days the child wants pancakes rolled up, some days they want them flat and some days they want them with cream. That everyday caring for children is at the heart of being able to look after them, and slowly but surely it ends up being easier for the mum to take the child and to deal with the toddler, and dads get further and further away. That is why, in the minute I have left, I want to argue in front of the Minister for PaPa—protected and paid leave—which we need for mums and dads in every single relationship. There is a risk that the Employment Rights Bill and the brilliant changes it introduces could entrench the challenges we are discussing, rather than helping us to resolve them. What do I mean by that? I mean that, if we entrench the idea that shared parental leave is the answer to the challenge, we are entrenching one of the biggest crimes against relationships. As the data shows us time and again, it is mums who end up having to look after children and mums who end up having to take that link. That is why in this country there is a motherhood penalty, which means that mums are seen as less committed, less capable, less competent and less worthy of promotion.

• 23 Oct 2024 · Paternity Leave and Pay · Hansard source

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  I completely agree. I was also shocked to hear Conservative Members, who obviously are not in this Chamber today, talking about flexible working as somehow lesser working. When people work flexibly, they do not work less—that is why they end up sending emails in the evening, because they are prioritising their time to do bedtime. They make it work for their family. This debate is about making things work for families and tackling the inequalities in the workplace. Those inequalities are why we have a gender pay gap in this country—though in fact it is not a gender pay gap, but a motherhood pay gap. There is also a fatherhood premium, but we are showing in this debate that it is not a premium at all, because asking dads to work harder and longer and to be away from their children is not what modern dads want. That is why so many fathers look at flexibility in the workplace when they take on jobs, and that is why this debate matters. If we want to support every family, it cannot just be the wealthiest who can set the terms on when they get to see their kids and make those pancakes. I therefore urge the Minister to consider an amendment that many of us will be tabling relating to PaPa for dads in their own right, because that will help every member of the family. I said it in the main Chamber, and I will say it again here: having PaPa is good for us, because our economic competitors are doing it, and we have some of the worst rates of paternity leave. It is also good because we can prevent another generation of dads reaching the stage of having teenagers who they have no relationship with, because they have not been there—not just to make pancakes, but to be the best dad they want to be.

• 23 Oct 2024 · Paternity Leave and Pay · Hansard source

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  We also have to think about all the women who do not have children but are discriminated against anyway because employers expect them to. Does my hon. Friend agree that to get paternity leave right, we have to ensure that everyone in their 30s and 40s is equally discriminated against because they might go off and have children?

• 22 Oct 2024 · EU-UK Youth Mobility Agreement · Hansard source

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  It is welcome to hear the Minister talk about looking at what the EU might suggest. It is important to be clear that the youth mobility scheme is not freedom of movement. We already have schemes with Uruguay, Japan, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, and it is clear that strict conditions apply to when somebody can come here. Will the Minister update us on when he next expects to discuss the subject with the EU?

• 21 Oct 2024 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  As a proud member of the Community and USDAW trade unions, I am delighted with the legislation. In the short time available to me, I will focus on the particular issue of whether we work to live, or we live to work, because so far the debate in this place, particularly in the remarks made by Conservative Members, has sounded like something from the mesozoic era and the dying era of the dinosaurs. Let us get something straight: tackling sexual harassment in the workforce is not about free speech, but about stopping a crime; flexible working does not mean people work less, just that they work flexibly; and rights do not make people irresponsible employees, any more than it is noticeable that our competitors internationally are ahead of us on this work. The measures in the Bill are about entrenching good practice, so that we have a race to the top, not a flounder to the bottom, as we did under the previous Government. That is why I and others hope to push the Government to go further on maternity and paternity rights. It vital that the Bill contains protections for mothers around maternity discrimination, but such measures will only work if we include the other 50% and bring dads into the equation. We do not really have a gender pay gap in this country any more: we have a motherhood pay gap and a motherhood penalty. Women face the discrimination of being made unemployed not only when they have children but because they might have children, and women who have kids find that when they go back to work, they are considered to be less committed, capable and competent. Women who are childless are six times more likely to be recommended for a job and eight times more likely to be recommended for a promotion. The issue cuts the other way too, because there is a fatherhood premium as fathers are considered to be more reliable employees. We must not entrench these inequalities but overturn them, so that dads can be part of their kids’ lives and mums can get a fair crack at being in the workforce. A third of dads in this country take no paternity leave at all; half of them say that is because they feel pressured financially to go back to work early. Modern employers get the problem and are offering more than the statutory minimum. Some 92% of fathers who are job hunting say flexibility makes all the difference when they choose which job to take. After the pandemic, the number of stay-at-home dads increased by a third. Frankly, dads want to step up to the plate, whatever Members on the Conservative Benches may think, and mothers want them to be there too. Making such changes matters to the economy. The loss of productivity that comes from women caring for their parents or their children means that millions are being cut out of our economy. We have some of the longest working hours for dads in Europe, and some of the shortest working opportunities for mums. Putting in measures to support paternity leave will be good for both sides of the equation. Let us not be the generation in which dads say they never got the chance to know their teenage kids, and mums say they never got the opportunities they wanted. Let us amend the Bill to ensure paternity leave matches maternity—

• 21 Oct 2024 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  May I join others in celebrating this Bill and what it represents? My right hon. Friend talks about employers who are already going above and beyond. Frankly, they get it that, out there in the real world, supporting families is good for the economy and good for growth; that includes dads, who we all recognise have responsibilities. What more can she tell us about that spirit of openness in the Bill and the opportunities to look at parental leave, particularly paternity leave? What more can we do to help more families to take it up and get longer?

• 17 Oct 2024 · Government’s Childcare Expansion · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for all the work he is doing to right a much overdue wrong. It is extraordinary to hear the shadow Minister trying to claim credit for something this Government have finally done today, putting to rest the concerns that many of us tried to raise with the previous Government. I thank the Minister for being honest enough to finally publish the data about the numbers of people we need working with our children to make these plans happen. The previous Government always avoided the question and now we can see why, because the data shows that we will need an extra 35,000 people working in our childcare sector by autumn next year to fulfil all our pledges, and an extra 6,000 by the end of this year. Will the Minister tell us more about his workforce strategy? We take our hats off to the people who look after our children. I know this Government want to invest in them, but we need a lot more of them. What can we do to make that happen?