Homelessness among Refugees

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Kate Green]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. I strongly support the right of asylum seekers to work when the Home Office has singularly failed to meet its own obligations to process cases and make a decision within the given timescale. As the hon. Gentleman says, allowing them to do so would enable them to maintain their skills, build up some savings and remain connected with the wider community. Although that may not be a matter for today’s Minister to address, it is certainly one that I strongly support.

Let us consider what action has been taken to date by the Government, because some initiatives have been welcome. The Home Office is rolling out the post-grant appointment service to smooth the referral to Jobcentre Plus for making an initial benefits claim. That follows a pilot in two regions last year, but there were some reports of problems. During a two-week period in February, the refugee support team at the British Red Cross asked 20 individuals in South Yorkshire about their experience of the warm handover pilot. Only one individual stated explicitly that they had received a phone call from Migrant Help, which provided the service. Eight individuals said they had not received any contact, while 11 were unsure whether they had. It may be that those are isolated cases, or that problems have since been resolved, but in a parliamentary answer to Baroness Lister on 29 June, Baroness Buscombe refused to publish the results of the Government’s evaluation of the pilot.

Although the commitment to provide advice and support to new refugees in the move-on period is a welcome addition to the new advice, issue resolution and eligibility contract, charities have seen communication from the Home Office that suggests that the support will be limited to operating the post-grant appointment service only. Advice and guidance in the move-on period must be more comprehensive if it is to address the issue of refugee destitution. In particular, closer working between the Government and third-sector providers is needed. I urge the Minister to encourage ministerial colleagues to publish the evaluation report on the post-grant appointment service pilot and to ensure that the lessons about the wider advice needs of refugees are acted on.

Of course, I am pleased that 35 asylum support liaison officers are now being appointed in a number of local authorities, funded by the controlling migration fund, but it is not clear how their work will be monitored and evaluated. I hope the Minister will say more about that this afternoon. The Government’s integrated communities fund is also intended to provide support for refugees, but again there is little detail as yet on how it will do that. Perhaps the Minister will be able to enlighten us.

It is welcome that national insurance numbers will now be included on the biometric residence permits that refugees receive. Usually, though not invariably, they arrive within a matter of days. That is helpful, because a national insurance number is required for payment of universal credit, although it is not necessary for making an application. The payment is essential for new refugees to pay for, among other things, their accommodation.

Significant problems continue with the issue of national insurance numbers. Some 65% of the new refugees seen by the British Red Cross in South Yorkshire over a two-week period in February during the move-on period had not had an application made to the Home Office for a national insurance number. Those who do not have one must complete the application process over the phone, which often takes 40 minutes. Apparently, 10 questions are asked at the start of the process before the individual is offered the services of an interpreter. Following that phone conversation, the new refugee has to attend a face-to-face appointment before the national insurance number is issued.

Those who lack a national insurance number include people who have joined a partner in the UK under the Dublin rules on refugee family reunion. The result is that sometimes quite large families are struggling to survive on the income from one single parent’s jobseeker’s allowance claim for six weeks or more, while their partner awaits their national insurance number. I have raised this issue previously with Home Office Ministers, but the problem remains unresolved.

Ultimately, this all places unnecessary barriers in the way of enabling new refugees to settle, receive benefits or wages and access suitable accommodation. Can the Minister say anything about what conversations are taking place across the relevant Government Departments to streamline and support refugees and to ensure that national insurance numbers are always issued swiftly and smoothly?

The Minister will be glad to know that I am now firmly in his ministerial territory. The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 should be helpful, but its operation needs to be clarified and extended for refugees who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. Under the Act, from this October public authorities will be required to refer those at risk of homelessness to the local authority. That provision should be extended to cover providers of asylum accommodation.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I am glad my hon. Friend has mentioned the Homelessness Reduction Act. I led for the Opposition on that. There was a healthy degree of consensus then, as there seems to be in this debate. Is she, like me, looking for an assurance from the Minister that that consistency will now apply to extending the 28-day period to 56 days?

[Kate Green]

In a moment, I will ask the Minister exactly that.

Newly homeless people can get easement from job search requirements, being asked to focus instead on basic actions such as finding accommodation. That is at the discretion of their Jobcentre Plus work coach. It is not clear whether new refugees will be able to access a similar concession. In addition, refugees are treated as tier-two priority for alternative payment arrangements under universal credit. Alternative payment arrangements would mean, for example, that rent could be paid directly to their landlord, potentially making it easier for them to secure a tenancy. Will the Minister confirm whether any discussion is taking place between his Department and the Department for Work and Pensions on reprioritising refugees as tier one for alternative payment arrangements and on granting them easement from work search obligations so that they can concentrate on looking for accommodation?

Although the changes made to date are welcome, more is clearly needed to make them fully effective. The most important policy change to make, however, as has been alluded to around the Chamber this afternoon and which would ensure that newly recognised refugees do not end up destitute and at risk of homelessness, is to maintain Home Office support until mainstream benefits are ready to start, by extending the 28-day move-on period.

I am aware that on 3 July Baroness Williams claimed in a written answer to Baroness Lister that NACCOM’s “Mind the Gap” report

“does not show that these problems will be resolved by extending the 28 days period”,

but Ministers must be aware that there is widespread agreement among campaigners and, it would appear, in this House that it would do so.

At the very least, the move-on period should not start until someone receives all documentation, including a national insurance number, but I invite the Minister to be bolder. The Homelessness Reduction Act extends to 56 days the period during which someone can be deemed threatened with homelessness, and the universal credit waiting period is five weeks. The move-on period should be extended in line with those timescales—to have it otherwise is perverse and illogical.

In conclusion, the Government have more to do to ensure coherent, whole-system support across national and local government for those newly granted refugee status. We can be proud to give refuge to those who flee persecution and seek safety here and proud that refugees are welcome in our country, but too many begin their lives here in penury, and the system is to blame for that. Today, I hope that the Minister will take the chance to tell us the steps the Government will take to improve things.

Class 4 National Insurance Contributions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right. It is a relatively small group, but about 90,000 self-employed people, many of them on very high earnings, benefit enormously from the way the system operates, particularly those who use limited liability partnerships. That is an essential part of the review of this issue in the round that we have to do.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Unlike some of my hon. Friends, I can readily understand why the Chancellor resisted reading the Tory manifesto until Laura Kuenssberg drew his attention to it last week, but I cannot understand his position now. Is it, “I was absolutely right to raise national insurance contributions for the self-employed, and that’s why I’m not going to do it”?

[Mr Hammond]

I think I have made my position quite clear. I have distinguished between the two issues. On the substance of the issue, it is absolutely right to address the discrepancy, which is no longer justified by the difference in access to benefits. However, it is also right that we accept the wider interpretation of the manifesto commitment that my hon. Friends have expressed to me. That is why we have said that we will continue to review the issue in the round and will come back to Parliament with our decisions arising from the review, but we will not increase national insurance contributions in this Parliament.

Parking Places (Variation of Charges) Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 3rd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

As I was sitting down, I glanced up and noticed that I have cleared the Public Gallery, which is an achievement in itself.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Not for the first time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Slaughter]

It is a pleasure to be here for the Opposition to respond to the Bill. I wish the hon. Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick) success with it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) said on Second Reading, it has our support. Although it is modest in size, I am sure it will do what the hon. Gentleman says and bring pleasure around the country.

It is also a pleasure to be opposite the Minister for the second week running, but I would just say this to the promoter of the Bill: check the new burdens money, and make sure it is all there at the appropriate time. Having said that, I do not—unlike last week, when we spent five hours on the concluding stages of the Homelessness Reduction Bill—want to prolong the debate.

I will just make two short observations. When the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) was making his interesting and somewhat lengthy interventions earlier, he said two things that I mildly disagreed with and that the Minister may wish to comment on. One was that local authorities can fill their boots with parking charges and use the money for whatever they like. The facility to charge money under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 was tested in the case of Attfield and Barnet, and the conclusion of the learned judge, Mrs Justice Lang, was that

“the 1984 Act is not a fiscal measure and does not authorise the authority to use its powers to charge local residents for parking in order to raise surplus revenue for other transport purposes funded by the General Fund.”

So although there are a variety of things connected to parking and other road traffic and transport matters that local authorities can use the funds for, I do not think that parking charges can simply be used as a revenue-raising measure.

[Mr Marcus Jones]

Let me just try to help the hon. Gentleman and bring a little clarity. He is right in what he says about on-street ticket revenue, but there are currently no restrictions on how ticket revenue from off-street car parking is spent by a local authority.

[Andy Slaughter]

I am grateful to the Minister. I was interested to see that the Bill deals with both on-street and off-street parking.

The hon. Member for Torbay said that he cannot envisage circumstances in which he would get letters from people asking for parking charges to go up. That may well be true as regards council-owned car parks and off-street parking, but it is often the case with on-street parking that is shared between residents and non-residents who wish to park there and pay and display, when charging is for the purposes of regulating access between residents and users of the visitors’ scheme, and residents ask for parking enforcement and for certain levels of charging. I do not think that that goes to the heart of this Bill. I understand that its intention is to give flexibility to local authorities and to encourage them more towards lowering than raising charges. I do not think any of us are going to disagree with that. I make these points merely because these matters are often fraught for councils and for Members of Parliament. I hope that, on the whole, councils try to do a decent job in pleasing everybody. If they do not, they tend to get voted out.

Having made those rather pettifogging remarks, I will not prolong my comments. The promoter of the Bill said that he wants it to make life better for people around the country, and I am sure that it will do that. I am also aware that slightly further down the list of private Members’ Bills—until this Bill and the next Bill came out of Committee, it would have been the first to be discussed—is the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) on reducing child poverty. If I may humbly say so, from my own perspective as a Member with a great deal of child poverty in my constituency, I wish that we could get on to that Bill and give it a Second Reading, because that would make life even better for our constituents around the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Churchill]

Indeed. I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. A plethora of people have spoken to the Bill today, but there has been somewhat of a dearth of Opposition Members not only saying what benefits a simple Bill such as this could bring but challenging it, as it would be appropriate to.

[Andy Slaughter]

I am listening to the hon. Lady, and I think she is pushing her luck. A lot of Opposition Members are very, very angry about the fact that the Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) is being talked out by her and her friends on the Government Back Benches today. If she wants to do that, she can play games, but will she please not criticise us?

[Jo Churchill]

It was merely, I felt, a statement of fact.

While we are considering this Bill, it is, as others have said, incumbent on us to look at where we are going in future. My town council in Bury St Edmunds, in order to help ameliorate some of the problems around the car parking situation, has usefully recruited a police community support officer, Emily Howell, to regain control over the civil parking enforcement from the police, because that is a problem in the town. She has single-handedly authorised over 100 civil parking orders in her first few weeks, including, amusingly—or not—for the leader of the town council, who recruited her. She is delivering greater monitoring powers to local councils in exercising local parking management. I hope that this Bill will add to that as we move forward.

Points of Order

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We will come to the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond). There are various points of order, and first I will take those of which I have had notice.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During the urgent question on rail infrastructure on Tuesday, the Transport Secretary was asked five times why he had not devolved rail services to the Mayor of London, as agreed between his Government and the previous Mayor. His answer each time was that there were commercial and operational reasons for not so doing. Yesterday a letter from the Transport Secretary emerged which gave the actual reason for his opposing devolution as being that he

“would like to keep suburban rail services out of the clutches of any future Labour Mayor.”

Mr Speaker, Members should be able to rely on the answers given by Ministers at the Dispatch Box as being as accurate as they can make them. What steps can I take to get the Minister to correct the record to reflect his actual reasoning, however tawdry that may have been?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his courtesy in giving me advance notice of his intended point of order. I have a twofold answer. First, every Member of this House is responsible for the veracity of what he or she says in it, and it is incumbent upon a Member, upon discovery of a mistake, to correct it; that applies to Ministers as it applies to anybody else. Secondly, the hon. Gentleman will understand why I do not wish to delve into the detail of the matter, and I certainly do not seek to adjudicate between the hon. Gentleman making an accusation and any Minister who might seek to defend himself or herself against it. All I would say, perhaps delphically, is that what the hon. Gentleman has said about a political motivation and what the Minister has said are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Leaving the EU: Financial Services

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that this is a national issue, but I hope she acknowledges the work the Mayor of London has done in drawing attention to the importance of financial services. It would be curious if London were not represented on a Brexit Cabinet sub-committee but the other countries and regions were.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I appreciate that the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) is in some difficulty because the clock is broken, but she is handling it with great competence. I have been watching. She has taken an intervention and can speak until about 2.25 pm and 30 seconds. I thank her for dealing with the matter so well.

Local Government: Ethical Procurement

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Richard Burden]

I understand what my hon. Friend says, but this is also about different public institutions making judgments in line with the law and their best belief of what the situation is. I hope that all public institutions would pay due regard to international law.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Richard Burden]

Before giving way, I just want to finish this quote from the Foreign Office advice:

“This may result in disputed titles to the land, water, mineral or other natural resources which might be the subject of purchase or investment. EU citizens and businesses should also be aware of the potential reputational implications of getting involved in economic and financial activities in settlements, as well as possible abuses of the rights of individuals. Those contemplating any economic or financial involvement in settlements should seek appropriate legal advice.”

[Andy Slaughter]

Following the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain) just made, the Foreign Office guidance also talks about

“possible violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law”.

Indeed, the Foreign Office guidance is very clear, whereas the procurement policy note is very unclear. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) agree that that may be intentional—that the actual aim is not to change the law, but to discourage and blackmail local authorities into not taking steps that may be perfectly legitimate and that the Foreign Office is encouraging them to take?

[Richard Burden]

The point that my hon. Friend makes is about the fear that a lot of people have about the agenda behind this procurement policy note.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Offord]

Indeed, reports of anti-Semitic attacks being perpetrated in Europe can be directly linked with the hateful rhetoric espoused by many BDS campaigners, and BDS founder Omar Barghouti has repeatedly expressed his opposition to Israel’s right to exist as a state of the Jewish people. But most telling of all is that the Palestinian Authority themselves do not support a boycott.

[Andy Slaughter]

On a point of order, Mr Streeter. [Interruption.]

[Dr Offord]

No.

[Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Order. A point of order from Andy Slaughter. Let us hope it is a point of order.

[Andy Slaughter]

The subject of this debate is local government and ethical procurement. We have got so far from that subject as to be ridiculous, in my opinion.

[Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

If the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) was out of order, I would have called him out of order. It is actually the point that has been raised by the opening speaker, so I call Dr Matthew Offord.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), who knows more about these matters than possibly any other Member of the House, certainly with regard to Israel and Palestine. He has probably enabled us all to stay within our four-minute limit because he has asked most of the relevant questions. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who referred to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Last month, I was on a visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, funded by Medical Aid for Palestinians and organised by the Council for Arab-British Understanding.

When I arrived in Jerusalem, the first thing I got was a call from the BBC to ask me whether I wanted to comment on the arrival of the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, who was due to arrive in Tel Aviv the following day to make an announcement on local government procurement. I was a local authority council leader for quite a few years and I remember lots of procurement directives and announcements, particularly on the issue of compulsory competitive tendering in those dark days of the 1990s. I do not remember any of them being made from Tel Aviv.

I have a great deal of respect for the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), but she presented a rather thin argument—a thin but measured argument, as opposed to a thick and unmeasured argument, which we have also heard from the other side. The idea that, for instance, London—or any local authority, particularly in our great cities—should not be able to take a view on such matters is a thin and transparent argument, especially when the current Mayor of London spends half his life touring the world, quite rightly promoting British trade and matters of that kind. This is a thin and transparent argument, and it comes from the fact that this ridiculous advice note comes out of the Conservative party press notice, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield has said.

I will make just three points. First, there is a conflict between the established and well drafted Foreign and Commonwealth Office advice, which has been quoted extensively—it is very clear in its advice to businesses not to get involved in settlement trade—and the obscurity, lack of clarity and, indeed, disingenuous nature of the procurement policy note, which does not appear to say very much but hints at a great deal, mentioning things such as community cohesion and other matters of that kind, and also favouring national suppliers.

Secondly, there does not appear to be in that note—I hope the Minister will clarify this—any breach of the World Trade Organisation or European Union guidance, because there is no discrimination based on nationality, contrary to some of the almost hysterical things that we have heard today. The specific issue being dealt with in this debate and that the Minister is being asked about—it was the one dealt with in the answer to my question—relates to the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We all know that the occupation is unlawful under international law and that they are not recognised by the UK and many other countries as part of Israel.

This issue should not be conflated with BDS. Different people have different views on BDS. The fact that we have labelling guidance, which the Government have maintained, allows people to make individual choices. Some may argue that it is open to public bodies or others to make such choices if they want to, or for Members of Parliament to make statements in relation to such matters, but that is a different matter from illegal settlements. Illegal settlements should not be traded with, and if local authorities wish to make such a decision, that should be open.

Let us remember what we are talking about here: theft of land, occupation, colonisation, and the arbitrary detention of many thousands of Palestinians. Those are crimes in international law as great as anything that happened in South Africa. They are not happening within one country; they are happening in somebody else’s country. That is the reason why action needs to be taken, and it is perfectly reasonable that it is done in this way.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Penrose]

I believe I already have. Although it is difficult, it is entirely possible for a settlement to be illegal while the businesses operating within it are entirely within the law, treating their staff, suppliers and customers properly and so on. It is possible for both those things to happen at once.

[Andy Slaughter]

Will the Minister give way?

[John Penrose]

I must make progress. In spite of those flexibilities, local authorities must still be careful not to make discriminatory policies even where they believe that the GPA does not apply. The rules also provide mechanisms to protect authorities from dealing with risky suppliers.

To answer the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan), I should say that authorities can take into account the legal and economic risks of dealing with particular suppliers. The rules include various grounds on which individual suppliers can be excluded from bidding, such as where the company is guilty of criminal offences, corruption or grave professional misconduct or in breach of environmental, social or labour laws and so forth. This is a key point: the rules must be applied on a case-by-case basis, company by company, rather than on the basis of an entire geographical area, as a blanket ban or boycott would inevitably do—that would make them discriminatory.

Local authorities have significant flexibilities and can exercise pretty wide discretion within the rules—I hope that I am answering my right hon. Friend’s question—but the rules themselves are clearly necessary to protect them by ensuring that they do not take actions that could land them and us in court. Nobody wants to waste public money on costly court cases.

I am running out of time, so I will stop to allow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield time to respond, but I emphasise that on foreign policy, we have clearly not changed our approach to the Palestinian occupied territories or to settlements around the pre-1967 boundaries of Israel. With that, although there are many other things that I would have liked the opportunity to address, I want to leave the hon. Gentleman a chance to respond. I will sit down and leave the floor to him.

Royal Bank of Scotland

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford). I associate myself with his final comments about RBS.

This is an important debate and I congratulate the hon. Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) on securing it. I put my name to the motion simply because I feel that this issue is worthy of debate in the Chamber. I am not ideologically opposed to seeing banks in private ownership—I am probably guilty of being ideologically of the view that banks should be in private hands—but it is important that we consider this issue in depth and in the round. It is important that we look at the track record of RBS and what we want from it, to ensure that we make the right decision.

In the context of the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) was quite brave to argue the case for RBS going straight into private hands at this point in time. Unfortunately, I do not share his confidence in the regulator, having spent three or four hours with the Financial Conduct Authority again this week. RBS still has a huge credibility gap with the general public and, more importantly, with the small business community. That gap needs to be addressed before we can entrust RBS to act in a manner similar to the way it acted in the past. I would be delighted to stand here today and say that the culture in RBS had changed completely. I am utterly convinced that within RBS there are individuals who are making huge strides to change its culture, but am I convinced that all the bad eggs have been removed? Am I convinced that all possibility of actions that are detrimental to small businesses within RBS has been removed? Unfortunately, the answer is no.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that RBS made mistakes. It is still making mistakes, while largely in public ownership, in relation to funding for small businesses and branch closures. Does he not think that before it is returned to the private sector, if that is going to happen, it has to prove that it can run itself competently in the interests of its customers?

[Guto Bebb]

I would certainly say there is a need to look in detail at the way RBS is performing. There are questions still to be asked about the corporate culture within RBS and questions raised by the Banking Commission need to be looked at.

It is important to state that this is not a left-right political argument. There are think-tanks on the right that think we should look again at the UK banking model. There was strong agreement when my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) stated that the loss of the mutual in the 90s was a mistake for the financial structure of the UK. This is not a left-right argument; it is about trying to get things right and ensuring that, as a result of intervention in the market that we did not want to make, we deliver a better banking system. It is important to state that the reason for intervention in the market was much wider than making a profit for the taxpayer: it was to ensure the UK economy was protected at a very difficult time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Clive Lewis]

I think that there have been changes, but as I said earlier, in an intervention, the fact that RBS is back again, and possibly about to be investigated for yet more fraud, does not exactly encourage me to think that those changes have been deep enough.

As I was saying, the sale of RBS was announced not to Parliament, but to a white-tie dinner full of City grandees, in a speech that also promised the City a “new settlement” on financial regulation. We are now starting to see what that “new settlement” looks like, with the Government caving in to economic blackmail from the likes of HSBC, which threatened to move its headquarters unless key post-crisis measures such as the bank levy and the ring fence between retail and investment banking were watered down—that, I think, answers the point made by the hon. Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin); with the competition authorities ruling out action to break up big banks, even though they acknowledge that their customers are getting a raw deal; and with rumours that the Chancellor personally arranged the sacking of Martin Wheatley, the head of the Financial Conduct Authority, who has a reputation for being tough on bank misconduct.

Some commentators have even suggested that the Government’s desire for a quick sale of RBS is partly responsible for their magnanimous attitude towards the big banks: that the Government do not want to do anything that could damage the bank’s share price in the short term. If that were true, it would be incredibly short-sighted. We would effectively be trading in the chance to build a genuinely safer banking system in our haste to return to the pre-crisis status quo.

[Andy Slaughter]

My hon. Friend is making some excellent points. Does he agree that when RBS was mainly in the public sector, both the present Government and the coalition missed an opportunity to try to act responsibly? An organisation called Move Your Money—it is run from my constituency, and I think that it was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor)—represents and campaigns for consumers, but it needs a partner in the banking sector that will do what local businesses and local people want.

[Clive Lewis]

I entirely agree. When we listen to the debate, we begin to feel that the Government are acting not in the interests of consumers, but in their vested banking interests. That seems to be their priority. We seem to be back to the pre-2008 mentality that the banks should be given whatever they want and we can have economic growth built on a house-price bubble fuelled by an oversized banking system without worrying too much about rebalancing our economy towards manufacturing or what we will do when the whole house of cards inevitably collapses.

We should consider, however, the effects on ordinary people like Andi Gibbs in my constituency who owned a business pre-crash. He was in effect mis-sold products by RBS and ended up with the now infamous global restructuring group. He not only lost his business; he lost his home, his wife, his family and his mental health. This is the price people pay when we do not get the banking system right. We now have a fantastic opportunity to get it right, and we must not squander it.

Tax Credits

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra]

I will give way in a moment.

A family with one earner on the minimum wage will be more than £1,500 worse off next year and almost £7,000 worse off over the Parliament.

The claim that we have heard most is that working families should not be concerned because the minimum wage will see significant increases in the next few years. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies has made abundantly clear, the claim that those increases will close the gap is arithmetically impossible. Paul Johnson, the director of the IFS, summed it up:

“The key fact is that the increase in the minimum wage simply cannot provide full compensation for the majority of losses that will be experienced by tax credit recipients”.

He said:

“Unequivocally, tax credit recipients in work will be made worse off by the measures in the budget on average.”

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

There are 4,200 working families in my constituency who will be affected. Given that the Prime Minister said before the election that he would not cut tax credits, does my hon. Friend think that this House and the other place would be right to vote down the proposals?

[Seema Malhotra]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I hope that Government Members will make that decision today.

The IFS has found that, as a result of all the tax and benefit changes in the summer Budget, by 2020, households with incomes in the second, third and fourth deciles will be worse off by £1,250, £860 and £530 respectively. Indeed, the Resolution Foundation’s recent report showed that the changes are likely to result in 200,000 more children being pushed into poverty at a time when the Welfare and Work Bill is effectively erasing Labour’s Child Poverty Act 2010, the duty in it to eradicate child poverty by 2020 and the measures to monitor child poverty. Perhaps a Government Member would like to ask their own Front Benchers a question about that.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Friday 20th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley). I have the highest regard for him, as I am sure he knows, and I am sorry that he is leaving the House. He has given another eloquent and solid performance on behalf of his Chancellor and his party, but he will not be surprised to learn that I do not agree with his analysis, as I shall outline in a few moments.

Many previous Budgets have taken until Sunday to unravel. It was to the credit of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition that he immediately spotted the big flaw in this Budget. In his response, he cited the Red Book to identify that the level of cuts impacting on the public sector over the next three years will be as deep as the cuts during the past five years. Many Labour colleagues have already referred to that in the debates during the past two days.

In fairness, there were some redeeming features, as there are in every Budget. The hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds mentioned that that was true of Budgets during Labour’s period in office. Those features include the initiatives on savings and the extra money for air ambulances, while bashing the banks is always popular—the hon. Gentleman is going back to the City, but that measure has gone down well with the public—and the measures on tax evasion and avoidance clearly have universal support.

There are, however, clear dividing lines between the parties. In east London, the big ticket issues are homes, training, the national health service and the public sector in general, including the issue of local authority budgets. I and my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), who I am happy to see in her place, have not only assisted the campaign to save the local health service for the past 18 months, but are still trying to get a clearer picture of the budget for primary care in our part of east London as well as that for east London generally. There is real concern about the funding of health centres right across the country, and it is not clear whether the Budget will offer them any help.

On adult training and further and higher education, Tower Hamlets college has had a 25% in its budget during the past four years, and only this week there has been an announcement about another 24% cut. That will have a huge impact on adult training in east London; it will certainly do so in my constituency. The announcement has united the Association of Colleges, the University and College Union and the National Union of Students, as well as students themselves. The fact that such an alliance should come together demonstrates that the issue is very serious, and it is not just restricted to east London. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) raised it in an oral question yesterday, showing that other parts of the country are affected as well.

That announcement will also mean further cuts to English as a second language training, which is hugely important to east London. Last year, it was found that English for speakers of other languages training has already been reduced by 40% over the past five years. Such training is critical to train and educate people with English language challenges so that they can compete in the jobs market.

On policing, there seems to be something of a conundrum. Although crime figures are down, my office has supplied me with Library statistics that show that there were 825 police officers in Tower Hamlets in 2010 and 627 this year, which is almost 200 fewer. Theft is up by 8%, burglary by 24%, sexual offences by 28% and robbery by 33%. Notwithstanding the Government’s success in making efficiency savings in police budgets, at some point the pendulum is going to swing too far. We are already perilously close to that point, and, sadly, it looks like police budgets are going to be squeezed even more.

There is consensus on and support for the benefits cap, but it throws up some anomalies. In east London, a number of families live in private sector rented accommodation and are charged market rents, and the benefits cap has a disproportionate effect on their ability to live. That is one example of how a universal benefit cap affects families in London. The shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), outlined Labour’s proposals for a fairer rents policy and guaranteed rents over three years, which will go down very well in east London and elsewhere.

A number of colleagues, certainly the Chancellor, made great play of the minimum wage. Government Members have said a lot about Opposition predictions of the number of jobs that would be lost through austerity. We say that if there had been no austerity, we could have made progress a lot sooner, because when the coalition came to power the economy had been growing for a couple of months. I remind the Conservative Members that when Labour introduced the national minimum wage, they were very confident that it would cost 1 million jobs. That prediction proved to be entirely wrong. For many of us, the living wage is even more important than the minimum wage.

In Canary Wharf in my constituency there are some fantastically well-paid bankers, but 105,000 people work there, many of whom are in low-paid jobs in cleaning, security and retail. I am happy to report that the majority of companies on the wharf have a living wage policy. I would like to see the Government promoting the living wage far more aggressively than they currently do. I am sure that a Labour Government would bring that aggressiveness to bear in due course.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Conservatives are taking exactly the same view of the living wage as they did of the minimum wage? That is shown by the comments of the Tory peer Lord Wolfson, who, as head of Next, paid himself £4.6 million last year, but says that the living wage is “irrelevant”. It is not irrelevant to my constituents.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Low wages are costing the Exchequer, and higher, fairer wages would benefit both the Exchequer and families. That argument is borne out by statistics that show that the living wage would help not only families but the economy.

I intervened earlier on the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to ask him about the Institute for Fiscal Studies report on migrant labour fuelling the economy, which was reported on in yesterday’s Independent and today’s Guardian. We do not seem to have acknowledged the contribution of migrants to the economy and how they have helped it over the past five years. The Government do not deserve all the credit. As I said, the Government wasted a number of years—a point that has been made a number of times by the Opposition.

Moving towards a conclusion—I am sure you will be pleased to hear that, Madam Deputy Speaker—I want to draw attention to some comments that have been made about the Budget. The chief executive of Citizens Advice, Gillian Guy, said:

“People on the lowest income and those without savings benefit least from this Budget…Positive moves on the personal allowance and fuel duty provide some small gains for stretched households, but there was nothing to address challenges around childcare, energy bills and private rents.”

All those challenges are addressed by Labour’s programme, which will go down well with Citizens Advice.

The Chancellor might not have been happy to hear what two commentators from the right had to say. I do not often quote right-wing commentators, but the editor of The Spectator, Fraser Nelson, said:

“I wonder: how ‘independent’ is the OBR? Osborne created it, defined its remit, appointed its chairman, banned it from assessing Labour ideas”.

If the Government, particularly the Conservative party, are so convinced and confident that Labour’s plans do not stack up and that our figures would create a black hole, why not use the independent Office for Budget Responsibility to do the analysis and reinforce their argument? I find it very strange and curious that that has not happened.

In yesterday’s Times, the subheading to an article by Tim Montgomerie—I do not agree with a lot of what he and Fraser Nelson say, but they are great writers and always a pleasure to read—stated, “The chancellor’s statement was the latest example of the Tories’ risk-averse strategy and leaves them without a vision”, while the headline stated, “We need more than this dull, simplistic budget”. If the Chancellor is being attacked from the right and from the left, I assume that some people will say, “He must be getting it right, because he’s in the middle,” but Labour Members do not agree.

The Chancellor also referred a number of times to fixing the roof while the sun shines. In Tower Hamlets when Labour was in power, most of our health centres and schools were rebuilt or refurbished; more than 20 Sure Start centres and the new Royal London hospital were opened; and thousands—possibly tens of thousands —of council and housing association properties were raised to the decency threshold for the first time in years and in some cases decades.

I do not accept that we crashed the car. As the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central, said earlier, Lehman Brothers did not crash in New York because of public sector spending in east London. Labour Members not only think but know there is a better way, and on 7 May I hope people will give us a chance to show exactly what it is.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice), whom I wish the very best in retirement. That said, he is wrong about there being a Conservative Government following this one. It is clear that of all the results at the next election, a Conservative Government is the least likely.

The Budget was all about the election—there were two Budgets really. There was the reality and there was the rhetoric, and it did not take long for the rhetoric to start unravelling. Fortunately, some of the nonsense we were subjected to we will not need to hear again for some time. The pared-down, sanitised version of the Budget the Chancellor presented could be quickly unpicked simply by looking at the Red Book, which confirms our very worst fears: on public spending cuts, he and his party are just getting warmed up. On Wednesday, he claimed that living standards were higher this year than when they entered office, but on Thursday the ONS and independent think-tanks criticised his wildly inventive use of statistics. Facts and evidence had little role in his “Alice in Wonderland” version of the Budget—up was down, down was up, and a word meant whatever he said it meant. It was a transparent attempt to argue the opposite of what Opposition Members know: that under this Government, living standards have fallen and the poor are getting poorer. The impact of their reckless decisions has fallen most heavily on those least able to bear it.

Today, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government took up the baton in the same spirit as the Chancellor. Of all the extraordinary things he said, the thing that really struck me was his claim that the Government were building the homes the public wanted. In my constituency, the best he is likely to get for that is a politely hollow laugh. In my constituency, the average house price is £660,000, according to latest figures. How will Help to Buy ISAs help with that? How much will £15,000 in the bank help with that? It is evidence of the Government’s lackadaisical attitude to the housing crisis—stimulating demand but doing nothing on the supply side, promoting home ownership while offering nothing to the millions of private renters struggling to make ends meet.

It is often said that politics in Islington begins and ends with housing, and it is not difficult to see why. Every week, I am overwhelmed by the number of people who tell me how much they are struggling to make their monthly rent payments, pay the bills and buy essentials such as food, fuel and child care. People think they know about Islington, but they don’t: we have the sixth-worst child poverty rates in the whole country, and 40% of my constituents live in social housing. In many ways, we are a constituency of two halves, and we are separating out, and it is getting worse under this Government.

I would like to give the Chancellor a dose of reality—I would like to tell him about some of the people I have the honour to represent—but I shall begin with a few facts. Renting a flat in Islington privately now costs an average of £600 a week. Now, the Government will say it is unfair for people on benefits to get more than the average wage, and in principle I agree absolutely, but the difficulty is that if we include rent in benefit payments, and if the income cap for those on benefits is £500, it does not take much wit to work out that the vast majority of the money goes to the landlords, not to the family. As a result, people are being forced out of Islington and London, as far as they can go, but instead of dealing with prices and the housing crisis and building more affordable homes in my constituency and central London, the Government are penalising those who can least afford it and are least to blame.

A constituent came to see me two weeks ago. She has three children; she survived polio as a child—her legs are in a terrible state; she lives in completely unsuitable private housing, and has to climb 28 steps to reach her front door. It is temporary housing she has been in temporarily for four years while the council has been looking for somewhere to put her. For this, she has the privilege of paying—or the Government do—£400 a week, meaning that this disabled woman and her three children have £100 a week to live on. Is the sun shining on this family? Are things getting better for them? No, they are not.

Unsurprisingly, rents are running out of control in this area. In places such as Islington, social housing is the only realistic option, yet, despite the council’s best efforts, there are 19,000 people on the housing waiting list. In Islington, we currently have a joke: the council is working so hard to build social housing that if someone moves their car in the morning, when they come back there will be a flat there. It is doing its utmost to build social housing, but, with the withdrawal of the Government subsidy for councils to build social housing, it is hard. It is doing everything it can, and I applaud its efforts, but it is as if we are running as fast as we can and still going backwards.

[Mr Slaughter]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. She mentioned the Help to Buy ISAs. The money the Conservatives would spend on that would build 69,000 affordable homes. Is the attitude of Conservatives not really shown by councils such as Tory-controlled Hammersmith, which sold 315 council homes on the open market, meaning that 315 families will now be in private rented accommodation and presumably subject to the benefit cap?

[Emily Thornberry]

Yes, and the irony is that when properties are sold and the council is allowed by the new owners to rent them on the private market, the tenants are told they have to live in the property for a huge amount of money that is then paid in benefits. It is no wonder that the benefit bill and the cost to the Government are rising.

We need to step back and look at the situation realistically. If rents are far too high, what do we do? We need to build more. If we do not, rents will continue to rise. We have to take control of the housing situation, particularly in areas of high demand, such as central London. We cannot leave it to capitalism red in tooth and claw to deal with the housing crisis in Islington. We have to intervene, and we have to believe that it is the best way of dealing with it; otherwise, we will continue to have huge unfairness.

A man and his partner and baby came to see me. They desperately want a home of their own, but they cannot afford to rent privately, so they are living with mum. Their house is completely overcrowded—it is totally unsuitable—but they have no alternative, and they will be there for years. I have another constituent living in overcrowded accommodation who has made 76 bids to move home, but she has still not been successful. Another woman is in arrears for the bedroom tax. She has had discretionary housing payments, but they were only small, and she remains in debt and is desperately worried about what will happen to her. She wants to move, but there is nowhere for her to move to.

A woman came to see me—she is not really a priority, I appreciate that—who lives in a one-bedroom flat with two children and two adults. This is like the 1920s. We are going backwards in time. People are living like this today. This family are not a priority; they are not the worst case, and their chances of getting re-housed are slender because they are only overcrowded by way of two adults and two children in a one-bedroom flat. I had a letter from another woman about high rents in the private sector. The sun is not shining on her house. Her flat is cold and damp, and there is only one radiator. Another family came to see me—four adults and two children in a two-bedroom flat.

Does this Budget solve any of these problems? Does it even think about them? It denies their existence and makes no attempt to address the problems arising just a stone’s throw from this building. We cannot continue to put our heads in the sand. We need a Government who care and are prepared to address these problems, not continue to talk in “Alice in Wonderland” terms about the sort of world we want. “We choose the future”, the Chancellor said. Well, the Government do not choose the future for the people I represent. They should be ashamed of themselves, and they will not be in government for long.

Air Passenger Duty

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister to her post. She is at least the sixth Minister whom my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and I have approached on this subject and I think she may have slightly misunderstood the point made by my hon. Friend, which is that it is possible to be fiscally neutral while also being fairer. Will she go away and consider issues related to the Caribbean in particular, although this does affect other countries as well? Before the last election, the then shadow Treasury Ministers were very eloquent in advocating per-plane taxes and readjusting banding so that many of my Caribbean constituents, as well as those of many of the other Members present, would not be disadvantaged. Will the Minister at least give an undertaking to look at the issue with a fresh pair of eyes?

[Nicky Morgan]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am keeping a very fresh pair of eyes on all areas of my Treasury brief. I look forward to meeting him and the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) to discuss the issue further. We will certainly keep it under review.

As I have said, we must continue to work hard to reduce the deficit, so if we were to abolish APD, an alternative source for the revenue would need to be found. We never seem to hear any suggestions, but if we hear any today my hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary will respond to them in his winding-up speech.

Some have argued that, in the case of APD, no such off-setting measures would be necessary and that abolishing the tax would pay for itself by increasing economic activity overall and thus receipts from other taxes. The motion cites the report by PricewaterhouseCoopers arguing exactly that. I will turn to the report shortly, but first let me address the general question of the impact of the tax system on the UK economy and the UK’s international competitiveness.