Protection of Workers
The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-04509, in the name of Hugh Henry, on a protection of workers bill. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament congratulates the members and representatives of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw) on the union’s Freedom From Fear campaign, which it understands seeks to bring together employers, police and local authorities to tackle the scourge of violence, threats and abuse against shopworkers; further applauds the work of all trade unions, including those in Renfrewshire, for running campaigns that seek to protect their members at work; believes that all public-facing workers are at risk of being assaulted and that around 80% of Scottish workers have interactions with the general public during their working day; welcomes the decrease in incidents against shopworkers, which it understands are now at less than half the 2004 levels; remains concerned that, in the last 12 months, incidents of violence and verbal assault against retail staff have increased by 83%, as recorded by the British Retail Consortium’s Annual Retail Crime Survey; is appalled that, according to the survey, in every minute of every day another shopworker is assaulted, threatened or abused, and believes that all public-facing workers deserve the same level of protection as workers covered by the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005.
17:05
The issue—to be frank—is not about a bill; it is about freedom from fear. All workers in this country should have a right to be free from fear. “Freedom from fear” is one of the slogans that the campaigning trade union, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, has used for many years in lobbying members of Parliament of all parties. USDAW cannot understand—nor can the other unions that are involved, to some of which I will come in a moment—why it hears warm words from politicians, but gets so little action on an issue that affects so many people.
It is true that the issue affects many people; we are talking not only about retail crime, which affects not just shop and retail staff, but communities. The issue impacts on public sector transport workers, housing workers and others. We know that the impact on communities can be quite profound. Many years ago, I remember meeting a community group from Jackie Baillie’s area, which faced the loss of the local convenience store because the shopkeeper could not withstand the level of attacks against and abuse of staff. The community in question was a particularly impoverished one, in which the loss of that retail outlet would have been keenly felt. That story could be repeated across Scotland.
We should have it enshrined in the Scottish Parliament that every worker has the right to be treated with dignity and respect. Every worker should have the right to a working life that is free from fear, threats, bullying, physical assault and verbal abuse.
Unfortunately, that is not the reality. Some of the most recent figures that have been produced show a worrying trend. The “Retail Crime Survey 2011”, which was published by the British Retail Consortium in January 2012, shows that retail crime across the United Kingdom cost shops £1.4 billion in 2010-11, which represented a 31 per cent increase on the previous year.
However, money is not necessarily the issue. More worrying was the reported increase in violence towards retail staff, 35,000 of whom had been the victims of physical or verbal attacks or threats. The total number of incidents against employees rose by 83 per cent in comparison with the previous 12 months to a staggering 26 offences per 1,000 employees. That rise was due largely to an increase in the number of incidents of verbal abuse—there were 13.3 such incidents per 1,000 employees—but verbal abuse can be debilitating, shattering and life changing for those who are on the receiving end of it and the perceived physical threats that can underlie it. The Scottish Government’s crime and justice survey has revealed that 37 per cent of public-facing workers have been abused in the past 12 months and that 10 per cent of them have been physically assaulted.
Unison, the public sector union, conducts an annual survey of violence against public service employees, which showed that 34,739 staff reported violent incidents in the past year—7,000 more than in the previous year and almost 15,000 more than when the survey was first conducted in 2006. Dave Watson, Unison’s Scottish organiser, said that those figures
“demonstrate an appalling level of violent incidents faced by staff who are simply doing their job.”
The phrase “doing their job” can be translated into many areas of employment, such as the bus workers simply doing their job. If they are assaulted, the bus service is lost to a community, which puts at a disadvantage people without motors who rely on public sector transport. There are also the train drivers and train guards who are faced with violent assault, and there is the potential consequent loss of service.
I think that what Hugh Henry has just described is a culture change, not merely a behavioural change. If I am right that it is cultural, where does it come from and what do we do about it, because we do not want that to become embedded in our culture?
Margo MacDonald touches on a profound issue that is worthy of a more detailed and prolonged debate than a short members’ business debate. I agree that cultural issues are involved and that there is an acceptance not just of the physical aspects but of the view that it is all right to abuse staff. For example, USDAW reports that every year, in the run-up to Christmas, some members of the public who feel that they are harassed into buying presents think that it is acceptable to abuse the overworked, harassed staff who are simply trying to do their job. Yes—there is a cultural issue, but for the staff involved it is a problem that affects their health and wellbeing.
That is why USDAW is so determined to keep its freedom from fear campaign going. It believes that it should not just remind the public that such behaviour is unacceptable, but remind politicians that the workers involved need more than warm words. They cannot understand—I pose this question without putting forward a specific alternative—why the Scottish Parliament thinks that the law was inadequate in relation to nurses, police officers or doctors, but is adequate in relation to retail staff, bus drivers, train drivers, housing workers and others. They merely ask for some consistency in that regard and for the protection that some other workers in this country are given. They believe that the law in that respect is inadequate and they ask why they should not be counted in the same way as the workers who are protected. Why is that protection and support not given to them?
USDAW and other trade unions will not let up on the issue, and we will keep hearing the refrain that they want politicians to give them more than warm words; they want politicians to give them something that will give them some protection when they do their jobs.
17:13
I congratulate Hugh Henry on securing this worthwhile members’ business debate. I have known Hugh Henry for a long time, and I know well that the protection of vital employment rights is one of his priorities.
I share the sentiment behind the motion’s aims, but there is a sense of déjà vu about the debate, because Hugh Henry introduced the Protection of Workers (Scotland) Bill in the previous session of Parliament, which was unfortunately defeated at stage 1. Mr Henry’s motion is similar to the early day motion 574 that was tabled in the House of Commons by Graeme Morrice MP, so it might be a case of where Hugh Henry leads, others follow.
I have spoken in the past about Scotland’s rich industrial heritage with regard to the workers memorial day. In modern Scotland, many work locations might have changed, but the threat of assault, whether verbal or physical, is very real. The trade union USDAW’s freedom from fear campaign understands that the situation with regard to abuse and violence at work is not the same for all.
Many employees in the retail sector are female, and in the current economic climate they occupy very responsible positions. In small shops that sell alcohol and tobacco, staff might be left on their own but they still have a duty to challenge people who are buying alcohol and tobacco and they face the threat of verbal and physical abuse if they refuse to serve customers who cannot prove how old they are. We have to protect those staff from verbal abuse and violence by ensuring that their workplaces are free from such threats.
I do not know about other members’ experiences, but when I go out to the shops I find that it is not unusual to see only one or two people in the shop without any real support on the floor. I know that Hugh Henry’s aim, and that of the motion, is that all public-facing workers should have the same level of protection as workers who are covered by the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005.
Unfortunately a distinction was created in 2005, although it was not of my making, and that is still the reality today. Hugh Henry has clearly outlined that the 2005 act covers workers in the emergency services, but many workers in the retail sector feel that they have no protection from abuse. Threats are made by individuals, particularly when they are challenged for proof of age. In addition, we are seeing an increasing number of threats from people who are challenged when they have been caught shoplifting. We have to address that serious issue and ensure that workers feel safe and secure in their workplaces.
The motion implies that the public have become more intolerant of violence and assault, as shown in the decrease in the number of incidents. However, as Hugh Henry pointed out, the difficulty is that statistics that are coming out now show that in some areas the numbers are increasing. It would be difficult to determine whether that is due to the economic circumstances that people are facing.
Employers have a duty of care to their employees and they should ensure that their staff do not find themselves in a situation in which they could suffer violence and abuse. I recognise the work that trade unions have undertaken in conjunction with First ScotRail on its current public awareness campaign on the railways. I congratulate them on their contribution to making the travelling public aware of their campaign.
I genuinely look forward to the day when all workers in every sector can carry out their duties without fear of verbal or physical abuse. I trust that we will all do all we can to reach that objective in Parliament. I look forward to the day when we enact proper legislation to deal with the objectives that Hugh Henry has outlined tonight.
17:18
I welcome the opportunity to take part in this evening’s debate and I congratulate Hugh Henry on securing it. I compliment USDAW on its freedom from fear campaign, which has been run regularly at this time of year to coincide with the run-up to Christmas, which is a very busy period for shops and retail areas.
The debate is important because we are talking about something that impacts on people’s lives in communities throughout Scotland, and the Parliament should debate and flag up issues that give out the right signals and indicate a way forward so that we can make a difference.
As Hugh Henry and John Wilson have illustrated, there is no doubt that retail workers face challenging circumstances. There is a perception that when people go out to work, they do their daily chores, they work diligently, and they pick up their wage packet or have their salary paid into their bank account at the end of the month. When people go to work, they do not normally expect to be assaulted in the course of their duties. Unfortunately, however, that is what happens day and daily in communities throughout Scotland.
The Parliament has passed many laudable initiatives on, for example, alcohol; indeed, with the challenge 21 scheme, we rightly expect retail outlets to challenge people who are underage. However, on a cold November night when no one from the local community is coming out, two or three rowdy underage individuals might well turn up and start giving shopworkers abuse. Such incidents are very difficult to handle.
As Margo MacDonald suggested, the question facing the Parliament in this debate is how we change the culture and get the message across.
Does the member agree that the message sent to workers from the cuts in health and safety and the recent report suggesting that there was little capacity for proactivity is not the sort of message that this Parliament should be sending?
That brings me to my point about how we take all this forward. In the short term, the key thing is to support USDAW’s freedom from fear campaign, which can do a bit to change the culture in the run-up to Christmas by impressing on the public the message that assaults on shopworkers and retail staff are totally unacceptable. We can also consider extending protection of workers legislation from emergency workers to shopworkers. Such measures would make a difference by, for example, making it safer and more secure for people to go out and do their jobs. In fact, reducing such attacks would help not only those workers but the economy, as well as reduce the impact on the criminal justice system. People will not only feel safe in their shops and communities, but will feel bound to come out and support their shops and retail outlets and give the economy what would be a crucial boost at this time.
It is excellent that Hugh Henry has secured this debate. Everyone should get behind the USDAW campaign and we should think about extending the legislation to shop and retail workers.
17:22
I, too, thank Hugh Henry for securing this debate and commend him for his consistent and, indeed, persistent approach to the issue of worker protection. I appreciate that the debate is not about the previous bill, but given that I was not involved in the previous debate I hope that I will be forgiven for having looked back at it for some background.
Reading through the Official Report from two years ago, I noted that the deputy convener of the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee said:
“The committee was unable to access data on the effectiveness of the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005 ... ; therefore, we could not determine whether the legislation had acted as a deterrent.”
In moving the issue forward, I hope that the effectiveness of the 2005 act will be scrutinised—perhaps it already has been—to provide much-needed data that can be used to formulate future approaches to protecting shopworkers. The deputy convener also said that there is
“a perception among workers that assaults are not taken seriously by the Crown Office and that that perception contributes to the thousands of incidents that go unreported each year”.—[Official Report, 22 December 2010; c 31858.]
That brings me to the 83 per cent increase in incidents of violence and verbal assault against retail staff that was recorded by the British Retail Consortium over a recent 12-month period. I have to say that I find it difficult to reconcile that figure with the decrease in the number of incidents against shopworkers, which now stands at less than half the 2004 levels. After a steady downward trend, there seems to have been a sudden spike, so the figures deserve more causal analysis to allow us to understand what has caused that sudden increase.
I also agree with Hugh Henry that verbal abuse is equally unacceptable. Many of us can remember what some schoolteacher said that made us feel quite humiliated at the time.
In the previous debate on Hugh Henry’s bill, the then Minister for Community Safety, Fergus Ewing, rightly encouraged people to use the “Violence Reduction Handbook”, 5,500 copies of which had recently been distributed to front-line staff. The handbook offers practical advice about encouraging employees to report all forms of violence, because underreporting seemed to be recognised as a factor.
Will the member give way?
Let me finish this point.
Whether the 83 per cent increase is a more accurate reflection of what is happening and is due to better reporting—or, even more worrying, whether it is an actual increase in violent and abusive behaviour—needs to be better understood.
Would Ms Scanlon accept the proposition, which has occasionally been put to me, that some workers resist making reports to the police because their employers are not content with their making a report in case, for instance, they lose their off-sales licence?
I do not know whether that is a major cause, but I welcome the point that Fergus Ewing made. I welcome the distribution of the “Violence Reduction Handbook” because I think that people need the confidence to come forward and report.
Those who spoke in the previous debate all agreed that employees need and deserve protection; the disagreement seemed to be on how that could best be achieved, as is perhaps the case again today. My colleague John Lamont stated that
“abuse of those who work with the public is unacceptable”,
and said that the Scottish Conservatives agreed with the principles behind the bill. He also suggested that,
“we need to be better able to enforce the existing legislation”,
and he cited the Law Society of Scotland’s view, in saying that
“the existing common law provides sufficient protection to workers who provide a service to the public, as it takes account of aggravating circumstances.”—[Official Report, 22 December 2010; c 31874.]
Finally, I want to commend the work that USDAW has done on the issue, which I hope has helped people to be more confident. I also commend USDAW on its respect for shopworkers week which, as James Kelly said, takes place next week. Just as James Kelly asked all politicians to work with USDAW, I hope that I can ask USDAW to work with all politicians, because I see that the USDAW briefing note states:
“Ask your local Labour politicians to support our campaign ... Make sure you invite your local Labour politicians”.
I say to USDAW that the best campaigns are undoubtedly those that are supported by members of all parties and none.
Ms Scanlon, you must finish.
I would certainly be happy to support the campaign.
Finally, I thank Hugh Henry for securing the debate, which I hope has moved forward the issue of worker protection.
17:28
First, I congratulate Hugh Henry who has worked tirelessly, with the support of USDAW, to bring the matter to the attention of Parliament and to public notice. On behalf of Labour members, let me say to Mary Scanlon that, after her contribution today, I am sure that her future support for the campaign will be most welcome.
I have learned through experience that shopworkers do not expect a great deal from their workplace. They expect that it should have a reasonable level of cleanliness, that the environment should be safe and that it should have been designed to be secure so that they can work without undue pressure. Employers should be expected to deliver appropriate staff training to prepare staff to deal with the challenges that they may face. Working practices and arrangements should be designed to protect staff when they are going about their lawful duties. The design of the workspace should provide a secure environment for workers to do their work and to do it without threat.
In those circumstances, we should acknowledge and bear it in mind that many shop staff work part-time, are largely low paid and generally work very long hours and at antisocial times of the day, of the week, of the month and throughout the year during holidays. They do all that for the convenience of us, the general public.
The debate is timely, as it comes in the lead-up to the Christmas rush, when many staff face particular pressures. In all those circumstances, shopworkers and other public servants do not deserve only the support of the general public, who need their service; they also deserve and need support and intervention from the police, prosecutors, the courts and Parliament.
We should deliver the necessary health and safety legislation, background and support, as well as the enforcement of current laws. If necessary, we should provide new powers if we find that the current arrangements are not working. The Government has a duty to ascertain why there has been an 83 per cent rise in verbal attacks and physical assaults on shopworkers. More important, the Government must explain how that rise is possible, given that it goes against the wider crime trends, which are going in a different direction.
Assaults and verbal attacks have a debilitating effect on staff. Staff feel vulnerable because they are often on their own in shops and other locations in our communities. Staff are easily identified by those who would attack them verbally or offer violence, and they often live in the same communities and feel the pressure of thuggish behaviour and threats day and daily. Such threats should not be faced by anybody in employment, never mind by people who are on the minimum wage, and certainly not by young people or those who have served the public for decades in the best interests of the communities that visit shops and premises.
Many shopworkers are young and at the start of their working lives. We should provide them with the confidence to go forward and do better in their future, and to build careers for themselves. The many others who have worked for decades also deserve the support of the general public and Parliament. I hope that the Government will bear in mind the statistics that Hugh Henry has brought to our attention and decide whether they show the beginning of a trend or just a spike. In any case, the issue needs to be dealt with.
Workers should have confidence that they can go to their work, do their shift and go home again without experiencing violence or threats. The trade union’s freedom from fear campaign is an important way forward. It deserves a proper response from Parliament and, importantly, from the Government. I support Hugh Henry in his work to bring the issue to our attention.
17:32
I join other members in congratulating Hugh Henry on bringing this important debate to the Parliament. I am sure that, in 2004 or so, when the bill that became the 2005 act was being discussed, the measure seemed like a good idea. We need to be careful not to rewrite history on that. I am sure that, at the time, medical staff, who often work on their own or in stressed environments and who are often out and about, particularly in ambulances and the like, seemed like a group of people who needed a bit of support. We can probably endorse that. However, when we use such terms, we recognise that many people who work in shops are in much the same situation, although they just happen to be indoors. As other members have said, many shopworkers are on their own and feel pretty isolated, and they are open to abuse.
Therefore, it is not surprising that there should be calls for the terms of the 2005 act to apply to shopworkers. We can well understand that. However, the first question that springs to mind is whether the law of the land is adequate without doing that. I think that it probably ought to be, and we have heard the view that it is. I wonder whether it is perfectly adequate in substance and whether, as is often the case in law, the struggle is to do with the evidence. In the absence of recording equipment, people who work in shops perhaps feel that there is no possibility of bringing a case.
That is the nub of the argument and of the debate. The dilemma is that if, as many have argued, the law of the land is sufficient to give workers protection from assault, it should be sufficient for police, nurses and other medical staff. If extra legislation is required for them, why not for others?
I take the point entirely. The answer, I think, is that it is difficult to see why it should be required, but I am sure that it seemed like a good idea at the time.
I come to the point that Margo MacDonald rightly introduced early on in the debate. When our culture says that something is unacceptable, we do not, by and large, need law. We need law to say that murder, for example, is unacceptable, because some people simply choose to ignore that cultural fact—although they are very few. If we have a culture that says that we should not do something, people abide by it, generally speaking. However, if the culture does not tell us that we will not do something, law is probably inadequate.
Perhaps that is the point. There are plenty of environments—shops will certainly be among them—and communities where the law is not respected. If the culture is such that people do not worry about the law, changing the law will not solve the problem, although it may be a reasonable part of the process.
I risk boring everybody’s pants off at this time of night, but the question that has been raised is fascinating. I have my pet theories about it, and I wonder whether Nigel Don shares them. If there has been a cultural change, influences must have come from somewhere. Where did they come from and what were they? I think that they were transatlantic.
Partly because we have a relatively short time, I hesitate to get into that debate. There is a point in it, but I return to my basic point that the law is not terribly good as a deterrent. We know that, so we need a culture change. It would perhaps be sensible to change the law—I am sure that the minister will have a view on that—but, fundamentally, we need a culture change, which is why we need a freedom from fear campaign, which we all need to associate ourselves with, and a change in behaviour in our society.
John Wilson made an important point in his intervention. There are communities in our society where it does not pay to report people to the police. There are certainly circumstances in which an off-licence would not want to report something because it might lose its licence, and there will be situations in which the person serving in a shop does not want to report the person who has come in because although they know fine well who they are and who they belong to, in their culture, that is just not done.
That brings us back to the fundamental point that, although the law perhaps needs to be changed—I recognise the question that Hugh Henry has posed—I suspect that most of what we need to address is cultural. It is important that we do that.
17:37
I congratulate Hugh Henry on obtaining the debate.
There are certain things with which we all agree across the chamber. One of those fundamental things is that every individual has the right to live free from crime and the fear of crime, whether in their own homes, at work or out in the public domain. Therefore, I can say at the outset and without equivocation that I welcome the aims of the USDAW freedom from fear campaign, which seeks to prevent violence, threats and abuse against shopworkers.
We all start from the premise that violence is never acceptable. The person who commits a violent act—physical or verbal abuse—is responsible for their actions. It is important to start from that principle.
We must have effective criminal laws that protect workers and deter individuals from carrying out such attacks. As members have recognised, we have protection in the common law of assault. It provides legal protection to public-facing workers as they go about their daily lives. Indeed, it provides protection to every member of the Parliament. Let us not forget that we are also public-facing workers, albeit not within the terms of the debate.
As I understand it—I was not actively involved in the committee consideration at the time—the specific statutory offence that was proposed in Hugh Henry’s Protection of Workers (Scotland) Bill a few years ago would not have extended the scope of the criminal law in any way but would have recast the common law of assault and made it into a statutory offence. It would not have changed the nature of the criminal law.
I think that we all agree that laws are only part of the answer. Several members, including Margo MacDonald and Nigel Don, said that a much wider cultural problem may need to be addressed. We believe that tackling the underlying causes of assaults is far more important because it will help to reduce the number of attacks. Initiatives to prevent violence also have an important role to play.
I will come back to those topics, but I think that it is appropriate for me to pick up on some of the specific points that were made in the debate, because there are some interesting issues here.
Like Mary Scanlon—I am grateful for her intervention—I was slightly nonplussed when I read in Hugh Henry’s motion what looked like a contradictory set of statistics, so I asked for more background detail. In some ways, the reality raises more questions than it answers. The 83 per cent increase is a single year-on-year increase against a background of consistently declining figures from 2004-05. However, it is interesting that the figure has jumped up and down, and I do not understand what lies behind that. There was a big fall from 2004-05 to 2005-06, and then the figure jumped up in 2006-07. It dropped back down in 2007-08, jumped up in 2008-09, dropped in 2009-10, and jumped back up in 2010-11. There is something quite odd going on here, and we need to go behind it to find out what is happening.
I agree with the minister on that. Perhaps she could help to answer a question that was put to me today in a phone call. Is it the case that statistics in relation to violence and attacks on workers that were kept before 2007 have been dispensed with? I think that she is right—we need to get the right figures. Will she check whether there has been a change in the way in which information and statistics are compiled?
I can certainly ask that question, although I am not sure that it will explain the fluctuation that is going on. The figure of 58 incidents per 1,000 employees in 2004-05 has fallen to 26 incidents per 1,000 employees, so that trend is down. However, year on year, we get quite wild fluctuations. I wonder whether what happens is that when the figures are high there are awareness-raising campaigns and the following year the figures fall, but they go back up again when complacency sets in. There might be something in that, but we need to go a bit further behind the figures. It was interesting to see them, as they form an odd graph and the trend is quite strange.
A number of members understandably raised the issue of the difference between what are termed emergency workers, because they were included in the 2005 act, and wider public-facing workers. I presume that that issue was debated under the previous Government and a decision was made. I have a quote from the then Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd, on the issue. People might feel that it is not satisfactory, but it explains what was behind the decision to confine legislation to emergency workers:
“The situation is different for emergency personnel. These workers perform a unique and vital role in our society. The nature of their work renders them, and those who assist them, particularly vulnerable to attack. When emergency workers are assaulted, obstructed, or hindered, in the course of dealing with an emergency, it is not only their lives which are put at risk, but the lives of those they are working to protect.”
That informed the Government’s thinking at the time when the original emergency workers legislation was put through. There is a big issue there.
Will the member give way?
I have only a few seconds to go. I am sorry.
I make the broader cultural point that we need to tackle alcohol and drug-fuelled antisocial behaviour, because a lot of what we are talking about this evening is generated by that. There are on-going campaigns on those subjects. Prevention is important, and the Scottish Business Crime Centre is crucial, as are the initiatives that it promotes.
I want to highlight some of the practical measures and the benefits that they bring, such as the facts that more than 340 licensed premises are now accredited under best bar none, a scheme to address alcohol-related crime; 400 businesses are now accredited under the Scottish Business Crime Centre’s safer retail award; and 12 major shopping centres have the safer shopping award. Those are schemes that will help to drive down the crime figures.
Will the minister give way?
I am almost out of time. I am in the Presiding Officer’s hands.
It is up to you, minister. I can give you a short time back.
I will give way.
The minister has just given a list of figures in relation to work that has been done. Will she indicate where those figures stand in relation to the wider retail sector? It is nice to say that there are 300-odd accredited premises but how many does that compare to? Is it 300-odd out of 500 or 300-odd out of 5,000? We need to try to attain meaningful targets and not just targets that look good on paper but do not have any real effect.
I will need to send that information to the member since I do not have it with me.
I also want to point in the direction of the work of the violence reduction unit, which is about the broader culture of violence and violent crime.
I am conscious that I am probably well over time so I will skip through things like cashback for communities.
More broadly, the Scottish Government funds the Scottish centre for healthy working lives—that is part and parcel of the issue. I was interested in comments about the possibility that incidents are not being reported because it does not suit employers to have them reported. That is probably an issue that we need to look at quite closely.
Following the previous members’ business debate on the safety of shopworkers, the then Minister for Community Safety committed to meet USDAW to discuss its excellent work. That meeting took place and the minister showed support for USDAW’s work. The meeting resulted in USDAW’s participation in the Scottish Government-led age-restricted products enforcement group.
I hope that the member accepts that the Government is as concerned about the issue as he and other members are. However, the issue is not as straightforward as it might look on the surface and it bears closer examination.
Meeting closed at 17:47.