Jon Trickett MP: speeches

Speeches

• 7 May 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I have tabled new clause 18, which is about health and instituting a new public interest test. There is an existing test, but it is not very accessible or useful nowadays. I will explain why. Probably the largest—or the most sensitive—database in the United Kingdom is the one held by the NHS. Almost every human being in our country is on a file somewhere, hopefully for beneficial and clinical reasons, in the NHS. I have had a series of medical issues in the last few months, and I am astonished by how much data is held about me. That will be the same for all of us, I guess. That database is filled with the most vital, private and intimate details about all our lives, and if it is going to be sustained, it is important that it retains the confidence of patients and of citizens as a whole. The truth is that the Information Commissioner is not convinced that the Bill goes far enough in protecting us and the NHS data, and if the Minister has time at the end, I hope he will be able to comment on whether he is persuaded by the Information Commissioner that we should move further. This data, which is intimate and private, as I have just said, can also be the basis of major advances in human welfare. We can imagine all sorts of ways that our interests as human beings are being advanced by the use of that data every day. I am thinking, for example, of the search for a covid vaccine, which was led by a British scientist and partly based on the data that was available from the NHS. We should be celebrating that—that scientific research is essential—but there is a threat to this database as well, and in my view it comes from two separate sources. First, there are hostile—or even friendly—state actors. Secondly, there are private interests who want to use the data not for human welfare, though that might be a fig leaf that they use, but for private profit. That cannot be right, given what that data has been created for.

• 6 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Pharmacies play a key role in communities in rural areas such as mine, but it is deeply frustrating when the supply chain breaks down and a pharmacy cannot deliver its medicine. Can the Minister tell me where we are now with the supply chain? Will she also thank all the heroic workers up and down the country who are doing their very best to deliver medicines, and will she thank in particular the 400 Superdrug workers in my constituency who are trying to make the supply chain work?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, and I support his amendments. The fact is that millions of innocent people whose behaviour has attracted no suspicion at all will be subject to intrusion into their bank accounts. Is it not odd that there is also access to bank accounts for the £40 billion of tax unpaid by tax avoiders, but that power is rarely used? In the last year for which I have seen figures, 300,000 people were suspected of tax avoidance, but only 1,000 had their banks investigated. Is it not the case that this legislation appears to treat wealthy tax avoiders differently from the poor?

• 17 Mar 2025 · Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance, Sir Edward. I thank the Petitions Committee for arranging the debate, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for her powerful opening speech. While I am in the business of thanking people, let me thank the tens of thousands of WASPI women who I have met around the country over the years, fighting for what they see to be justice. I agree with them. That organisation will not simply disappear, and the Government cannot simply ignore it—they will not be allowed to. The WASPI women have many friends and allies in this place on both sides of the House who will work with them to try to secure justice. When I voted for the reimbursement of the WASPI women the other day, I did so with two thoughts in my mind. The first was that there is something going wrong with the way we govern our country. Our governing class has lost touch with the people in general. It is very important that we begin to think hard about why that has happened and what we do about it. The first step must be that politicians say what they mean and mean what they say. I told the WASPI women in my constituency, and everywhere else I have met them, that I would back them until they get justice. I will continue to do so. Beyond individual politicians, the structures of our politics are no longer working properly. The ombudsman was set up especially to allow citizens who feel an injustice to go to an organisation separate from the state to pursue justice. How can that organisation, which is there to give voice to people, be ignored by a Government of whichever side? This debate should not be about finger pointing between the parties, but let us be clear that previous Governments introduced these measures and failed to implement the ombudsman’s report, so it is a problem for the whole House. After thinking about changing our politics, my second thought was about social justice. It is not fair that women were told at the last possible moment, with the state sitting on a report for 28 months, that their financial arrangements would change. I had a look at what happened in Spain: the Government increased the retirement age to 67, but they did it over 14 years. That allowed people to make their own financial plans about their circumstances. Each person knew what was coming in due course. The British state, of course, because of the gap between the public and the governing class, failed to do such a thing. Let me give one constituency case of a woman who came to see me. She was 58, had worked all her life and had saved a small amount of money, working hard and not earning very much. Her mum and dad were seriously ill, but she had enough money saved to get through to being 60, so she retired and went to look after them, only to discover to her horror that she would have to wait for years for the pension to come in. The money she had saved was not sufficient. Next, sadly, her mum and dad died, and she was left with no support or income of any kind—no carer’s allowance, nothing. She was left in total poverty, as a result of the state’s failure to say what would happen to her in her life. The state cannot be allowed to make decisions that transform people’s lives in such a way through no fault of their own—people who have worked and paid tax all their life. Millions of women have suffered in their own individual way, and all of us will have heard lots of stories about that. There are 6,170 WASPI women in my constituency alone; my majority is 6,600. Members can work that out for themselves—look at the numbers. Each one of those women will have family members who feel a burning sense of injustice too. But it should not be about us and saving our seats; it should be about what is right, about justice and about a different kind of politics entirely. It seems to me that options were available, but the then Government ignored them. There could have been a proper transition. Now we have an ombudsman’s report that has made clear recommendations and that imposes an obligation on us—every Member of this House—to implement them. We must do that. Let me make one final point—

• 25 Feb 2025 · Warm Home Discount · Hansard source

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  It is clear that the Conservative party left this country dependent on global fossil fuel supplies, which both burn the planet and are damaging in terms of price controls. However, the Tories left something else as well: a rigged energy market, which gave £480 billion to the energy industry yet left 8 million households—probably 17 million people—in fuel poverty, spending more than 10% of their income on energy. It is therefore welcome that the Minister has today announced an additional £150 for the warm home discount, but that, as I understand it, is a one-off payment for next winter. A £150 one-off payment will not resolve the underlying problem—today, the regulator has increased the cap by £111 or £108, depending on how it is calculated, per year on an ongoing basis. I welcome the Government’s announcement and recognise the Minister’s commitment to changing the way that things work. However, will my hon. Friend confirm to the House that the Government intend to end this rigged market, which works in favour of the profiteers, and tackle the scourge of fuel poverty, while at the same time securing a just transition to clean energy?

• 12 Feb 2025 · Fuel Poverty: England · Hansard source

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  I will briefly.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Fuel Poverty: England · Hansard source

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  I thank everybody for contributing. The House will have heard the Minister’s passion and commitment. I was particularly interested in what she said about warm homes—that she had heard heartbreaking stories and was determined to drive down fuel poverty. Although there was much that was good in her remarks, there were elements missing. In truth, our society is deeply dysfunctional; it needs structural change and a rupture with the existing arrangements. The fact that billions of pounds of profits are made in the energy sector while millions of people are left in poverty leads me to one conclusion: those who drive people into poverty by driving up the prices must pay for the fact that so many people are in poverty, while we get on with retrofitting houses. Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

• 12 Feb 2025 · Fuel Poverty: England · Hansard source

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  I will, but briefly. There are a lot of people who want to speak.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Fuel Poverty: England · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady has made her point. The House probably knows my views on the winter fuel allowance, but I had better move on before I get myself into trouble. One in four households in Fitzwilliam and Kinsley in my constituency, where miners once provided the heat for our country, are now living in fuel poverty as a result of changes over the past few years. There are two definitions of fuel poverty. The first is the Government’s rule, which was changed under the Tory Government in 2015. Under that definition, an estimated 3 million households in England alone are in fuel poverty, but it requires both that the household is in poverty and that the house is inadequately insulated.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Fuel Poverty: England · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered fuel poverty in England. I am looking forward to speaking in this debate under your chairpersonship, Mr Efford. I am sure you will be fair but firm—fair with us and firm with the other side. We meet today to debate what I regard as a very serious issue. It is good to see so many people present, all well-brushed, shaved, toothbrushed and all the other things one does in the morning. I hope we all had a good breakfast. It is great to see everyone here. This is a serious debate about a serious underlying problem, which affects millions of people, as we will hear. We meet today with the temperature forecast, at least in my patch in Yorkshire—God’s own country, as we call it—to reach minus 1° at the weekend, which will cause great problems for those people who are living in fuel poverty. I want to share one thing with the House from my personal experience. I grew up in a property that was later condemned as a slum and demolished. I remember my brother and I living in that unheated house—there was no heating at all apart from one coal fire. In winter, it was perishing, and it has left me with an enduring feeling that people living in the conditions that I saw should be better supported by a society that claims to be the sixth wealthiest in the world. With that background, I want to speak briefly about fuel poverty in England. Let me say another preparatory thing. The incoming Government—although they have now been in place for some time—faced the most difficult inheritance for dealing with fuel poverty, given all the other fiscal problems that we have heard much about. Last week’s announcement that they will address some fuel poverty issues was welcome, but I have one question about their proposals for private landlords. Many tenants of private landlords live in fuel poverty, because the properties that are being rented are not properly thermally insulated. The Government have now said that private landlords must bring their properties up to standard, but the fear in some people’s minds is that the landlords will simply use that as an excuse to bump up rents further, because they have had to pay to make properties more efficient. But they chose to rent out properties knowing that they were not properly efficient. I understand when tenants say to me and others that that is not right. When the Government made their decision on the winter fuel allowance, I received about 1,000 emails, and in many cases they were heartbreaking. It is not often the case that the voices of ordinary folk get heard in this place, so I want to refer briefly to three or four of those comments. I received an email from someone who has something called post-polio syndrome—they had polio as a child. A person with that syndrome finds it difficult to keep warm. I spoke to them and we said, “Look, it’s possible to go into one of the local community or church halls”—which every single village in my constituency now has—“in order to keep warm,” but the response was, “That’s fine, but I’ve got to keep the house warm in any event, because when I go back into a cold home, I have this problem with the syndrome.” I had another communication from someone with asthma. He has managed to keep it under control for most of the years, but he caught the bug. It took him more than a month to shake it off, and he was struggling with his asthma. He could not get warm at all, in spite of wrapping himself in blankets. He tells me that the house he lives in has a roof that is more than 70 years old. He keeps on getting it patched up with the help of his family, because he has no money; he cannot afford a new one, and he cannot get help from anybody. The insurance company says that it is wear and tear, so it will not help to pay for the roof. All the heating he puts on is escaping straight into the atmosphere. I also had a letter from a lady in Normanton. Her total income is £221 a week—she is a pensioner—and she pays £171 a week just for her mortgage and council tax, so she is left with only £50 a week to pay for heating, food and all the other necessities of life. How is that woman meant to survive in those circumstances?

• 12 Feb 2025 · Fuel Poverty: England · Hansard source

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  I am not going to take any more interventions, because so many people want to speak. So many people with houses that are thermally insulated, but who still remain in poverty, are excluded from that 3 million figure. A more accurate figure is one that only looks at whether a household is living in fuel poverty, and under that definition 8.9 million households in England alone are living in fuel poverty. If we say that there are two people in each household, we are talking about 17 million or 18 million people waking up in the morning in an unheated house, like I did living in the attic with my brother, with ice on the inside of the windows. That is unbearable to think about in one of the richest countries in the world. Ill health is a direct consequence of inadequately heated houses. Whichever figure is used, between 10% and 20% of all excess winter deaths in England are caused by unheated or cold houses. That is a disgrace. One in four children living in a cold home suffer mental health problems, which does not surprise me when they are living in such conditions. Let me turn quickly to the causes, which we could debate for a long time. It seems to me that there are two separate issues. One is the prices that energy companies charge, which are, frankly, driven by profits and greed, and the other is poor insultation. I will leave it to others to speak about the impact of uninsulated houses on the climate because I do not have time to say everything. On prices, it is a scandal that between 2022 and 2023 the price of energy increased by 27%, leaving almost a quarter of a million more households in fuel poverty. The other day, when the Bank of England decided to cut interest rates by 0.25 percentage points, it commented that it expects inflation to increase because of rising energy prices. That is a disastrous position for so many people in our country, which will drive more into fuel poverty. I will quote Warm This Winter, the campaign group that represents 60 different charities. Its authoritative view on energy suppliers is that there is “clearly an obscene level of profits being made”. The whole energy industry needs to be looked at, from extraction through to providers. The End Fuel Poverty Coalition said: “While consumers have suffered in cold damp homes this winter, energy firms’ boardrooms have been celebrating further bumper profits.” I do not see how that is acceptable in a society that claims to be one of the richest in the world, but there we are. Let me turn to the building stock itself. I am a builder by trade; I was a heating engineer and plumber and worked in the building industry. It is shocking, when there are still people with building skills out of work, that the building stock of our country is so poorly thermally insulated. Just over 40% of all residences—houses and flats—in Britain do not meet the Government’s minimum standards. The implications for the planet are clear, and others might want to talk about that. The Government inherited a number of programmes trying to tackle fuel poverty. The previous Government had moved to providing smart meters. They are useful for consumers to see and control the amount of energy they are consuming, but they do not help to keep the house warm. That initiative by the Conservative Government distracted people from the real problem of low incomes and high energy costs, driven by profit-seeking. There were three programmes in place. The energy company obligation required energy companies to begin to tackle the problem. That started well in 2020 with 113,000 houses, but by last year that number had gone down to 38,000. It collapsed when the energy companies, which were taking all that money from tenants and residents, failed to deliver. The second programme, the warm home discount, applies to only 11% of the population in England. Only 15% of all the houses that need attention have been fully insulated. That is where we are today. I think it is a scandal. It is wrong morally, economically, financially—in any way we can imagine—that people who have worked all their lives and are now pensioners, who had a reasonable prospect of living a satisfactory life, are living in homes that are poorly heated. Children are living in poorly heated homes in which at least one adult is working on low pay—another problem is that bosses are increasingly paying low pay. Those houses ought not to be left in that condition. I hope the Minister will give us some confidence that we are going somewhere. It takes time for the Government to change direction, but we need to move fast. Finally, let me pose three questions to the Minister, who I am pleased to see in her place. First, where are the Government going on fuel poverty—is it a high priority for them? Secondly, what is she going to do about the energy company obligation, which is failing? Finally, we often discuss the idea that the energy companies should have a social tariff for the lowest paid and those in the most difficulty. The country has decided that there should be a social tariff just for the internet—people living in difficult situations pay less for the internet—so it is extraordinary that we do not have one for energy production. I believe that there is a consultation on a social tariff ongoing, so will the Minister tell the House exactly where we are going on that? There is much more to say, but quite a number of Members want to speak, so I will draw my comments to a conclusion.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Fuel Poverty: England · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her comments, and of course, what she is saying is correct. The lady who I was just talking about told me that living on £50 a week is practically impossible. I imagine that there are some people in this Chamber, modest as we all are, who spend more than £50 on a meal. Think about that woman in Normanton left with only that amount of money to live on. Her final comment was poignant. She speaks for the 1,000 people who wrote to me when she says: “For many, retirement now means misery and trying to make ends meet. In the near future no doubt, I will have a choice like many before me—heat or eat. And I’ll just be another statistic. That is something no one would look forward to,” having worked all their life. She speaks for millions of people.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill · Hansard source

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  I wish to make a few points. First, it would have been impossible not to note the zeal of the Secretary of State when she was banging on the Dispatch Box and talking about fraud and loss to the taxpayer, and she is right to do that. We, on this side of the House at least, believe in public expenditure, and therefore there is a duty on us to ensure that every single penny is spent in an appropriate manner. So where it is wasted or stolen or fraud is going on, we should bear down on it. However, although the Secretary of State started off with that zeal and passion in talking about the gangs and others, she talked most about benefit claimants. Although the Bill sets up powers for the fraud authority, it deals largely with the question of fraud in the benefit system. But the title of the Bill mentions both fraud and error, and not enough time has been spent in this debate on the nature of error, which is far bigger than can be easily acknowledged. I looked at the figures for PIP. Between 2019 and 2024 some one in four cases for alleged fraud by PIP recipients were dropped before reaching appeal, indicating the decision had lapsed because the Department had decided in favour of the appellant. That indicates the scale of the error that this Bill also wants to address. I am going to refer to a couple of cases in a moment or two, but at the core of this Bill is the creation, effectively, of a partnership between the state and the private banks, and the Bill does not make clear what that partnership will look like. I hope that we get some clarity on that before the Bill reaches Committee. The banks themselves have said that they are very worried about this Bill, because they have a statutory duty, imposed by this House, to make sure that they deal properly with vulnerable clients. The banks have said there is a contradiction between the contents of this Bill and the obligations that fall on them and their duty to treat people who are vulnerable in a proper way. I want to reflect on that briefly. Let me give the House a case from my own constituency that is symptomatic of a wider problem. A couple were referred to my office. They both had learning difficulties, both were illiterate and innumerate, and they found it impossible on their own to fill in the dozens and dozens of questions which the forms require people to fill in to get access to the benefits. So they were helped to put the form together by people employed to look after such people. The DWP then decided, years later, that it had made an error and had overpaid the couple by a large amount. This error came to light as a result of a review of some kind in the Department. So here is a very poor and vulnerable couple who were unable to fill in the form on their own and who had been helped by professionals, and what did the state do? It sent them a bill for £20,000. All Members will have a great deal of empathy—they would not be in this job otherwise—so we can imagine the state that couple were in when they received a bill from the state to repay £20,000. It was discovered after they came to my office that they had in fact filled in all the forms correctly; this was a computer error caused by someone failing to key in some of the information that had been provided to the DWP. Neither the council which was helping them nor their support workers spotted the fact they were being overpaid; nobody spotted it, so this went on for a number of years and the sum reached £20,000. A deeply vulnerable couple were left in that situation. Eventually they encountered a local councillor in my constituency who referred them to me. We went through the whole thing and managed to make an appeal on their behalf. But this Bill gives people only 28 days once they have received an order to pay. It took us longer than 28 days to resolve this once it had got into my office. I just say to the Secretary of State that 28 days is not long enough in these complicated cases for people to produce the evidence to show they are a victim of error rather than they have committed a fraud. There was a presumption by the state that they had committed a fraud of £20,000, totally incorrectly, it turned out. I worry that the Bill will put people like my constituents, and I imagine constituents of every Member in this House, in the same position. My constituents were fortunate to find an MP, but many people in that situation would not know how to find their way through the system. That raises the question I have referred to about the banks. The banks have a statutory duty to protect vulnerable customers. How will they exercise that duty when they are being required to provide information to the DWP about the financial activities of various individuals banking with them? On the subject of vulnerability, Disability Rights UK tells us that one third of all claimants of legacy benefits have mental health problems. I imagine that most of those people would be regarded as vulnerable by the banks and by every humane person in this House. One therefore wonders just exactly how we will reconcile the statutory duty on the banks with what they are required to do in relation to this Bill. We are giving powers to this fraud authority. I personally am in favour of tackling fraud, as I have said—I am a Yorkshireman, and I do not like spending money. I do not like money being spent wastefully by the state either, and when I was the leader of Leeds city council, everyone knew I was strong on waste. Finally on vulnerability, have the Government commissioned and received an equality impact assessment? If they have, can that be placed in the Commons Library, because the Bill will clearly have an impact on people who are extremely vulnerable? I think something somewhere in the Department will refer to that impact assessment. I will make a couple of final points. It is suggested that the Bill will save £300 million a year by tackling benefit fraud. That is a large amount of money, but we can compare it with the £10 billion of fraud on personal protective equipment provided during covid, the £16 billion lost to the taxpayer in fraudulent covid schemes, the £5.5 billion a year of tax evasion, or the £6 billion of other illegal activities against HMRC. The £300 million is important, but it is not the largest amount of fraud that is taking place. The fraud authority is getting new powers and will be staffed up. How will it choose among the disproportionate amounts by which the state is being defrauded by various different agencies, by private individuals and, frankly, by some gangsters, too? Will the staffing be allocated according to the prejudices of politicians—whichever politicians are then in charge—or will it be allocated proportionately to the loss to the taxpayer incurred through different forms of fraud? My final point is on the Information Commissioner. The Secretary of State suddenly announced that she received a letter today—it would be interesting to read it—but the Information Commissioner had been suggesting that the powers were disproportionate. We need to see the letter, and hopefully it will go into the Library or somewhere. Clause 74, which empowers schedule 3 to the Bill, goes right to the kernel of the problems with this Bill, which could not be clearer. I am worried that it is not apparent how the intervention of banks will be invoked. Schedule 3 allows the banks to be invoked and then for action to take place. Will the bank account of every single citizen in the UK be looked at? That is the view of some campaign groups in society. If so, that is a massive incursion into the liberty that the British people hold dear. If not, how will the banks be asked to identify particular individuals? What process will be gone through? That is not clear, and the Bill does not explain it. I have read clause 74 two or three times, as have many other people. Finally, can we be assured—not necessarily now, but as the Bill progresses through its various stages—exactly how that right of appeal will work? I have just referred to the 28-day cut-off, but will the Secretary of State look again at that? It seems to me that it is slightly too tight.

• 29 Jan 2025 · Outsourcing: Government Departments · Hansard source

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  I spent the last 10 years, under our two previous leaders, working on our outsourcing. It is hard to summarise 10 years’ work in three and a half minutes, but I came to the conclusion that outsourcing simply does not work for a number of reasons that I will outline quickly and in broad terms. Let me first pay tribute to the workers who go to work one day to discover suddenly that their contract of employment has been sold to another employer—almost like a modern-day form of servitude. So often, we then see cuts to services, and pay and conditions. Much has been made of that already this morning. I pay tribute to those workers, particularly the three women in my constituency who went to work, found that their employer had changed, their union had been derecognised and their pensions removed. They fought like titans: they went on strike, then to a tribunal, and eventually finished up being sacked. The courage of working people fighting for justice should never be forgotten. There are several things about outsourcing that simply do not work. The first is that no evidence whatsoever has ever been produced showing that it is cheaper to outsource than to keep services in house, especially when we count the transactional costs, which remain with the civil service and the Government. If we add those together, it always costs more to outsource. Secondly, when there is a disaster—as there is from time to time—the profits go to shareholders but the risks remain with the public sector, so we have the privatisation of profit but the socialisation of risk and quite often the cost of bankruptcy. We have already talked about pay and conditions being driven down and about a two-tier workforce, so I will not go further into that, but I will speak a little about what my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) described as a shadow state. One third of all taxpayer money is now spent on outsourcing—a staggering amount of money—and that is a direct assault on our democratic processes. I say that because Ministers do not have day-to-day supervision of and responsibility for the actions of outsourced operations. That poses problems not just for democracy but for Parliament. It has become clear over time that questions that we Back Benchers are entitled to ask questions on behalf of our constituents and the nation simply cannot be answered because they relate to services provided by the private sector—that is a major assault. On Monday, I will have been an MP for 29 years—some will say that that is far too long—and in that time, Parliament’s capacity to ask questions about public services has been massively diminished as a result of what has happened. My other point relates to freedom of information requests. We know that we as citizens can make freedom of information requests about any services provided by the public sector. The minute a service is outsourced, though, that capacity goes. Time and again, we encounter problems with services provided through taxpayer money but in a privatised form, and we are not able to get to the truth of what has really been happening with that service. The lack of accountability to Ministers and to Parliament, and the exemption from freedom of information, all make outsourcing very difficult. I remember speaking to Dave Prentis, the then leader of Unison, about ethos. He said to me, “Look, Jon, it’s about ethos. The ethos of the private sector is largely driven by the desire to maximise shareholder value; the ethos of services provided in the public sector is just that—public service.” The difference between the two kinds of ethos is at the centre of the problem that we face when we deal with outsourcing. I would love to speak longer about these matters on another occasion, but let me make my final point. I came to the conclusion that, in the end, the only way to deal with this is to have a legal presumption in favour of insourcing. That was the policy that the Labour party went on, and one that I hope this Government will build on by bringing forward the large wave of insourcing that we have talked about many times before.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Future of the Post Office · Hansard source

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  When the Minister said that the Post Office was not fit for purpose, it was hard not to agree with him, given the elite contempt that the organisation has shown for the people who worked for it. It dripped with contempt for ordinary folk. When the Minister meets the new management, will he bear in mind the experience of my constituents? I have 23 former mining villages, with chronic poverty throughout. One after another, the banks have withdrawn from every village and small township in our area. We have 20,000 people without a car and—quite honestly—a crap bus service. Many do not have access to the internet either. The only lifeline that they have is the post offices. Will the Minister ensure that there are no further closures from those villages—a withdrawal by the market or by the state—which worked so hard to create the wealth of our country in the last century?

• 31 Oct 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Yesterday, a large number of women lobbied Parliament. They represent a generation of women—just women, not men, which is perhaps not too odd given the values of the Conservative party—who suffered a great injustice in the Pensions Act 2011. They call themselves the Women Against State Pension Age Inequality Campaign, or WASPI. Government inevitably takes time—estimates must be made and legal advice taken—but I would be grateful to the Leader of the House if she indicated when we might hear a statement on the WASPI situation, or have the opportunity to debate it, so that we can give some hope to thousands of women, including 4,500 in my constituency.

• 31 Oct 2024 · Income tax (charge) · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will try to be reasonably quick. I pay tribute to the maiden speeches we have heard today, which were exceptional. In particular, I associate myself with the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Margaret Mullane) when she said that she stands for working class life and communities, and will do everything she can for them. That is how I have seen my 28 years in this place, too. I think I am probably the only person on the Labour Benches today who was here in 1997, so I want to say something to the Government and to all our Back Benchers. I was there when Labour came into office—I was elected in 1996, so I was here in ’97—and the same lack of humility shown then by the Conservative party, which had been thrashed by the electorate, is being shown today. There is the same short-term memory of the failures their Government had committed under John Major and the other Prime Minister before that, and the same lack of remorse. There is a lack of remorse for what we have now: food bank Britain, with millions of people in poverty. Not a word from those on the Conservative Benches. There are millions of people on NHS waiting lists. No remorse from the party opposite for that. There is no remorse for the fact that our economy has not been properly invested in throughout their whole period in office. This country was the lowest investor in the whole of the G7. There is no remorse for all the other failures either, and no sense of humility when the public told them that they had made a series of mistakes.

• 31 Oct 2024 · Income tax (charge) · Hansard source

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  No, I am going to try to be quick. I am not going to take any interventions. All those matters, and others too, require us to make a change in the direction of our economy. That is what this Budget has begun to do; we are turning the page. One final reflection on ’97. When Labour introduced the minimum wage, one of the great reforms of the century, the Tories kept us in the Lobby night after night after night. We were proud to do it. The arguments they made then have a parallel with the arguments they are making about our Budget today—that there will be job losses, an impact on profitability, small firms will be in trouble and so on. Let me say this. Eventually, they accepted the minimum wage because it was the right thing to do. There were no job losses and there was no impact on profitability. So, I say to those on the Government Front Bench: continue in the direction you are travelling, but move faster and be even more radical. I recommend that they have a look at Spain, where a socialist Government are in place. They have—I think I am right in saying—the highest rate of growth in the G7. They introduced a 0.5% wealth tax on estates worth more than €3 million a year and they are getting high growth. That shows that a determined Government restructuring the economy, as we need to do, can deliver change and not damage a country’s economic success. I represent 23 villages, all former mining communities that were treated brutally by the Tory party 40 years ago. It is a distant memory for many, but I remember every single moment of the strike. They destroyed the mining industry and have done nothing to replace it in the last 40 years, so we have widespread poverty, as there is in all post-industrial communities throughout our country. They perpetrated a hoax on those communities by saying that they would level up. The levelling-up fund was not directed to where poverty was. In any event, it was a competition in deprivation between one area and another. My communities got nothing, yet we are struggling desperately to achieve growth. Levelling up was a great slogan, but it was used as a trick to persuade people to vote Conservative in 2019. What happened? People have learnt their lesson. Let me come on to one point that I am worried about and then on to a general point. On transport, the differences in the distribution of funding for transport are extraordinary. The previous Government—that lot—spent £418 per head on transport in Yorkshire. In London, it was £1,200. That is three times as much per head per year spent on transport in London than in Yorkshire, and that leaves us with problems. I represent 23 villages—rural communities in many ways, deprived communities, post-mining communities. To get from one community to another, bearing in mind over 20,000 people in our area do not have a car and the trains do not work very well—the train service has left us without adequate public transport by train—the only option is the bus. Buses often do not start until 8 o’clock, but people begin work at 7, or leave home at 7. I have met women walking from one village to another in the dark on unlit streets because the bus service has not yet started. That is a problem the Conservatives created. I regret this Government’s decision to raise bus fares from £2 to £3. I do not suppose there is anybody in this whole Parliament who does not have access to a car, but there are many people across the country who do not have a car because wages are so low. People are walking in the dark at 7 o’clock in the morning to get to work from one village to another. And for those of us who do have a bus service, it is going up by 50%. It will be roughly £6 a day to get to and from work. That is £30 a week and £1,500 a year in bus fares to get to work and back. Clearly, that gives us a problem. In my constituency, there are villages that are only seven miles apart, yet the bus takes one hour and 19 minutes to get from the one you live in to the one where you work. That is completely unsatisfactory. If we are going to raise bus fares—that is the decision that has been made, which I regret—we need to reform the way buses operate so that they are accessible to communities. The Government have made some announcements in relation to that already, which is welcome. My final point is on the lack of investment the Conservative party presided over for years. I heard the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Jeremy Hunt) saying today, “Okay, there might have been a black hole in the public finances, but we were going to cover it with cuts.” That is effectively what he said. The cuts were always taking place to investment and they were going to cut more investment. If we measure my constituency by GDP per head—a controversial measure, but the one we are familiar with—that lack of investment means the average worker produces £29,000 per year of GDP. Wages are pegged to productivity, as we all know, so we have low wages—less than £30,000 a year. But listen to this. In Camden—we know it is a different economy in Camden—GDP per head is £174,000. The regional differences between output, capacity and productivity are all the result of that failure to invest. The Budget sets out to invest, and to invest big and go for growth, but I will be pressing, for all the held-back, post-industrial communities up and down our country— not only the coalfields but in the midlands and elsewhere —for the investment we achieve and the growth we deliver to be more equitable than it has been under the Conservatives. With those few thoughts, and an encouragement to be more radical and even more bold for the future—let us bear in mind ’97—I wish the Budget well.

• 28 Oct 2024 · Fiscal Rules · Hansard source

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  Is it not clear that the ruling economic orthodoxy has let this country down over many years? How else can we explain the fact that in 24 of the last 30 years, the UK spent less on investment than any other G7 country? In particular, in post-industrial areas like mine, the investment simply did not come. I encourage the Minister to break with the prevailing orthodoxy and ensure that we achieve the appropriate investment levels and direct that investment particularly to the north, the midlands and elsewhere.

• 23 Oct 2024 · Infected Blood Compensation Scheme · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the Minister on the way he spoke to the House. He spoke firmly, with a sense of urgency and great clarity in his use of English, which was very much appreciated. The truth of the matter is that there is a deeply ingrained scepticism in the community we are talking about. Words, in the end, will not count; actions will. Of course, today we are taking significant action on the road. When we reflect on the views of victims and their relatives, it is hardly surprising that there has been a breakdown in trust. It always seems to be the case that the British establishment’s first reaction when there is a disaster is to close ranks, deny the truth and not listen to the victims. It is only in recent times that victims’ voices have begun to be heard. With disasters such as the Post Office scandal, the policing of the miners’ strike or Hillsborough, the establishment always closed ranks. The Langstaff report is very clear. First, it says—this goes to the root of the scepticism that people feel—that, from the 1940s, Governments of different parties were fully aware of the scientific opinion that these actions could infect recipients of blood transfusions. Sir Brian Langstaff says that the disaster did not happen by accident. He tries to imagine what it must be like for those suffering the agony of being victims, and then being refused the truth that a wrong had been done by successive Governments. My constituent Katie has been in touch with my office. Her dad died in the 1980s when she was an infant. Imagine living life with a cloud upon you after losing your father when young, because of negligence by operatives of the state and the cover-up that followed. The only way we can reduce the scepticism is for the payments to begin to flow through. In the meantime, there is clearly a wish for some reassurance from the Minister today. He has made some of these points already, but I will go back to them. First, someone who lost her father in the ’80s when she was two will probably struggle to find the appropriate evidence, as she is not necessarily skilled enough to search for it forensically. Langstaff discovered—this is shocking—that documents were destroyed knowingly by the Government of the day because they thought that it might incriminate them. It was an establishment cover-up of some scale. How can victims establish that they deserve justice if documents have been lost or even wilfully destroyed? The Minister mentioned that, but we need to hear more from him about it either today or in the coming period. Secondly, as other Members have said, civil society groups have the confidence of the victims—the Haemophilia Society is one, but my constituent mentioned Tainted Blood, of which the Minister is probably aware. It would be helpful if the Minister said that he and the Government are open to further conversations with civil society groups, which can speak on behalf of victims. It is important that the victims’ voices are heard, and because those groups have the confidence of victims, those exchanges and that dialogue would be very helpful. The Minister referred to one of the central requests that have been made. We are dealing with people who do not necessarily have large resources to employ representatives such as lawyers and other advisers. The Minister indicated that the Government are open to victims having their own representatives. However, if the Government are to encourage the appointment of such representatives, it must be clear that they are not appointees of the Government; they must see themselves as representatives of the victims. Otherwise, people will not have the necessary trust in them. That brings me to my final point. I can imagine the kinds of conversation that the civil service has had with Ministers about this matter over decades: “Minister, you may be dealing with billions of pounds. You have a duty to ensure that every single penny is properly spent, so please exercise care in any announcements you make.” I imagine that those conversations happen on most days. Of course we have a duty to protect money, and very significant amounts will have to be spent to compensate people properly, but equally there is a duty to deliver justice to the people who were treated by state actors in a shabby and disgraceful way over decades. When there is a lack of paperwork and victims are perhaps very ill or dying, how will we secure value for money for the taxpayer while delivering justice for people who have struggled for decades as a result of Government negligence? I leave those thoughts with the Minister and hope that he will address them in his reply. Like other Members, I hope that as the scheme is rolled out and we establish confidence among the victims, the Government will organise opportunities for the Minister to come back to the House so that we can raise constituents’ questions and establish a more trusting relationship between the Government, who are doing dramatic work on this matter, and the people who have suffered for decades.

• 5 Sept 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker—I did not quite catch you calling me. May I say how delighted I am to see you? You helped me to establish my parliamentary office 20 years ago, and I am so proud to see you in the Chair. I also welcome my great right hon. Friend to her position as Leader of the House. I am one of many Members who represents mining communities. Miners provided power, light and heat to our country and helped to create our wealth, but they did something else: they created a massive pension fund, which the Conservative party sat on for 14 years. That party allowed it to accumulate and ripped off hundreds of millions of pounds, leaving miners and their widows in poverty on low pensions. As the Leader of the House knows, our manifesto promised justice for the mineworkers’ pension scheme, especially the £1 billion that is in a reserve fund. Can I encourage her to ensure there is an early statement or a debate on this matter? That money would be very well received in miners’ pockets, and those of their widows too.

• 29 Jul 2024 · Public Spending: Inheritance · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Chancellor’s statement about public sector pay, but is it not clear that, after savaging public services, holding down public sector pay and driving 3 million people into food banks, this crazy ideological austerity programme of the Tories has failed massively while at the same time, the richest 250 people in the country gained wealth of £500 billion? Can I tempt the Chancellor to say that, while we accept that there are hard decisions to make, we reject the ideological commitment to this form of Tory austerity?

• 25 Jul 2024 · Government Departments and Agencies: Facilities Management Services · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister very much for her response and I welcome the whole team to the Front Bench. The problem with outsourcing is that, normally, the outsourcers will drive down pay and conditions for the workforce, thereby creating a two-tier workforce; they are not properly accountable to Ministers; they are exempt from freedom of information requests; and finally, there is the question of public service centres. Will the Minister confirm that we will proceed with abandoning the previous Government’s ideological obsession with outsourcing?

• 25 Jul 2024 · Government Departments and Agencies: Facilities Management Services · Hansard source

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  9. Whether he plans to increase the number of facilities management services that are insourced within Government Departments and agencies.

• 18 Jul 2024 · Post Office Horizon Scandal · Hansard source

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  It is good to see you back in your place, Mr Speaker. The new Minister will recall the old saying that a new broom sweeps clean, and I am sure he will make progress very quickly indeed. It seems to me that the Post Office scandal reveals a wider problem in British society. Whether it is Orgreave, Grenfell, contaminated blood or the problems at Hillsborough, the British establishment seems incapable of listening to the voices of ordinary people. Will he raise that matter with other Ministers and see whether there is a way for this Government to ensure that is not repeated?