Dawn Butler MP: speeches

Speeches

• 5 Feb 2025 · Gambling Harms · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) on securing this important debate and give my condolences to the family of Jack, who are here today. Brent has the second highest concentration of gambling premises in London, and it does not make our high street better; it makes it considerably worse. Gambling facilities are more accessible than supermarkets, banks or schools in my constituency. Some 6.2% of Brent residents are categorised as problem gamblers, more than the national average of just 2.9%. Gambling-related harms in Brent cost an estimated £14.3 million annually. Now, with free wi-fi and often free drinks for young people, betting shops are trying to encourage a younger generation, and I can only see that figure getting worse. These products are addictive, and we need to call them out. Gambling is more addictive than heroin or tobacco. If this was anything else, we would be saying, “What do we do to change this?” It is bringing such harm to communities. Yes, people have the right to gamble—to have a flutter—but serious harms are being caused. We need to strengthen the licensing power. We have heard powerfully today that the legislation is not equipped to handle what is going on, both online and on our high streets. I want councils to have more of an opportunity to say no to new gambling establishments; I want my constituents’ voices to be heard when they say no to further gambling establishments. We have two gambling shops with just one other shop in between. How is that necessary? It is absolutely time for us to say that the current legislation is not fit for purpose. If we are serious about growth and regenerating our high streets, we need to start closing down betting shops and definitely not open new ones, and we also need to strengthen the laws on online gambling.

• 5 Feb 2025 · High Street Retailers · Hansard source

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  In Brent, we have a lot of independent shops. Does the hon. Member agree that we should be more innovative in giving opportunities for more pop-up shops to start businesses?

• 30 Jan 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I would sing it, but my voice is a little bit croaky today. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Liz Mitchell? Maybe we should have a debate in Government time about music and how it can be a unifier and bring about community cohesion.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Brent is known as the reggae capital of Europe. Bob Marley wrote some of his best hits there, and we have Janet Kay and Carroll Thompson, who celebrate their birthdays this week, too. Today, in the Jubilee Room, we will be honouring one of the lead singers of Boney M, Liz Mitchell. As people will know, the band’s hits include “Daddy Cool”, “Rasputin” and “Rivers of Babylon”.

• 23 Jan 2025 · Holocaust Memorial Day · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to take part in this debate and to listen to the powerful testimony from my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (David Pinto-Duschinsky). Racism and antisemitism is on the rise—that is without a doubt. It is on the rise behind closed doors. It is on the rise on the dark web. It is also hiding in plain sight. We have seen an acceleration since 7 October. When my constituent Noam’s mum Ada was kidnapped and held hostage, we worked tirelessly day and night for her release, and luckily we saw that day. Noam is always saying that we must strive for peace and that only light when we enter a dark room will make us see clearly. It is really important that we mark the Holocaust every year in this debate. Although I am not so well—I apologise for my voice today—I wanted to come in to mark this day, because hate cannot win, and we have to show time and again that there are more of us than there are of them. This debate stands as a warning of the depths of cruelty and hatred that can be released when prejudice is allowed to grow unchecked and unchallenged. We cannot allow that, especially in this place. In my constituency, Brent council marks Holocaust Memorial Day every single year, and this year we will mark it in the iconic Wembley stadium. Local events bring people together from all backgrounds to share in remembrance, united in the mantra of “never again”, fostering greater understanding and stronger bonds within our community. As the Holocaust Memorial Day website states: “following the 7 October attacks in Israel by Hamas and the subsequent war in Gaza. Extremists are exploiting the situation to stir up anti-Muslim hatred in the UK. Many UK communities are feeling vulnerable, with hostility and suspicion of others rising. We hope that HMD 2025 can be an opportunity for people to come together, learn both from and about the past, and take actions to make a better future for all. There are many things we can all do to create a better future. We can speak up against Holocaust and genocide denial and distortion; we can challenge prejudice; we can encourage others to learn about the Holocaust and more recent genocides.” I am proud to be working with local rabbis in Brent East, such as Rabbi Mason, and others to bring everyone together, including African-Caribbean and Jewish people, to fight against the rise of prejudice and discrimination. Together we can strengthen our ability to challenge hatred in all its forms. As we have heard, the chosen theme for Holocaust Memorial Day is “For a better future”, which calls on all of us to actively work towards creating a society that stands up against hatred and prejudice. We know that antisemitism has risen alarmingly in recent years, and we each have a responsibility to confront toxic beliefs wherever they appear, regardless of who is acting on them. We cannot afford to be gaslit and to allow hateful ideologies to resurface in the mainstream. We have a collective responsibility to call out such actions and ensure that they do not gain traction. As we come together on this important day, we have to ensure that our remembrance is accompanied by action. Genocide and crimes against humanity are not inevitable, and we can prevent them. We must raise the alarm when we witness dangerous rhetoric and divisive actions and symbols, and we must hold perpetrators accountable. However, the reality is that people are often scared because someone else with more power says otherwise. They are scared of being incorrectly labelled, scared of the unintended consequences. We must not forget that genocide does not come about overnight; rather, it is a gradual process. Even though it can sometimes seem scary, especially for those who are not in the in-crowd, hatred cannot and must not be normalised if we are truly to look towards a better future. If you are the last person standing and calling at the top of your voice for peace and love, that must be the ultimate goal for a better future.

• 23 Jan 2025 · Holocaust Memorial Day · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his powerful speech, which shows just how important it is that living memory is passed on and why we should continue to have this debate in Parliament.

• 23 Jan 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  My constituents in Brent East work extremely hard, and some are able to purchase a smartphone. Yesterday, we heard from the Met that an estimated 64,000 phones were stolen across London in 2023; I think one mobile phone is stolen every four minutes in Westminster. The Met and the Mayor of London are working together to combat the escalation, but more work is needed, especially with providers such as Apple and Google. Will the Leader of the House please consider having a debate in Government time to discuss this important issue?

• 7 Jan 2025 · Workplace Pay Gaps · Hansard source

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  A big thank you to everyone who has participated in this debate; it has shown Parliament at its best, and it is great to see that there is no real opposition to championing equal pay. It has taken a long time, but we now have a Labour Government and we can deliver it. That is the beauty of having a Labour Government who are committed to ensuring that people who are working are fully paid and respected in the workplace. Although the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) said that she wants to be alive to see the gap closed completely, I think we will see that with a Labour Government, so she will be alive to see it. It is interesting that a country where the pay gap is really small is Norway, where anyone can find out how much anybody else is paid. That is taking things further than we would in the UK, but it is interesting to see that because people there have that disinfectant and that light on the problem, as hon. Members have said today, they are able to see the gap and close it. I do not think that we should be scared of having people know what other people earn, especially if they are working side by side. There should not be anything to worry about. It is also interesting that the Employment Rights Bill will tackle a lot of this issue. We need to ensure that as it goes through Committee, we take on all the suggestions that will accelerate progress. This has taken way too long. We know that the gap exists and that equal pay is a problem, and everyone here today has said, “Why don’t we close it?” We know that it exists, and it should not exist for anybody, whether they are male or female; regardless of someone’s gender, colour, class, age or size, this should be about fairness and equality. Yes, we have come far, but not far enough. We will know that we have reached true equality when everybody is paid well. We should shine a light on everything. I thank all contributors to the debate. We have shown that the purpose of government and legislation is to make the world fairer for everybody in it, and we can do that via legislation, by winning hearts and minds and by shining a light on the injustices that exist. If we close the equal pay gap, we will be taking a huge step forward towards that aim. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered pay gaps in the workplace.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Workplace Pay Gaps · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered pay gaps in the workplace. Thank you, Sir Roger. I wish everybody a happy new year, too, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. There are multiple pay gaps in the workplace. I have had emails about the age pay gap, size pay gap and accent pay gaps—as a certified cockney, I know that that is true, and just for the record, some of the most intelligent people I know are cockneys. But today, for Ethnicity Pay Gap Day, I want to focus on gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps. The key point is that if we measure something, we can fix it, but at the current rate, it will take another 40 years to fix the gender and ethnicity pay gap. Nobody should feel happy about that slow rate of progress; and imagine how long it will take to fix the disability pay gap—it will take even longer. Last year, the Fawcett Society reported that Equal Pay Day fell on 20 November, two days earlier than the year before, and that essentially meant that from 20 November until the end of the year women were working for free. It is shocking that, on average, women earn £630 less a month than their male counterparts. On social media, people sometimes say, “What is this all about? Are you trying to reduce how much men are paid?” That is not what this is about. It is about fairness and equality and about paying people more, not less. I do not want on social media the manipulation and the misinformation of people saying, when we talk about equal rights and fairness, that that is somehow doing down men, because it absolutely is not. Currently, the ethnicity pay gap is 5.6% and the disability pay gap is 12.7%. That is a whopping pay gap. The Government are to be applauded for their ambition and plan to make work pay. The Prime Minister said, as part of his new year message: “The security of working people…is the purpose of this government.” That is something that we should all applaud: working people should be secure in their job and in their work. Following the King’s Speech, companies of 250-plus employees have to report ethnicity and disability pay gaps, which is welcome. It is also welcome that gender pay gap reporting has been expanded to include equality action plans. That is great, but producing equality action plans is not enough. What will companies do with the action plans? How will they ensure that they use the action plans to close the pay gaps? It is one step, but it does not go far enough. It has to be acknowledged that what we do now will actually make the workplace better for everybody—not just women, people with disabilities and people of different ethnicities. Everybody will benefit if the workplace is fairer. Research has found that men want flexibility in the workplace. This is always framed as women wanting flexibility in the workplace, but the reality is that men also want flexibility, so if we make that a standard, everybody will be happy. And no matter who is doing the job, doing the work, they should be paid fairly. That should be the case no matter who they are or what they look like, so there also needs to be a concerted effort whereby we stop stereotyping people into jobs or creating structures that try to normalise inequality.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Workplace Pay Gaps · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If our ambition is to make the workplace fairer and secure it for everybody, we should take the opportunities laid before us. That is one opportunity to ensure that we not only close the gap but make workplaces fairer. There was one case that was easy to identify as a trade union official: men were called chefs and women were called cooks, and chefs were paid a higher rate than cooks. That was an easy one, once we could figure out what was going on. A more difficult case was that of Kay, who said: “I had been working as a chef with a large catering company for ten years. During a casual conversation, my colleague mentioned he was being paid £22,000 a year. This was £6,000 a year more than me. I thought the right to equal pay would mean I was being paid fairly. For years, I went to work each day without knowing I was being paid less than those I was working alongside. I am not an isolated case. I know there are many women who, like me, don’t realise they are experiencing pay discrimination.” That picks up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson). The law is there, but if someone does not know what the person next to them, who is doing the same job, is paid, they could be discriminated against. Some people will say that some men and women do different jobs, different types of work or different hours. The law says the “same work” or “work of equal value”, but even when men and women work the same hours and in the same roles, nearly two thirds of the gender pay gap remains unexplained. That points to pay discrimination, which we must tackle as a Government. How do we tackle that and move faster towards security, fairness and equality? One way is transparency. It is important for people to know who is being paid what and why. We should introduce the right to know. In Kay’s situation, she should be able to see how much X is being paid and know that there is a £6,000 pay deficit. We also need actionable and enforceable action plans. Again, an organisation may have identified a pay gap, but unless it has committed to closing that gap, that probably will not happen. Another way companies can do that is by assigning it as a key performance indicator. We have found that when organisations assign that to somebody as a KPI, real action is taken and pay gaps begin to close. The Government have a huge role to play not just through legislation, in terms of the Equal Pay Act and so on, but by securing the circular economy. The Government can have an active role in making the workplace fairer by ensuring, as has been done in some areas, that they give contracts only to companies that pay people well and fairly and do not have a pay gap. So the Government’s procurement contract processes can ensure that they give contracts only to companies that follow good practices, which will enrich the circular economy. This is not just about doing the right thing. Companies that pay people well and employ the right people for the right jobs generally have a 15% higher profit margin than their nearest counterparts. That also plays out in the fact that a lot of young people are becoming socially informed, so they like to shop with companies that have good ethics and consider climate change. This approach will benefit everybody and is good in itself. As I come to the end of my speech, some may wonder why I have not mentioned fines. The Minister may correct me, but to my knowledge no company has been fined for its gender pay gap. Unless that part of the law is strengthened, it is meaningless. I am interested to know how we can ensure that we fine companies that are not closing their pay gaps, and what the Government plan to do with any money that is collected. There is a stark difference across UK regions, with some doing better than others. London has the largest ethnicity pay gap, which currently stands at a whopping 23.8%. That is appalling in one of the most diverse capital cities in the world and the financial capital city of the UK. As chair of the London parliamentary Labour party, I want to accelerate the move towards closing those pay gaps. I commend Dianne Greyson, founder of #EthnicityPayGap, for her work on that. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on governance and inclusive leadership—GAIL—I launched a maturity matrix in Parliament. That guide is available online for free for companies to implement in their workplace. It takes them through various stages to recognise and close pay gaps. That has been so successful that companies have asked for it to be expanded for disability and other things, which is currently being done. That is a free resource because, ultimately, we want better and fairer workplaces. People should be paid fairly on merit. No one should be paid less for their work because of their gender, colour of their skin, ethnicity, background, accent, size, age or class. If we get this right on gender, ethnicity and disability, we will create a better and fairer work environment for all.

• 6 Jan 2025 · General Election · Hansard source

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  Will the right hon. Member give way?

• 6 Jan 2025 · General Election · Hansard source

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  If the hon. Member came into a new job and discovered a £22 billion black hole, I think he would look a bit miserable as well.

• 2 Dec 2024 · Grenfell Tower Inquiry · Hansard source

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  In the short time available I want to say to the survivors and the next of kin—some of whom are here today; some will be watching from home—that I am sorry they have been so severely let down by the previous Government and by their council. I hope that the words of the Deputy Prime Minister today have given some comfort. Brent East is just next door to Grenfell, and we watched the fire unfold. They say that 72 people died, but the reality is that we do not really know the exact number, as people from Kensington tell me. Every time we say that this disaster was preventable, we have to be honest about what happened in the system. Some 85% of people were black and a minoritised group. That is why they were not listened to and were ignored. Grenfell United and Grenfell Next of Kin have been fighting for more than seven and a half years. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) said, they are still not being listened to. They have been so badly let down, and there needs to be an investigation into what happened, how the council used Grenfell to get funds and what happened to those funds. There is so much that needs to be discussed. I also notice that Kwajo is here. He is a housing campaigner and activist. That is an indication of how much people of colour are not listened to when they try to say that there is an injustice. Why was the cladding put on the building? The residents did not want it. It was so that it looked pretty and nice to the more wealthy residents down the road. We have heard about the profits, the greed and the deregulation that caused this catastrophe. If we want it not to happen again, we have to be honest about why it happened in the first place. My thoughts are with the bereaved families and survivors. Every year, we go on the silent march. I remember speaking to a little girl who is a little bit older now. She said she was studying for her GCSEs and that the day after she was taking them, which she passed. She said that was what she was focused on, but what are the families and survivors focusing on now? It is justice, which they have not got. Until they have justice, none of us should rest, and none of us should feel comfortable—this may well happen again—because justice delayed is justice denied. I pass Grenfell on my way home most nights, and every time I pass that building, I say a prayer for everybody who died, everybody who survived and all the names we will never know.

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) for how this debate has been conducted. Yesterday, we buried Tony Warr, a GMB officer and a really good friend. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He beat it once, but it took him in the end. Earlier this week, the cancer community lost Nina Lopes. She had stage 4 triple-negative breast cancer and was given six months to live in 2018. Six months became six years, and she taught us how to dance through her @frodayss account. As we have heard, it is not an exact science when someone is given a prognosis of six months to live. As a patron of Black Women Rising, a cancer charity that supports black and minoritised women through their cancer journey, someone who had been given six months to live recently told me, “I have had a good life, and I am ready to go.” Six weeks later, they are now fighting to live. The thing is, if we had focused only on the fact that she was ready to go and wanted to die, it would have all been very different. As we have heard today, there are parts of the law that need changing around coercion, and around doctors being able to help people with their end of life treatment. However, I believe those safeguards and discussions can be separated from assisted dying and assisted suicide. I do not see why we need to have a combined discussion. Everybody has the right to die with dignity and compassion. Whether or not this Bill progresses today, I hope those conversations will continue. After all, we are legislators, and we have the ability to do that. Eighty per cent of my constituents are against this legislation, and I will be voting against it.

• 27 Nov 2024 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) on securing this debate. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of launching a new report, “Why Should Our Rage Be Tidy? Minoritised Survivors’ Experiences of Mental Health in the Context of Violence-Abuse.” I hope the Minister has a copy—if she does not, I will make sure she gets one—because it contains some excellent recommendations. It was produced by Imkaan and the Women and Girls Network, and it has received UK Research and Innovation funding. When we hear the statistics, such as one woman killed every three days, we think: “When is that going to change? How are we going to change it?” That report will help. I also want to highlight the Level Up campaign, which calls on the Independent Press Standards Organisation to introduce an amendment to the editors’ code so that when the press reports on domestic abuse and the murder of missing women, it does not sensationalise them as it normally does. That needs to change. It is inaccurate and undignified, and it prioritises sensationalism and negatively frames the victims—it suggests that they deserved it. I want to see words such as “sexism”, “misogyny”, “extremism” and “terrorism” used to describe violent men; “jilted partner” just will not do. I hope the Minister looks at that report so that we can work together and begin to move in the direction of eradicating violence against women and girls.

• 21 Nov 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  May I join other Members of the House in sending my condolences to the Prescott family? I used to sit with John when we did the prep for Prime Minister’s questions, and I now wish that I had taken notes of all the rebuttals and lines that did not make the cut, because they would make one hell of a book. My constituents in Brent East, one of the most diverse constituencies in the UK, deserve fair pay for a fair day’s work. Yesterday was equal pay day, which was two days earlier than normal, meaning that things are getting worse. Will the Leader of the House allow us to have a debate on this issue in Government time?

• 21 Nov 2024 · International Men’s Day · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that trans men are often missed out of the trans debate, that they are also subjected to some really cruel behaviour and often suffer violence, such as rape, and that that is under- reported?

• 21 Nov 2024 · International Men’s Day · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) on securing the debate. Madam Deputy Speaker, where is everybody? Nobody is on the Conservative Benches, besides the Opposition Whip. I am surprised to see empty Benches on the Conservative side of the House. I am sure the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies), will give a great speech, but she should not have to hold it all down by herself. International Men’s Day started in 1992 in Trinidad and Tobago, and we started debating International Men’s Day in the House in 2015. I thought it was important to attend today, because it is not a competition. I always attend the International Women’s Day debate, and my fighting for the rights of women does not in any way negate my fighting for the rights of men. It is important that we campaign, so it would have been nice to see more people in the Chamber. I get a lot of misogynistic abuse online from people who say, “Why don’t we have an International Men’s Day?” Well, we are having an International Men’s Day debate, and the House is not full. This is a great time to talk about the many men’s charities that do amazing work. In my Brent East constituency, we have BoyztoMEN, Moving on Up, 100 Black Men of London, Men United, Making the Leap and the Social Wellness Club. We also have a lot of barbers who do lots of great work. The men and boys who go for haircuts are encouraged to talk and have debates. They are not always great debates—I am not saying that they always make sense—but customers are encouraged to talk and share. There is a particularly good barber shop in Brent called Faisal Barbers. It teaches the young men things such as timekeeping; they have to arrive on time or they cannot get their hair cut. All those kinds of soft skills are important in later life. I like to highlight that shop because even during the pandemic it had debates about covid, keeping safe and getting the vaccination. That was important. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland said, there is a growing range of charities, including Men’s Sheds, Andy’s Man Club, Prostate Cancer UK, which is doing a lot of work, Harry’s Hikes, WalKing Men and many more. It is important to encourage those organisations. This year, there are three key themes for International Men’s Day: making a positive difference to wellbeing and lives, raising awareness of and funds for charities supporting men and boy’s wellbeing, and promoting a positive conversation about men, manhood and masculinity. My hon. Friend mentioned manhood and masculinity. I will talk more about that today. We know that a lot of the way in which society runs is centred on men—from how clothes are made for emergency service workers, to language—so it stands to reason that, for equity purposes, there has to be more of a focus on women. However, as I said, that does not come at the exclusion of men. Being a man is not about being strong and silent—that is very old thinking. We need to encourage more men to speak up and speak out. When it comes to health, 12,000 men die of prostate cancer every year—one every 45 minutes—one in five UK men do not live to the age of 65, and 14 men die by suicide every day. That is an alarming number; there is a continued crisis in male suicide, which is the leading cause of death for men under 50. I believe that there is a direct correlation between the increase in mental ill health among men and the growth in the number of involuntary celibates, or incels. That growing and worrying underground movement of young men is defined by a misogyny that believes that men have lost the genetic lottery and are destined to fail with women. Incels are often poorly educated boys and men, and they justify violence against women via their ideological stances. It is important that we tackle that crisis head-on and send a strong message from this House that incels are not in any way a good representation of a good man. Women are not the enemy. One woman is killed every three days by a man, so we need men to speak up and speak out. We need men to be louder than the toxic men on social media who have huge platforms. We need men to speak louder than the men with power, the men in power and some of the men who are soon to get power. We have a lot of work to do. Some 20% of incels contemplate suicide every day. There are well-documented terrorist attacks and mass killings by incels. International Men’s Day is important for everyone. The world will be safer if we all work together to respect each other and make sure that we are all kept safe. I will end with a quote by Alex Karras, who said: “It takes more courage to reveal insecurities than to hide them, more strength to relate to people than to dominate them, more ‘manhood’ to abide by thought-out principles rather than blind reflex. Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles and an immature mind.”

• 20 Nov 2024 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. During Prime Minister's questions, the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), said that the Government had given a pay rise to trade unions. That is factually incorrect. The Government gave pay rises to workers, and gave them to all workers, regardless of whether or not they were members of trade unions. That is the power of a trade union. I know that it is difficult to educate His Majesty’s official Opposition about the benefits of trade unions, Madam Deputy Speaker, but can you advise me on whether I can compel the shadow Minister to come back and correct the record?

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

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  We are all moved by these stories, and when we see the pain in the eyes of the children, we think: where has our compassion, our humanity, gone? There have also been some reports that aid has gone into schools, for instance, and those schools have then been bombed, so therefore there is no aid. Does my hon. Friend agree that we have to be serious about ensuring that this crisis ends soon?

• 14 Nov 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I have received a number of emails about the winter fuel allowance and access to pension credit, so I have joined forces with accredited organisations to help people access and sign up to pension credit. Does the Leader of the House agree that it is vital that we get as many people as possible signed up to pension credit?

• 13 Nov 2024 · Facial Recognition: Police Use · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I thank the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) —or I could say my right hon. Friend, if he does not mind—for securing this debate. I have spoken to the Secretary of State and Ministers in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and there is an awareness that we need a lot of careful and considerate thinking on this issue. Obviously, a new Government have just come in and this is not a new issue, as the right hon. Member for Maldon said—LFR was first used in 2017, so there is a lot of clearing up that has to be done. Live facial recognition changes one of the cornerstones of our democracy: an individual is innocent until proven guilty. With this technology, if the machine says an individual is guilty because they have been identified using live facial recognition, they then have to prove their innocence. That is a huge change in our democracy that nobody has consented to. We have not consented to it in this place, and as we police by consent as a society, that should really worry us all.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Facial Recognition: Police Use · Hansard source

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  The report by the national physical laboratory said that it had to be set at 0.6 for it to have fewer misidentifications, but there is no such thing as no misidentifications or people not being wrongly identified. It is also easy for a police service to lower that number. Because we have no judicial oversight, it is very problematic.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Facial Recognition: Police Use · Hansard source

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  Is the hon. Gentleman aware that black men are eight times more likely to be stopped and search by the police than their white counterparts, and 35 times more likely under section 60? This technology accelerates the discrimination that is already in the system.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Facial Recognition: Police Use · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is making an incredibly powerful speech. Is she aware of the Big Brother Watch campaign to try to stop large shops from capturing people’s faces and saying that they are shoplifters? They then get stopped in other places, but they are not aware of that process.