Public Health Restrictions: Government Economic Support

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

First of all , I am always happy to meet my hon. Friend and I welcome the constructive approach that he always takes on these issues. In terms of eligibility, part of the design of the discretionary grant was to give discretion to local authorities to apply it in different ways, and it would be slightly at odds with that for the Government to say that there must be a particular way of applying it. However, he speaks to a sector that I know has been particularly hard hit by covid; we recognise that, and it is a factor that has shaped a number of the approaches we have brought forward, particularly on things such as cash flow. I am very happy to speak with him.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

May I be helpful to the Chief Secretary, as I have been sometimes in the past? I am the Member of Parliament for Huddersfield in west Yorkshire; we are tier 2 and, like so many parts of the country, we will be facing vast problems of youth unemployment. May I be very helpful by asking him to look at Margaret Thatcher’s history? She introduced a windfall profit tax on the banks. Why cannot he introduce a windfall profit tax year on Amazon, the gambling sector—you name it; we know who has done well in this crisis—and then use that money to fund a wonderful green revolution, with new green businesses, new green training and new green jobs for young people?

[Steve Barclay]

I have always found the hon. Gentleman constructive, and I welcome the fact that he is looking at the fiscal position we face as a country and how we may address that. It would be remiss of me, given my responsibilities, to stray into the terrain of the next Budget and tax-raising measures; I will leave that for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor.

The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the very serious issue of youth unemployment. I think it is an issue that concerns us all in this House. The sectors that are most hit have concentrations of young people, particularly in the hospitality sector. It is really at the heart of the winter plan that my right hon. Friend brought forward in doubling the number of work coaches, in tripling the number of traineeships and with the £2,000 for apprenticeships. We have been looking at and learning from not just the Thatcher era, but actually from the previous Labour Government with some of the packages we discussed with the TUC and others. One of the great challenges we face is how we address not just the number of people who are unemployed, but the length of time they are unemployed. That is an absolutely key issue, and that is why the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is so focused on doubling the number of work coaches. The hon. Gentleman is quite right to highlight that issue.

Economic Update

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and the OECD agrees with her. We should not be peddling false hope to people. We should be providing a better future for them, and that is what our interventions today will do.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

May I give a cautious welcome to the Chancellor’s emphasis on young people, employment and training? Many of us across the House have a lot of experience of schemes like this, some of which have worked better than others. We would be willing to work with him to make this a success. There is disappointment, however, that he has not accepted my challenge to introduce a windfall profit tax like the one Mrs Thatcher introduced in order to pay for a massive green apprenticeship scheme.

Lastly, on a very serious point, if we are going to train these young people, we have to have the capacity to do so. Further education colleges are in deep trouble, and they need help now. Private trainers, including some in my constituency, are struggling to maintain their existence. Will the Chancellor look at this urgently, because we need the trainers to train these young people?

Future Relationship with the EU

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

My right hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point that is absolutely accepted. We hope to be able to start to do that very soon indeed. In advance of that we have, as I have alluded to, done a tremendous amount of work, looking at all the stakeholders that Departments are working with and ensuring that we are talking to all the businesses that we need to, not just the obvious ones that are always at the roundtables. We do a good job not only of communicating that but of listening, because many of the solutions that need to be put in place will be derived from the ideas of businesses themselves.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

I am sure the right hon. Lady will agree that we need a good deal. We need a deal in the time that we have set ourselves, but to get that, we need a mixture of trust, competence and integrity. As a new member of the Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union, I—and the team—had the privilege yesterday of interviewing Michel Barnier and the Minister’s boss, the Secretary of State. Does it not worry her that I get a real feeling that the trust, competence and integrity are more on the Barnier side than on her boss’s side? Why can we not get a movement in which we look back to the political declaration and stick to its principles?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am very disappointed to hear that from the hon. Gentleman. On the withdrawal agreement Joint Committee, I am Barnier’s oppo, and I thought I was charming.

Finance Bill

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution
Monday 27th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

What a pleasure it is to contribute to this debate while in my isolation that I am still under, which meant that I could not accept the invitation to be in the Chamber today. I have one very quick point to make on the background of this debate. The Finance Bill, more or less like the Queen’s Speech, was redundant almost before the print had dried, because we are in a situation we could not have imagined when either was first framed.

I want to make a pitch in particular for an unrepresented group in our society: children and young people. I believe that young people—school leavers, children in school and children in pre-school—have had a pretty tough time during this coronavirus epidemic, and they are still having a tough time. Looking forward, we are going to see real problems. If we have the recession that every authority is predicting, we will have a very serious problem of youth unemployment, and young people will have to accept jobs that they would not otherwise have dreamed of accepting. We have to concentrate and modify at every level to prepare for that great demand, and we must amend the Finance Bill, because we have a responsibility to look after young people well.

When I first came into Parliament all those years ago in 1981, everyone was surprised when Margaret Thatcher, the new Conservative Prime Minister, introduced a windfall profit tax on the banks, because they had made money while doing very little about it. I want this Bill to be amended very soon to include a windfall profit tax on those who have done rather well, even though they did not plot or plan it. I am thinking of Amazon, Google, Netflix and the gambling sector, all of which are ripe for a windfall tax that could be distributed to look after young people.

One way to do that would be to learn from the Americans—from the Kennedys and the peace corps—and give young people at 18, at 21 or at any stage of their lives the chance to go and serve the community abroad or at home. I would like us to take a bit of that, and perhaps a bit of the green apprenticeship in Germany, and create a new green national service. It would give every young person in our country an opportunity—at the age of 16, 18, 21 or whenever they chose—to spend a year working on climate change and the environment. We need the money to do that, and I think a windfall profit tax would be the way.

I believe that that would go some small way to addressing the unfairness of the taxation system, which other colleagues have spoken about eloquently. In Huddersfield, the typical town of Britain, we know that very well. We know that universities, which are the heartbeat of many communities such as mine, will be under threat in the coming months and years. We need to focus on young people, education and higher education, and we need a windfall tax to give us the resources and the opportunity to do something substantial rapidly in the coming months and years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I am pleased to give my hon. Friend that reassurance. That is why the Chancellor committed in the spending review to specific additional funding of £750 million for the first year, for the first 6,000, and additional funding will follow to ensure that we deliver on the commitment of 20,000 new officers across the country.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Minister agree that we not only need more police officers but a new partnership forged locally between youth services, the police and the educational sector? Is it not time for some new cross-party thinking about how we tackle the crime and disorder on our streets at the moment?