Financial Services and Markets Bill

Debate between Siobhain McDonagh and Chris Grayling

Report stage
Wednesday 7th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. What makes it possible for big organisations to track their supply chains is the presence of Earth observation data, which many supermarkets now use to understand where they are sourcing from. Interestingly, it is a central part of this week’s proposal by the European Union. The data is available, but it is complicated. I recently had a meeting with a major institution that financially supports companies in Brazil, and it said it is incredibly difficult to track, all the way down the supply chain, where products are coming from. Well, it may be incredibly difficult, but it still has to be done.

New clause 24 would place a duty on financial institutions, as we did with retailers, to carry out proper due diligence on their investments, to understand and to be absolutely certain that the companies they deal with have due diligence processes in place themselves, so they know from where they are buying beef, soya or palm oil and so they work properly to ensure they deliver products from sustainable sources in a responsible way.

We hear warm words coming from the executive suites of our major financial institutions all the time about their commitment to sustainability, to net zero and to being responsible citizens. Sometimes they do it, sometimes they do not. There might be the will in head office, but sometimes a local branch does not deliver. New clause 24 would make it a clear duty on those institutions to do due diligence to make sure they know where products are coming from and so they know where investments are being made. This country has been a leader, and new clause 24 would be one further step in dealing with the blight of deforestation, which affects everyone’s future.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I rise to support new clause 7, which stands in my name and those of dozens of right hon. and hon. Members from all corners of this House. The amendment is simple: it proposes that the Treasury must not only make provision to guarantee a minimum level of cash access, but ensure that this access is free. Why? Because surely it cannot be right in 2022 that almost a quarter of our cash machines charge people to access their own money.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Siobhain McDonagh and Chris Grayling

Thursday 1st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Let me say very clearly and unequivocally that what took place last Sunday was unacceptable. On behalf of the Government, I apologise for it and the company has already done so. We have made our views known to the company in the strongest possible terms. It was unacceptable and lessons have to be learned. The company is putting in place arrangements to make sure people receive appropriate financial compensation. It must not happen again.

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

T5. Last Friday, I arranged a site meeting between Network Rail and the YMCA for south London to talk about an abandoned strip of land owned by Network Rail on Rialto road in Mitcham, close to Eastfields station, in the hope that they can together provide some great prefab housing for young people. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how we can encourage Network Rail to use all its scraps of land to the benefit of everyone?

Business of the House

Debate between Siobhain McDonagh and Chris Grayling

Thursday 29th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

That is a really important part of what the Government are seeking to do. There will be no one-size-fits-all approach. There will be different settlements in different parts of the country, depending on the circumstances, including the geography and the local economy. The Chancellor and other Treasury Ministers will be here on Tuesday for Treasury Questions, and I encourage my hon. Friend to make his point to them. There is a great opportunity for counties such as Somerset to be involved in devolution deals that give them greater control over matters that affect their area. I hope that everyone in Somerset and in other parts of the country will engage in the process, which gives a real opportunity to local authorities and local communities.

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

Given the difficult financial circumstances that the NHS finds itself in, is it not time for a debate on a national tariff for in vitro fertilisation, given that clinical commissioning groups are paying fees as varied as £2,500 and £6,500 a cycle?

[Chris Grayling]

My view is that we have a choice within the NHS: we can either devolve responsibilities to local practitioners or keep every decision at the centre. The moment we say that we do not like differences between areas because different local CCGs take different decisions, all the decisions will start to be centralised again. I have always believed, certainly in my own constituency, that local decisions should be taken by local doctors. That is what happens as a result of the reforms that we made and I would be very reluctant to reverse it.

Business of the House

Debate between Siobhain McDonagh and Chris Grayling

Thursday 9th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I understand my right hon. Friend’s concerns. Similar concerns have been expressed to me by his neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately). I understand the impact of what is happening on the people of Kent, and, indeed, on the lorry drivers who end up stranded on the motorway for days on end. I hope very much that the French Government will resolve the issue by sorting out the problems that are causing the challenges in Calais and are having a knock-on effect. I urge my right hon. Friend to raise the issue with the Home Secretary next week, but it is clear that the situation in Calais needs to be resolved in a way that will enable free trade to continue to flow through Calais and also end the problems experienced by his constituents.

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on how HMRC treats vulnerable taxpayers such as my constituent Mrs Latimer of Morden, who is her mother’s carer and works part time as a guide for disabled children. She cannot read and write, she has learning difficulties and she has suffered a stroke. She is being fined £10 a day because she has been unable to complete her forms. She needs the protection of this House.

[Chris Grayling]

It is always important that Government agencies treat vulnerable people with great care, particularly when there are personal circumstances that make it difficult for them to deal with procedural issues. We have the Budget debate, when Treasury Ministers will be present. We also have Treasury questions in 10 days’ time, but I am sure that Treasury Ministers will have noted the concerns the hon. Lady raised today.

Youth Unemployment (Mitcham and Morden)

Debate between Siobhain McDonagh and Chris Grayling

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Gray. It has been a frequent occurrence in recent times. I congratulate the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) on securing this debate.

I will divide my remarks into two halves. First, I congratulate the hon. Lady on a project that is very big society, and exactly the kind of thing local MPs should be doing. She is right to describe our ability to open doors in constituencies, to secure involvement in community projects and to go places other individuals and groups perhaps cannot go. She has clearly done that in her constituency and I praise her for it. I will talk a bit more about that in a moment.

Much of the rest of what the hon. Lady said was complete hokum. She is rewriting history and misrepresenting some of the realities of our work. None the less, I praise her for her sincerity in calling this debate and for the work she is doing; it is absolutely right. I am delighted that Jobcentre Plus is working well with her, but that is no accident. It has specific instructions to do just that. In particular, she talks about the issue of two weeks versus eight. Under the previous Government, a jobseeker lost their benefits if they did work experience for more than two weeks. It was a crazy situation.

One of the first things I received on becoming a Minister was an e-mail from the mother of a young woman who said that her daughter had arranged a month’s work experience for herself with a local firm, but the Jobcentre Plus office had told her that if she did it she would lose her benefits. That is clearly a crazy situation, and one that we moved quickly to change. A jobseeker can now do work experience for up to eight weeks while on benefits. If they are moving from that eight weeks into employment or an apprenticeship, that programme can be extended to 12 weeks. Therefore, it is down to the policies of this Government that the hon. Lady can deliver her scheme. Under the previous Government, that would not have been the case. Those young people would have lost their benefits after two weeks.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

My scheme came about because the future jobs fund had been scrapped. The future jobs fund, for me, was the way forward. I was looking for an alternative and I came up with this idea; it does not replace the future jobs fund.

[Chris Grayling]

I will come back to that in a moment. The hon. Lady is right to say that it does not replace the future jobs fund; it is part of a package very different from what we had before. My point is that it would have been impossible for her to put together a scheme under the rules that operated under the previous Government. Her scheme is worth while and valuable and I commend her for it.

Let me give some context to the youth unemployment challenge. Youth unemployment today is lower than it was at the general election. The picture of youth unemployment has been building up over a decade. One of the myths is that it is a problem simply linked to recession. If we look at the trends in youth unemployment, we see that it began to rise in 2003 and the problem became more and more significant as the years went by. It was becoming a problem through good times as well as bad.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Since the general election, youth unemployment in my constituency has risen, not fallen. The problems are greater now than they were before the general election.

--- Later in debate ---

[Siobhain McDonagh]

From my experience of my own constituency and of London as a whole, those contracts are so large that many of the small local organisations, such as the Commonside Community Development Trust, have been unable to get involved in the work programme, and yet they have the experience on the ground. What can the Minister do to ensure that those small local organisations get a look-in with that programme?

[Chris Grayling]

Of course, the whole structure of the work programme is designed to reward excellence. Any organisation that is really good at its job of getting people into work will find a willing entrée with the providers. A whole mix of organisations is involved—from the largest voluntary sector organisations, such as the Prince’s Trust, through to a walled garden project in Yorkshire. We have a whole mix of different organisations providing the support. What matters is what works and that we have solutions that deliver real options for young people, getting those who are unemployed—particularly the long-term unemployed—into the workplace. For me, that is the challenge.

I accept the hon. Lady’s analysis: that we have a problem, in that many young people are stranded and struggling and need to be given a helping hand into the workplace. I hope and believe that the mix of programmes we have put in place—increased numbers of apprenticeships and the work experience scheme, helped by big society projects such as hers, and the intense support provided through the work programme—will start to make a difference, and in a way that I must say is much more affordable to Government than the future jobs fund was. In addition, those programmes will steer young people to where the jobs really are: in the private sector businesses that represent our employment hope for the future.

I believe that that is the right approach. The hon. Lady and I share a commitment to tackling the problem of youth unemployment. We may not agree on all the solutions, but she should know that the Government are committed to solving that problem.