Miss Joan Lestor: I beg to move amendment No. 2, in page 30, line 6, after '(5)' insert '(a)'.
Miss Joan Lestor: I reiterate our support for the principle that parents should, as far as possible, and whatever the circumstances of their partnership—if they had a permanent relationship in the first place—maintain their children. That support should be emotional as well as financial, and the two are not interchangeable. We are considering a sensitive and often distressing aspect of human relations, as...
Miss Joan Lestor: I welcome the Government's recognition of the need for consistency in the definition of disabled children. With the explanations that the Minister has given, there is now consistency between the Child Support Bill and the Children Act 1989. The difficulty that we want to discuss is that the Bill does not meet all the requirements of the Children Act because children with disabilities will not...
Miss Joan Lestor: We welcome the new clause. There have been great discussions about the existing clause 2, which the new clause will replace with wording that is more applicable to the welfare of children. Throughout our discussions on this Bill, certain comparisons were made with the Children Bill, which is soon to become law. The phrase used was that "the interests of the child should be paramount". I...
Miss Joan Lestor: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that those of us who represent constituencies where unemployment has been relentlessly rising in the past few months feel insulted by what he is saying? Will he now deal with the problem of unemployment rising in Eccles, where there is no minimum wage? Will he explain to the House why it is rising? What does he intend to do about the 3 million...
Miss Joan Lestor: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 18 June.
Miss Joan Lestor: Bearing in mind the previous Prime Minister's commitment to give the highest priority to children's rights, as agreed at the summit last year, the Government's failure as yet to ratify the convention on the rights of the child and the almost daily reporting of the violation of children's rights in some form or another in Britain, will the right hon. Gentleman now give a pledge to implement...
Miss Joan Lestor: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many school-age children are in bed-and-breakfast accommodation.
Miss Joan Lestor: If the Minister is saying that the Government do not collect the statistics nationally, it is about time that they did. Research undertaken by Kim Greener at Brunel university has shown that 140,000 school-age children are now in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. Is the Minister aware that those children suffer nutritionally because there are no proper cooking facilities in the accommodation...
Miss Joan Lestor: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will give the unemployment figures for Eccles for (a) April 1990 and (b) April 1991.
Miss Joan Lestor: May I remind the Minister that every time the Government change the method by which they calculate unemployment and knock hundreds of people off the register, it does not alter the reality that the people who have been knocked off the register are still unemployed? Furthermore, will he recognise that we do not have a minimum wage in Eccles, in the travel-to-work area of Salford or in the...
Miss Joan Lestor: First, I congratulate the Home Secretary on increasing the number of family visits and on the experiment in Holloway of bringing children into prison. Allowing them to spend time with their mothers is to be welcomed—if we are to continue to put women with children in prison, the success of which I doubt, but that is another matter. It is certainly a good move to allow them to have their...
Miss Joan Lestor: Everyone who has listened to the debate—it is a pity that there were not more here to do so—will agree that it has been conducted in a thoughtful fashion. Many hon. Members have expressed reservations about the Bill, some of them Conservative Members but mostly Opposition Members. Nobody has objected to the principle, which is, wherever possible, to make parents financially responsible...
Miss Joan Lestor: The hon. Gentleman says that 38 per cent. of children would benefit. That depends on how the Bill is applied. If only 38 per cent. of children will benefit, the hue and cry about what it would do for lone parents seems to be sadly misplaced. It seems that 62 per cent. of children will not benefit. If the guarantees about, for example, children with disabilities are not met, an even greater...
Miss Joan Lestor: The right hon. Gentleman's answer to a question I have could help me in winding up, and some of my hon. Friends in their consideration of the issues involved. What consideration is being given to private arrangements that are made between couples where, for example, the man—it might be the woman, but usually it is the man—has left the other spouse in the matrimonial home with the...
Miss Joan Lestor: Referring to what the Prime Minister said about the economic consequences of the minimum wage, we do not have a minimum wage in Eccles or, indeed, anywhere else, yet unemployment increased in Eccles by 100 between last month and this month. Can the Prime Minister explain why that is happening?
Miss Joan Lestor: Does the Minister accept that the reoffending rate is greater among juveniles than in any other group? As was underlined earlier, there is some evidence that, in the case of young people, non-custodial sentences are more effective than any other sentences. Does the Minister agree that, as truancy may be linked to juvenile crime, it is important to remember that truancy has its roots in the...
Miss Joan Lestor: I thank the Minister for sending me a copy of his proposals, which I received yesterday. Is he aware that punitive methods and measures in relation to young truants will not necessarily be effective unless more work is done in looking at how youngsters who are truanting spend their time? I think that he will find, if he talks to his colleagues in the Department of Employment and studies the...
Miss Joan Lestor: I rise for only a few moments to congratulate the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway). His Bill, like the previous one on the subject, has all-party support and, as he said, support from a variety of organisations that want justice to be done and do not want people to be subject to distress due to a situation over which they have no control. Some of the legislation being amended is 150...
Miss Joan Lestor: I, too, welcome the Bill and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) on introducing it and on the spirit of co-operation that he and the Government have shown in reaching a consensus on various matters. At the outset, we were all anxious to put a measure on the statute book that would protect children and make it more difficult for them to gain access to tobacco...