David Burrowes: There must be safeguards for religious freedom in the Same Sex Marriage Bill. And a referendum.

David Burrowes is Conservative MP for Enfield Southgate.  Follow David on Twitter.

For many colleagues, the news that the issue of gay marriage is coming back to the Commons next week is like those Jaws film trailers. Just when you thought it was safe to return to a new Parliamentary session, focussing on the key issues facing the country, the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill returns to infest MPs.

Maria Miller would have to be cast as the town mayor trying to reassure everyone that there is no danger in the Parliamentary sea. The Secretary of State for Equalities has told MPs that she "would never introduce a Bill that encroaches or threatens religious freedoms". The problem is that a majority of Conservative MPs were not convinced by her assurances when they voted against the Bill.  Many more MPs from all parties were also not convinced, but were hoping that the Committee stage would at least provide greater protection for freedom of conscience and religious liberty.

David Burrowes MP: We need a social recovery not just an economic recovery

David Burrowes is Conservative MP for Enfield Southgate and Drugs and Alcohol Policy Adviser to Rt Hon Oliver Letwin MP.  Follow David on Twitter.

Recovery, recovery, recovery. It’s the talk of Westminster this week but not just about the economy. The inaugural Recovery Festival is in town. It has brought together Government, businesses, social enterprises, treatment services, recovery champions the length and breadth of the UK.. and Russell Brand! It is not just talk of recovery but action with lives transformed from addiction to drugs and alcohol. Amidst a media narrative of gloom and despair these are real stories of hope and opportunity. Stories demonstrating that the Government is on the side of individuals being given a second chance, getting into work and making their lives and those around them better.

This Government is more ambitious than any before it for lives to be free from the slavery of alcohol and drugs addictions and getting into work. Our payment by results pilots are the first in the world to pay local areas by the results of getting people free from dependence on drugs and alcohol and back integrated into society, and particularly work. Drugs and alcohol are not merely a policing  issue, or a health issue, or an education issue. They are a far-reaching, social recovery issue. Ask those in recovery and they will tell you that addiction damages not just individuals, but families, businesses and communities. That is why this Government's social recovery agenda is good news for us all.

Progress is being made under this Government but there is a glass ceiling. Put simply, it is stigma. It is the stigma that prevents people from being honest enough to tackle their own drug and alcohol addiction. It is the stigma that pushes recovery off the agenda at a local and national level. And, importantly for this Recovery Festival, it is the stigma which keeps those in recovery out of employment, cut off from society, and so cut off from the very things they need for recovery.

Robert Buckland MP and David Burrowes MP: Why we need to change the law on child neglect

Robert Buckland is the Member of Parliament for South Swindon. He is also the Chair of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission. Follow Robert on Twitter. 

David Burrowes is Conservative MP for Enfield Southgate. Follow David on Twitter.

In 1868, a cult based in South East England shocked the country when it was revealed that members of the group had deliberately withheld medical treatment from gravely ill children in their care. Known as the Peculiar People, they believed that to administer medicine was to demonstrate a lack of faith in God.  In response, legislation was passed to criminalise the offence of child neglect.

During the inter-war years, the Children and Young Persons Act of 1933 tidied up some of the finer points of the legislation, but today our criminal definition of child neglect remains rooted in the laws passed during the reign of Queen Victoria.  An old law doesn’t necessarily mean a bad one, but in this case the legislation is woefully out of date and in need of reform.

In Parliament today, however, an amendment will be debated that could finally change all of this.  It will come before the Bill Committee of the Crime and Courts Bill, and as former legal professionals who are well accustomed to the problems inherent in the current system,  we hope that the amendment will be successful.

The current law on child neglect should be reformed for a number of reasons.

David Burrowes MP: Today is not about gay rights but about defending the historical purpose of marriage

David Burrowes is Conservative MP for Enfield Southgate. Follow David on Twitter.

The debate today gives MPs the opportunity to rise above the media's obsession with the internal dynamics of the Conservative Party and also some of the vitriol and hate-filled abuse that has come to the surface. I have tried to avoid media discussion between Conservatives but as we approach the debate today I want to focus on why Conservative MPs should oppose the Marriage Bill.

There is talk about which side of history colleagues will be on when the votes are recalled in years to come. I don't think today will go down as the day when gay rights were significantly advanced. That day was in 2004 with the passing of the Civil Partnerships Act which provides legal rights similar to marriage. Nor do I think today is about tackling homophobia and the place of gay people in society. Criminal law (like the homophobic hatred offence which Nick Herbert and I as Shadow Justice Ministers supported) and anti-discriminatory laws have set the framework. Now Conservatives instinctively look to education and culture for respecting the equal value of men and women regardless of their sexuality. So, for example, I was pleased to recently speak at a conference of my local secondary school's teachers about tackling homophobic hatred. Redefining marriage is the wrong vehicle to send out signals about homosexuality.

I do believe many people (and particularly our constituents in 2015) will look back at today and ask whether their Conservative MP stood up for marriage. We have always been the Party that has defended the social institution of marriage. Marriage has never been just about the happiness and fulfilment of the individuals involved. It is part of a bigger picture – human societies need stable family groupings, especially for the nurture and care of children. The man-woman union at the heart of marriage has to do with this bigger picture. The current demand to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples is the logical outworking of a revised understanding of marriage, which is in danger of reducing it to a merely personal and private relationship.

David Burrowes MP: Let's take the gay marriage debate out of the party political arena

David Burrowes is Conservative MP for Enfield Southgate. Follow David on Twitter.

Looking at the media reaction to the Government's announcement of plans to redefine marriage you would be forgiven for thinking it was an internal Conservative Party debate. Pollsters and journalists are looking for new angles on how many Conservative voters, chairmen, and MPs are for or against the plans. I am in no doubt about the significant impact on the Party but the debate needs to rise above party politics. Conservatives were first to be given a free vote on this issue of conscience and the other parties have now followed suit. Unlike the Republicans, thankfully, we Conservatives do not do culture wars and should not start now. We should stop internalising the debate which only damages the Party and devalues the issue. That is why the Parliamentary campaign which I am leading against the proposals is supported by a coalition of Parliamentarians across the political spectrum.

We are concerned that no one in the country has had an opportunity to vote on the Government’s plans. None of the main political parties put it in their manifestos. The nearest the Conservatives got was to a little known equalities paper rushed out at the beginning of campaign, after Peter Tatchell made some noise on the steps of CCHQ, which committed to consult on the merits of gay marriage. It did not come from the main gay rights campaigners, Stonewall. Their CEO Ben Summerskill told me soon after the 2010 election that gay marriage did not feature on survey responses from members. His fear which has become something of a reality was that the debate would put us into our respective trenches and not advance gay rights. Conservatives need to avoid just being in those trenches.

Whatever side of the debate you are on the consultation response last week does not instill confidence. It has not provided a mandate for change. It does not help when the head of the Government's Equalities Office reneges on a promise to count a petition of half a million named UK citizens but rather counts 132,000 web forms from completely anonymous sources who could have filled out the form from anywhere in the world. And now the public has not had the chance to respond to the latest rushed plan to allow churches to carry out same sex wedding ceremonies. 

David Burrowes MP: The best legacy of the Olympics will be to inspire us all to be more physically active

David Burrowes is the Member of Parliament for Enfield Southgate. Follow David on Twitter.

"Inspire a generation"

These are the words emblazoned across the Olympics. Will it come true?

Many watching the Super Saturday of gold medals will have been inspired. Or even before that brilliantly British opening ceremony, for those in my patch who witnessed triple amputee Rifleman Jack Otter show such courage and determination to walk along Southgate High Street with the Olympic Torch.

There is an expectation that the Olympics will inspire future athletic champions and sports participation. Lord Moynihan was understandably quick off the blocks to call for more support for our schools and sports clubs in nurturing exceptional talent. The chosen legacy provider StreetGames will be key in this task. However, most of us are not going to be great athletes, but we could be more physically active.

We should heed the warnings of recent research which concludes that previous Olympics had little or no impact on physical activity levels in the host nation. I am optimistic that a combination of great role models like Jessica Ennis and Mo Farah, and an improved local environment through more active travel such as walking and cycling, can buck the trend.

David Burrowes MP: Drug addictions have an impact on families, not just the addict. It's time to break the cycle.

David Burrowes is the Member of Parliament for Enfield Southgate. Follow David on Twitter.

Before I became a politician, I worked as a criminal defence solicitor in a small, north London practice. We dealt with issues that are typical to towns up and down the country. Many of the clients I saw - if not most of them - had problems with drugs or alcohol. My files were full of grim cases, with details about lives and families damaged by addiction, and about children whose day to day lives were made terrible by their parents’ substance misuse. Over the years the numbers of files increased with sons and daughters joining a family's conveyor belt of crime. It was just one sign of the massive intergenerational problem which has been hidden for too long. 

Today as an MP I am painfully aware that these kinds of issues haven’t gone away. If we’re going to address them properly, perhaps we need to start looking at things differently. Let me be clear before I go further. Drug and alcohol treatment has done some good things over the past decade, and the current Drugs Strategy will drive many more people into long lasting, stable recovery. 

But I would argue that, traditionally, treatment has followed too simple a logic - that the person who is addicted is the person who should get all of the support. While effective, it also misses a key point. Drug and alcohol addiction impacts everyone, in one way or another - particularly families, and particularly the children of addicted parents, who are far more likely to develop their own drug and alcohol problems later in life. In fact seven times more likely. For me, that one statistic was enough to make a convincing case for dealing with addiction as a family’s – rather than an individual’s – problem. Over the past year, I’ve acted as chairman to a commission of experts, whose evidence has only strengthened that conviction. 

This ‘Breaking the Cycle’ commission launches its first report today (download), only three months after the Government created a specialist unit to tackle problems faced by ‘troubled families’ across the UK. That unit estimates that there are 120,000 such families in the UK, each costing the taxpayer £75,000. Echoing my experiences as a solicitor, it’s the commission’s belief that the majority of these families will have problems with substance misuse – and particularly with alcohol. So, if treatment is to include the wider family, and not just the individual, then we could well have found a solution to the Government’s problem. 

What’s more – if we use a model already set up by the drug and alcohol charity Addaction, whose ‘Breaking The Cycle’ programme the commission was named after, we could do it cheaply. The cost per family of that programme is no more than £4,000. There is a lot more to do, of course. We need to ensure every person who works with families has had drug and alcohol training, for example (perhaps surprisingly, this isn’t the case across a wide range of professions – even social work). We also need to better understand the scale of the problem. I suspect that many families who need help are, at the moment, under the radar.

But all of this means a great deal more than saving money and sorting out the red tape. It means that we can help prevent a next generation of addicts in this country. And it means we will show the families of today’s addicts that we, as a society, care about them and their future.

David Burrowes MP: My hopes and fears for the gay marriage consultation

David Burrowes is MP for Enfield Southgate. Follow David on Twitter.

So we're off! Not just at Cheltenham racecourse but now finally the consultation to redefine marriage has been published. It seems like we have already been around a few furlongs with this issue. Since I rose my head above the parapet to support the legal definition of marriage last month I was greeted with hostility, hate mail and even death threats. I have also received substantial support and been joined by 200,000 people signing the Coalition for Marriage petition in just 3 weeks.

I hope the consultation will provide:

• an opportunity to celebrate the equal value and difference of loving and committed relationships, whether gay or straight, in a civil partnership or married. The 2004 Civil Partnerships Act properly gave gay couples the same legal rights as those who are married and also recognised the intrinsic difference in law with a married union.
• an appreciation of the value of marriage to the State. Marriages are on the increase again and are generally good for relationships, between adults, children and good for families and social justice.
• a chance to have a reasoned debate about the purposes of marriage, the difficult challenges of changing the law, and how we secure equality and liberty in a modern society.

David Burrowes: The focus of debate about dying must be palliative care

David Burrowes is the Member of Parliament for Enfield Southgate

When did you last talk about dying? Dying is an issue which affects us all but we rarely talk about it. In the media a discussion about terminal illness more often than not turns into one about legalising assisted suicide. On Tuesday morning Parliament has an opportunity to do better when I will be leading a debate entitled “Care for the Dying”. MPs will be able to show their support for care that achieves the best quality of life for patients even when their illness cannot be cured.

“You matter because you are you. You matter to the last moment of your life and we will do all we can to help you die peacefully, but also to live until you die.”

David Burrowes MP: "Enfield's law" will ensure youths carrying knives go to prison. It is the least Parliament can do.

David Burrowes is the Member of Parliament for Enfield Southgate.

In April, a 15-year-old called Negus McClean was stabbed and killed while trying to prevent a gang stealing his brother’s phone. In July, two rival gangs publicly fought with machetes, knives and guns. The members of these gangs were youths, and a sixteen year old was stabbed in the hand.

Their two harrowing cases have three striking similarities. The first is that they both involve knife crime. The second is that both involve youths. The third is that both occurred in Enfield.

For Enfield, knife crime has become an all too familiar occurrence. Knife attacks are no longer shocking; on the contrary, they seem to be a permanent fixture in the local paper. Almost every week, there is a story of knife crime that has yet again blighted the community. Enfield, of course, is not alone in feeling the devastating effects of knife crime, but it is a problem that is becoming synonymous with the London Borough due to its frequency.

Against this background, together with my constituency neighbour Nick de Bois MP, we have championed the need to get tougher on knife crime. Nick has fought a tireless campaign, bringing a local campaign to national media prominence and harnessing Parliamentary support, as well as that of Boris Johnson and police chiefs. I have been able to draw on my experience as a solicitor in youth courts for the last 17 years seeing knife crime as a "blind spot" when it comes to sentencing. Together we have made a compelling case to ministers for change to legislation.

David Burrowes MP: Labour has failed to deliver justice for victims of crime

David Burrowes MP is a shadow justice minister.

Last week Jack Straw announced the launch of the National Victims Service with an additional £8 million being channelled primarily through Victims Support. He said it was in response to the report of Sara Payne, the victims’ champion, which wants to ‘redefine justice’. The main recommendation is that victims need to be considered in terms of the total impact of the crime committed against them and their individual needs arising from this impact.

So what is the Government’s record in relation to victims of crime? Since 1997 there have been more than ten reports, reviews and numerous Bills, yet the Government’s repeated mantra of ‘putting victims at the centre of the criminal justice system’ (CJS) is sounding increasingly hollow.

The CJS has an important role to play in supporting the victim through the system and also after care. Since 2008 we have been calling for more dedicated support particularly for victims of serious violent crime, such as families of homicide victims. However the CJS exists to provide justice not social service and for most victims who feel let down it is because justice has not been done for them and seen to be done. Most criminal offences do not see the light of a court house and are dealt with by a slap on the wrist as a caution or a penalty charge notice, the equivalent of a parking ticket. In 2007, 624,000 of the 1.374 million offences were dealt with out of court by what the DPP describes as ‘instant justice’.

Crime is of course an offence against the victim. The problem is that the personal character and consequences of crime are often ignored by the offender which can then be perpetuated by the CJS. We increasingly view crimes as against ‘society’ and not victims, reducing the responsibility on the offender to repair the damage done to the victim.