Dawn Butler: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has undertaken an impact assessment on the potential impact of closing maternity services at the Royal Free Hospital.
Dawn Butler: To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what the (a) role and (b) annual cost is of the Counter Disinformation Unit.
Dawn Butler: To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, when the Government plans to respond to the letter of 29 November 2023 from the Hon. Member for Brent Central to the Prime Minister on Islamophobia.
Dawn Butler: For clarification, is the Minister implying that every time there is a new Minister we start again from day one? Is she able to give a timeframe for the Government Bill—by May, June or July?
Dawn Butler: I congratulate my hon. Friend on the Bill. Childline has talked about how young people have contacted them feeling torn and talking about what they are going through. They need a safe, non-judgmental space. Does he agree that his Bill will do just that?
Dawn Butler: Is my hon. Friend as disappointed as I am about the failure of some Members of Parliament to call out Islamophobia?
Dawn Butler: It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton). I always say that we will know we have reached true equality in this place when we have as many rubbish women as we do rubbish men. [Laughter.] The Home Office Minister should be ashamed of how he attacked an Opposition Member of Parliament during the previous statement. I hope that she raises a point of...
Dawn Butler: I have not notified them, Madam Deputy Speaker; I have just been so angry about this. I will withdraw naming them. I thank the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) for calling out the language used by those on both sides of the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) is no longer in her place. When she read out her list, it was...
Dawn Butler: I thank the Minister for his statement. If I heard correctly, he said that the Government have not quite got a definition of anti-Muslim hate. I wonder if that could urgently be rectified. The post of independent adviser on Islamophobia has been vacant for over a year, but the Government are in desperate need of one. I thank hon. Members for acknowledging the hate crime against women of...
Dawn Butler: On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I seek your guidance. On 29 November 2023, I wrote to the Prime Minister asking him to correct an oversight in the autumn statement. Although it included welcome additional funding to tackle antisemitism, it did not include an announcement of additional funding to tackle Islamophobia. Three months later, I have yet to receive a response. The Government...
Dawn Butler: At the weekend I had to seek extra police support, due to the far-right abuse that I have suffered, which has been inspired and unleashed in part by the conspiracy theories and racist, Islamophobic, anti-Muslim hate peddled by the Members for Ashfield (Lee Anderson), for Fareham (Suella Braverman) and for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss). [Interruption.]
Dawn Butler: It was peddled by Members of the Government party. Does the Minister agree that there is no place in this House or society for such divisive language? One Member has had the Whip removed. Does the Minister agree that other Members should also have the Whip removed, or does he agree with the points that were made?
Dawn Butler: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that we do not judge people by the music they listen to? Judging one music to be violent, as against another genre, is a very subjective measure.
Dawn Butler: It is a pleasure to follow the informative speech from hon. Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler)—we share a surname, and I too was a magistrate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) and support her extremely important private Member’s Bill, and my heart goes out to everybody who has lost somebody to murder. It is important that the law works as it...
Dawn Butler: I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. Yes, it is lazy. It also means that we have a target-driven process rather than an informative-driven process, which needs to change. The system penalises and has a disproportionate effect on people of colour. Those with high melanin are judged more harshly because of the colour of their skin. If a person is Afro-Caribbean, they are eight...
Dawn Butler: I congratulate my hon. Friend on her excellent Bill. The work by all the people she has mentioned, including Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association, on the Bill has been so important. The Supreme Court has said that joint enterprise has been wrongly interpreted by criminal trial judges for the past 30 years. Does she agree that that is terrible?
Dawn Butler: The Minister is better than this motion—let us all agree on that. Like the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), I think it is a hangover from the Boris Johnson days, when the Electoral Commission upset him and he wanted to influence it. The Minister can correct me if I am wrong. The Government claim that this strategy will enhance the parliamentary...
Dawn Butler: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I withdraw the statement that the Government are corrupt, or that there is corruption in the Government—I do not know for sure, but I withdraw that statement. There are, however, issues that need tackling, and the motion does not achieve that. There are rising considerations, such as the threat of generative AI, the use of deepfakes, the spread of...
Dawn Butler: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. My point of order also relates to Israel and Gaza. ITV News recently broadcast a video showing the killing of an unarmed civilian in Gaza who was waving a white flag—the international symbol of peace. It is not the first time unarmed people have been killed in Gaza while raising white flags; in fact, three Israeli hostages were brutally killed...
Dawn Butler: One of the Nolan principles—integrity—states that holders of public office should not act to gain material benefits for themselves, their family or their friends. On 6 January the Prime Minister tweeted a link to the Conservative party website that seemed to scrape people’s data and place unwanted cookies on their machines. The Good Law Project is now pursuing this. Can he assure the...