Tag: Barbara Keeley

The speech made by Barbara Keeley, the Labour MP for Worsley and Eccles South, in the House of Commons on 12 July 2022.

I rise to speak to this small group of amendments on behalf of the Opposition. Despite everything that is going on at the moment, we must remember that this Bill has the potential to change lives for the better. It is an important piece of legislation, and we cannot miss the opportunity to get it right. I would like to join my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) in welcoming the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) to his role. His work as Chair of the Joint Committee on this Bill was an important part of the pre-legislative scrutiny process, and I look forward to working in collaboration with him to ensure that this legislation does as it should in keeping us all safe online. I welcome the support of the former Minister, the hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), on giving access to data to academic researchers and on looking at the changes needed to deal with the harm caused by the way in which algorithmic prompts work. It was a pity he was not persuaded by the amendments in Committee, but better late than never.

Earlier we debated new clause 14, which will reduce the amount of illegal content and fraudulent advertising that is identified and acted upon. In our view, this new clause undermines and weakens the safety mechanisms that members of the Joint Committee and the Public Bill Committee worked so hard to get right. I hope the Government will reconsider this part of the Bill when it goes through its stages in the House of Lords. Even without new clause 14, though, there are problems with the provisions around fraudulent advertising. Having said that, we were pleased that the Government conceded to our calls in Committee to ensure that major search engines and social media sites would be subject to the same duties to prevent fraudulent advertising from appearing on their sites.

However, there are other changes that we need to see if the Bill is to be successful in reducing the soaring rates of online fraud and changing the UK’s reputation as the

“scam capital of the world”,

according to Which? The Government voted against other amendments tabled in Committee by me and my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd that would have tackled the reasons why people become subject to online fraud. Our amendments would have ensured that customers had better protection against scams and a clearer understanding of which search results were paid-for ads. In rejecting our amendments, the Government have missed an opportunity to tackle the many forms of scamming that people experience online.

One of those forms of scamming is in the world of online ticketing. In my role as shadow Minister for the Arts and Civil Society, I have worked on this issue and been informed by the expertise of my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on ticket abuse. I would like to thank her and those who have worked with the APPG on the anti-ticket touting campaign for their insights. Ticket reselling websites have a well-documented history of breaching consumer protection laws. These breaches include cases of fraud such as the sale of non-existent tickets. If our amendment had been passed, secondary ticketing websites such as Viagogo would have had to be members of a regulatory body responsible for secondary ticketing such as the Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers, and they would have had to comply with established standards.

I have used ticket touting as an example, but the repercussions of this change go wider to include scamming by holiday websites, debt services and fraudulent passport renewal companies. Our amendments, together with amendments 205 to 210, which were tabled by the hon. Members for Ochil and South Perthshire (John Nicolson) and for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), would improve protection against scams and close loopholes in the definitions of fraudulent advertising. I hope the Minister recognises how many more scams these clauses would prevent if the amendments were accepted.

Part 5 of the Bill includes provisions that relate to pornographic content, which we have already heard about in this debate. For too long, we have seen a proliferation of websites with illegal and harmful content rife with representations of sexual violence, incest, rape and exploitation, and I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) for the examples she has just given us. We welcomed the important changes made to the Bill before the Committee stage, which meant that all pornographic content, not just user-generated content, would now be included within the duties in part 5.

Other Members have tabled important amendments to this part of the Bill. New clause 33 and new schedule 1, tabled by the hon. Members for Ochil and South Perthshire and for Aberdeen North, will ensure parity between online and offline content standards for pornography. New clause 33 is important in specifying that content that fails to obtain an R18 certificate has to be removed, just as happens in the offline world under the Video Recordings Act 1984. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North tabled amendment 33 and new clause 7, which place new duties on user-generated commercial pornography sites to verify the age and obtain consent of people featured in pornographic content, and to remove content should that consent be withdrawn. These are safeguards that should have been put in place by pornography platforms from the very start.

I would like to raise our concern about how quickly these duties can be brought into force. Clause 196 lays out that the only clauses in part 5 to be enacted once the Bill receives Royal Assent will be those covering the definitions—clauses 66 and 67(4)—and not those covering the duties. Children cannot wait another three years for protections from harm, having been promised this five years ago under part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017, which was never implemented. I hope the Minister appreciates the need for speed in regulating this particularly high harm part of the internet.

Part 11 clarifies companies’ liability and outlines the type of information offences contained in the Bill. It is important that liability is at the heart of discussions about the practical applications of the Bill, because we know that big internet companies have got away with doing nothing for far too long. However, the current focus on information offences means that criminal liability for repeated and systematic failures resulting in serious harm to users remains a crucial omission from the Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd was vocal in making the point, but it needs to be made again, that we are very concerned about the volume of last-minute amendments tabled by the Government, and particularly their last-ditch attempt at power grabbing through amendment 144. The Secretary of State should not have the ability to decide what constitutes a priority offence without appropriate scrutiny, and our amendments would bring appropriate parliamentary oversight.

Amendment 31, in my name and in the name of my hon. Friend, would require that any changes to clauses 53 or 54, on harmful content, are debated on the Floor of the House rather than in a Delegated Legislation Committee. Without this change, the Secretary of State of the day will have the power to make decisions about priority content quietly through secondary legislation, which could have real-life consequences. Any changes to priority content are worthy of proper debate. If the Minister is serious about proper scrutiny of the online safety regime, he should carefully consider amendment 31. I urge hon. Members to support the amendment.

Finally, part 12 includes clarifications and definitions. The hon. Members for Ochil and South Perthshire and for Aberdeen North tabled amendment 158, which would expand the definition of content in the Bill. This is an important future-proofing measure.

As I mentioned, we are concerned about the delays to the implementation of certain duties set out in part 12. We are now in a situation in which many children who need protection will no longer even be children by the time this legislation and its protections come into effect. Current uncertainty about the running of Government will compound the concerns of many charities and children’s advocacy groups. I hope the Minister will agree that we cannot risk further delays.

At its core, the Online Safety Bill should be about reducing harm, and we are all aligned on that aim. I am disappointed that the Government have reversed some of the effectiveness of the scrutiny in Committee by now amending the Bill to such a degree. I hope the Minister considers our amendments in the collaborative spirit in which they are intended, and recognises their potential to make this Bill stronger and more effective for all.

The speech made by Barbara Keeley, the Labour MP for Worsley and Eccles South, in the House of Commons on 10 December 2021.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) for introducing this important Bill that could improve the lives of so many people. As we have heard, it could particularly help families with children affected by serve treatment-resistant epilepsy, for whom cannabis-based products may be the only treatment that works. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) for his powerful appeal on behalf of the Bill.

My constituent Zoe Kirkman contacted me several years ago when she was seeking treatment for her son Riley, who experienced severe seizures up to 30 times a day that were very distressing for both him and the rest of his family. Ms Kirkman told me she was worried that he could die at any moment as a result of a seizure. These are the fears of parents and that is what drives them.

Riley’s condition has led to his missing a lot of education and being out of school a lot. As she could not access cannabis-based treatment for Riley on the NHS, Zoe Kirkman was forced to purchase THC and CBD products privately. As we have heard, many families are in a similar position, left with no choice but to pay hundreds of pounds a month—in some cases thousands—for private prescriptions. THC products work better for Riley, but Zoe Kirkman told me that there was little support alongside the prescriptions when they were purchased privately. The fact that parents are pushed into private prescriptions with little support must have some weight with us.

Thankfully, the cannabis-based treatments that his mother bought have reduced Riley’s seizures significantly and allowed him to stop taking a lot of his medications. However, he is still out of school because his school cannot include the cannabis-based treatment in his rescue package, as it is not prescribed on the NHS. For the same reason, Riley cannot access respite care, which would help him, at St Francis children’s hospice. Will the Minister say why schools and respite-care facilities such as hospices cannot be allowed to administer the oils that make such a difference to children such as Riley? Zoe Kirkman tells me that if Riley has a seizure because of a gap in the treatment, it can take weeks for his condition to settle down again.

In July 2018, I wrote to the then Home Secretary to raise Riley’s case. I received a belated response from a Home Office Minister in January 2019—more than six months after my initial letter—saying that following the changes to the law in November 2018, he hoped Riley would be receiving the treatment he needed. Of course, he is not receiving that treatment. The campaign group End Our Pain estimated that, a full three years on from the rescheduling of cannabis-based products to schedule 2 to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001, just three children living with severe epilepsy have received an NHS prescription. As we know, two of them were at the centre of the 2018 campaigns. We have heard that a number of times in this debate and it is right that we focus on the fact that there have been just three prescriptions, and ask why.

When the Health Committee ran its inquiry on medical cannabis in March 2019, it heard from Peter Carroll, the campaign director at End Our Pain—we heard about him in earlier speeches—who said:

“What has happened is that hopes have been correctly raised, because this offers a lot of hope and benefit to a lot of people, but we have now moved across to implementation and the honest reality is that it is a disaster…The families…should be getting prescriptions…and watching their children…hopefully…improving day after day.”

After the Government raised hopes with the change in the law, it is a great pity that they have not increased access to medical cannabis for those who need it in line with the findings of the review that they commissioned in 2018. I hope that the Minister will explain why.

While I accept that we still need more research and studies into the effectiveness of cannabis-based products for treatment-resistant epilepsy in children, the Bill would offer important measures to increase the number of doctors who could prescribe such products and widen access to them through its proposed commission.

I asked Zoe Kirkman what she hoped for. She told me it was a purer form of the medication, because the products available to purchase contain a lot of synthetic ingredients and she worries that they could have long-term side effects for Riley. I hope that, through the Bill, Zoe Kirkman and Riley, and many families like them, will finally be able to access the treatment they need through the national health service.

The Bill contains a proportionate set of measures, with a commission to propose an assessment framework for cannabis-based medicines and their suitability for prescription and to make recommendations of measures to overcome the barriers that we have heard about in CCGs and other NHS structures to accessing cannabis from the NHS for medical reasons.

We have had a lengthy debate about different forms of trials. The commission could consider evidence from observational studies and from other countries as well as conventional control trials. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington made an important point about evidence that could be weighed from EU countries—it is time that we started to think about that. It could also consider the important register of GPs who may prescribe cannabis-based medicines and permit them to do so. That would help to avoid the side effects of the cannabis-based products that Zoe Kirkman is currently forced to buy as the only option available. Most importantly, Riley would be able to attend school and have respite care when he needs it.

Let us end the years of pain. As my hon. Friend said at the end of his excellent speech, if not this Bill, what else?

The comments made by Barbara Keeley, the Labour MP for Worsley and Eccles South, in the House of Commons on 12 March 2021.

There are some 13.6 million unpaid carers across the country, including 4.5 million people who first started caring during the pandemic and 800,000 young carers. Each of these carers provides vital support to a family member or friend, often at considerable personal cost.

Over the past year, the role of unpaid carers has become more important than ever. With many people shielding or unwilling to go out, unpaid carers have stepped up to provide additional support and keep people safe throughout the pandemic, but the reality is that these carers do not feel that their role is being recognised. One unpaid carer, Rachel Mewes, says:

“I wish I could say that the pandemic has shone a light on the situation that so many of us live in, as unpaid carers. Instead, it has driven us further into the dark. It has truly demonstrated how we are not even recognised as an entity in the British population. Personally, I feel that at no point during the past year, have the government recognised that people like me exist.”

I know the Minister will want to join me in thanking all unpaid carers, but the reality is that they deserve more than our thanks—they deserve our support.

Under the last Labour Government, this support was brought together into the national carers strategy. This was an ambitious, long-term plan built around the voices and experiences of carers, and it was first published in January 1999. In 2008, the strategy brought together seven Secretaries of State and the then Prime Minister to support an ambition that by 2018:

“Carers will be universally recognised and valued as being fundamental to strong families and stable communities. Support will be tailored to meet individuals’ needs, enabling carers to maintain a balance between their caring responsibilities and a life outside caring, while enabling the person they support to be a full and equal citizen.”

A decade of Conservative cuts and neglect of this policy area meant that this ambition for carers was never realised, and since the Government announced a consultation for a new carers strategy in March 2016, carers have been left waiting.

Carers were invited to contribute to that consultation to inform the new carers strategy. Over 6,500 carers, carers support organisations and charities submitted contributions. Thousands of unpaid carers gave up what little time they had and invested their energies in providing details of their day-to-day caring roles. Katy Styles, a carer and a campaigner for the Motor Neurone Disease Association, contributed to that consultation and hoped that her voice would be heard alongside others. She told me:

“Not publishing the National Carers Strategy has made me extremely angry. It sends a message that carers’ lives are unimportant. It sends a message that Government thinks we can carry on as we are. It sends a message that my own time is of little worth.”

Katy Styles went on to found the We Care Campaign to bring together unpaid carers to campaign, make their voices heard and get decision makers to value their unpaid care. A key ask of the campaign is a national carers strategy.

The Government have so far declined to publish a national carers strategy, instead bringing in a carers action plan. This flimsy document offers few substantial commitments to improve support to carers and lacks the funding needed to transform services. To give just one example of how this action plan fell short, a major issue facing many carers is that their GP or other NHS staff treating the person they care for know nothing about their caring role, and this means that they struggle to access support.

In 2012, I brought in a private Member’s Bill on the identification of carers. This would have created a new duty on the NHS to identify carers and promote their health and wellbeing. The then care Minister did not support my Bill, and when the carers action plan came along, it was not so ambitious. It merely proposed a system of quality markers so that GPs could demonstrate if they were good at identifying carers. However, carers organisations know that with proper identification of carers by the NHS we can support carers much more effectively.

The carers action plan expired at the end of 2020. While we are currently stuck in limbo on this policy, I hope the Minister will be able to confirm today that officials are working on a new strategy to give carers the support they need. There are a number of areas the Government should be considering as a priority in both the short and longer terms. The first is the issue of covid-19 vaccinations. This is a short-term priority, but many carers still have not been told when they can expect to receive their vaccinations. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has recommended that carers be prioritised alongside working-age adults with underlying health conditions, but we know there are still barriers to uptake.

I have heard from a full-time carer in receipt of carer’s allowance who booked a vaccination after being asked to do so by her GP, only to be turned away on the day because she could not prove her status as a carer. She was asked to provide a letter proving she was a carer, but her GP did not issue such letters to carers and she had no proof with her that she received carer’s allowance. Carers who are eligible should not be denied the vaccine on the basis of paperwork, so can the Minister set out what the Government are doing to ensure that carers are not wrongly turned away?

This could have been dealt with if the Government had set out a clear plan to ensure that all carers are identified either by their GP or by a hospital dealing with the person needing care. As they have not, we have millions of people carrying out invaluable caring work completely unacknowledged. It is also now likely that the covid vaccines will not be one-off, but an annual requirement much as flu shots are. Can the Minister tell us if the Minister for Care has had conversations with the Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment about ensuring carers are included as a priority in all future rounds of vaccination?

Throughout this crisis, unpaid carers have taken on considerable extra costs. These range from additional spending on energy bills as people are stuck at home to having to purchase personal protective equipment and hand sanitiser. I have heard from carers who have seen their food bill double because they are having to shop online rather than going into stores. All these costs add up and are tough for carers, many of whom are retired or on fixed incomes. Despite these additional costs, carer’s allowance is one of the few benefits that has not had an uplift during the pandemic. Although people receiving universal credit have rightly been given an extra £20 a week, carers have not seen a penny more from the Government. Carer’s allowance was already pitifully low, so it is unconscionable that it should not have had an uplift during the pandemic, leaving many unpaid carers with months of financial worry. On top of that, many carers do not get even this inadequate level of support. Research from the Motor Neurone Disease Association found that even before the pandemic, one in three carers were providing more than 100 hours of support a week, and nearly half of that group receive no benefits. That is part of a broader problem which means that carers do not get the recognition they need. Three quarters of carers have not had a carer’s assessment, which means they are not getting the support they need.

Carers who worked before the pandemic have struggled more than ever, often without their employers realising they have had to take on extra caring. As formal services such as day centres closed their doors, unpaid carers were asked to take on more responsibility than ever before. Half of unpaid carers are in work, and more are of working age but unable to work, often because of their caring responsibilities. That means that one in four workers in the country are juggling jobs and caring responsibilities. Despite that, carers have little legal protection in the workplace. Working carers tell us that they are concerned that balancing their responsibilities affects how well they do their job, which is a particular concern during the economic downturn.

Carers have no right to take leave to carry out their caring role, and during the pandemic we have seen that they have no right to be placed on furlough if they need to be. This means they may have faced a choice between quitting a job and not being able to care for a family member or friend. That is not a choice anyone should be facing. The Government have talked about encouraging employers to be supportive of carers on their staff, but encouragement is no substitute for enforceable employment rights. Although the Government consulted last year on introducing a right to carer’s leave, we are still awaiting the outcome of that consultation. Will the Minister update the House on whether a right to carer’s leave will be taken forward?

Financial support is not available to the 800,000 young carers providing support to a parent or a sibling. Due to the support they offer, young carers often miss school and are more likely to get poor exam results than their peers. They face mental health problems as a result of balancing caring with the normal challenges of growing up, and that is often made worse by the fact that nobody knows they are a carer. Only one in 200 young carers receive any support through their local authority, and more than one in three say that nobody at their school knows they are a carer. That lack of support has worsened during the pandemic, with schools closed to many children and the additional caring responsibilities facing all carers. It is no surprise that young carers say they have got more stressed and more isolated over the past year. That will have a huge impact on their future, and we need to act to avoid that. Next week is Young Carers Action Day. Ahead of that, will the Minister say what targeted support is being put in place specifically to support young carers?

Looking beyond the current pandemic, we should be doing much more to support unpaid carers. Perhaps the biggest thing we could do is reduce the burden on them by ensuring that more people are able to access publicly funded social care services. One of the most damaging impacts of the current underfunding of social care is that people have to rely on friends and family members for help with basic tasks such as washing, bathing, using the toilet or having meals. Undertaking that personal care can leave carers without the time or energy to spend quality time with their family member or friend, whether by helping them get out into the community or engaging with their hobbies and leisure.

Carers are unable to take breaks, because there is no alternative care. Funding for respite care has dried up, as local authority budgets come under more pressure. We are now in a situation where 44% of carers say that they would use a respite care break to attend a medical appointment. None of us would consider going to the doctor to be a break, but for many carers, even getting time for a medical appointment for themselves is a luxury. Expanding eligibility for social care and providing comprehensive care packages will not replace unpaid carers, but it will free up time for them to do the things that only they can do—providing support and companionship to the person they care for.

Evidence from Scotland, where a Labour Government introduced free personal care in 2002, shows the impact that expanding social care services had on unpaid carers. Research has shown that having state-funded personal care meant that unpaid carers increasingly focused on emotional and social support.

In 2018, carers were told the reason they were getting only the flimsy carers action plan was that the social care Green Paper would go further and set out more ambitious plans. More than two years later, there has been no Green Paper, so I am sure the Minister will understand that carers are not happy with the continued promise of jam tomorrow. Even if the Government were to bring forward their plans for social care this year, which could be another broken promise, it may be years until those plans are enacted. Carers cannot wait that long. They need support now.

A national strategy would be based on carers’ voices and aim to start meeting their needs rather than ignoring them. As Katy Styles told me:

“The recent budget told unpaid carers and those they care for how much of a priority they are. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer gives carers 35p a week extra and carers work out that they would need two weeks of this increase to buy a can of the Chancellor’s favourite soft drink it tells you everything you need to know.”

As unpaid carer Bart Mekking said:

“My wish is that unpaid carers like me and my wife are noticed. No kind words for they are always empty. At this point, saying that the ‘heroic efforts of carers are appreciated’ sounds more like a snipe. Meaningful actions are needed.”

I wanted to lead this debate today because it is time for meaningful action for carers like Bart and his wife and because it is time we listened to the voices of carers like Katy and recognised the contribution of carers like Rachel. Meaningful action would be ensuring that every unpaid carer is able to access the covid-19 vaccine as a priority, rather than being turned away because they lack the appropriate paperwork; introducing a right for carers to be furloughed from work so that they do not have to choose between working and caring; and a right to carer’s leave. Meaningful action would be increasing financial support to carers, including increasing carer’s allowance; bringing forward the long-awaited reform of social care, so that unpaid carers get the help they need from formal care services; introducing a duty on the NHS to have regard to carers in the upcoming health and care Bill; and publishing a full national carers strategy that is ambitious and long-lasting in order to guarantee that carers remain a priority after this pandemic is over. Anything less than this is letting carers down again and allowing them to bear the cost not just of the covid-19 pandemic but of the Government’s failure to support the social care system.