Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Carol Monaghan and Stuart C McDonald

Wednesday 25th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

1. What steps the Government are taking to tackle (a) gender and (b) racial inequality in the workplace.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

13. What steps the Government are taking to tackle (a) gender and (b) racial inequality in the workplace.

[The Minister for Women and Equalities (Kemi Badenoch)]

As part of our strategy to tackle violence against women and girls, we have committed to strengthen the protections against sexual harassment in the workplace. That includes taking forward two legislative measures as part of the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Bill, introduced by the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse). Furthermore, in our landmark inclusive Britain strategy we committed to publishing guidance on ethnicity pay reporting for employers. That will be published soon and will support employers to identify and tackle unfair pay gaps in their workforces.

Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Bill

Debate between Carol Monaghan and Stuart C McDonald

2nd reading
Friday 15th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. Hearing about those experiences is precisely what has prompted my bringing this Bill forward today. Campaigns groups such as Bliss and The Smallest Things, which I will come to in a moment, have really driven this forward. As she alluded to, there are Members in the Chamber today with personal experience of having a baby in neonatal care, which makes them the best advocates for this cause so I am grateful for their participation. Many of them, such as my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow East (David Linden) and for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), and the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall), have been passionate and articulate campaigners for reform for a considerable time.

I am pleased to say that we are joined in the Gallery today by people from Bliss and The Smallest Things, representing families who have direct experience of the challenges around neonatal care; I am immensely grateful to them and so many other organisations and individuals for their help and support in taking this Bill forward and for the campaign they have been driving since long before I was elected to this place. I hope that the families with lived experience of neonatal care who are watching today will be satisfied that we have represented the issues they have faced, and are facing now, with the careful consideration and compassion they deserve.

The Office for National Statistics reports that an estimated 100,000 babies every year across the UK are admitted to neonatal care following their birth. Many of those babies spend prolonged periods of time on a neonatal care unit in a hospital as a result of being born prematurely or with other health conditions. That is, of course, an incredibly worrying and stressful time for parents, and their extended families. All our hearts go out to everyone who has found themselves in that position. Parents will naturally want to be able to focus their attention simply on getting through that period, supporting each other and their newborn. There is an emotional imperative to be with their babies, but there is also a practical one: those vulnerable, little children need their parents, and those parents need to be with their wee ones. As the charity Bliss has highlighted,

“parental presence on a neonatal unit is essential. Babies have the best developmental outcomes when their parents can deliver hands-on care.”

However, some families struggle to do that while keeping in employment and earning a living. Fathers get two weeks of statutory paternity leave. That is good, but when those two weeks run out, they must be called back to work while their baby is still in hospital. How can any parent be expected to focus at work while their sick baby is undergoing life-saving, life-changing neonatal care?

When babies have an extended stay in hospital at the start of their life, mothers report that 39 weeks of paid maternity leave does not give them enough time. That gets used up during the neonatal care and they do not feel that they have enough time at home with their baby before they need to go back to work. Some mothers may choose to leave work as a result. Indeed, research by The Smallest Things shows that one in 10 mothers were not able to return to work due to the ongoing needs of their babies who had required neonatal care.

That research also highlights two incredibly concerning statistics, which are perhaps unsurprising given the emotional trauma of a baby being born premature or sick. The charity reports that 77% of parents said they experienced anxiety after neonatal care, and that nearly a quarter had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after neonatal intensive care. In short, The Smallest Things concludes that we need to strengthen the statutory rights and support offered to these parents because that

“would give parents the emotional and financial support needed at a time of great stress and trauma – in turn leading to better postnatal health, a more positive return to work and better outcomes for children born prematurely.”

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

I commend my hon. Friend for bringing forward this really important Bill. I got in a taxi the other day that was driven by one of his constituents who said that his baby had spent nearly three months in hospital having been born prematurely. His employer was not at all helpful, so he had to go back to work after his two weeks’ paternity leave. It was incredibly stressful—everything my hon. Friend is talking about rings really true—and he ended up having to leave that employment because being with his wife and baby was far more important. That is why the Bill is so important for families.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. There are employers out there who already provide this support for their employees, and they are to be commended. Unfortunately, though, as we have heard, there are too many who do not. Sometimes fathers are forced to use sick pay for extended periods, which is far from ideal, and on other occasions, as we have just heard, people are forced back to work.

At an incredibly distressing time when these families need each other the most, we should be doing what we can to support them and allow them to spend that precious and vital time with their babies. As Bliss has highlighted, the main reason why parents on maternity leave return to work before they are ready, and why parents taking paternity leave return to work while their baby is still in neonatal care, is financial pressure.

Bliss estimates that the additional cost of a neonatal stay is around £250 per week by the time we factor in travel costs, buying food and drink at the hospital, extra childcare, and even accommodation costs if the hospital is far from home. That is obviously a significant financial burden, and I am very glad that it was recognised by the Scottish Government when they established the neonatal expenses fund—now the young patients family fund—in 2018.

The Bill will create a new statutory leave and pay entitlement for the parents of babies receiving neonatal care. Employed parents who find themselves in this immensely challenging situation in the future will know that, as a minimum, they are entitled to time off work to care for their babies, and that they will not suffer any repercussions as a result. Crucially, the Bill will allow parents to have protected time off work to care for their children at such a difficult time.

Migration and Scotland

Debate between Carol Monaghan and Stuart C McDonald

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Stuart C. McDonald]

That is a very interesting question, and I look forward to hearing the reasons offered by the UK Government. Hopefully, having listened today to the case that the Scottish Government and my hon. Friends have made, Ministers will open their eyes and at least engage constructively with our proposals.

Against the background that I have described, surely no one in the House can seriously suggest that if changes were being made to the immigration system for Scotland alone, the policy goal would be a reduction in the modest but sustainable levels of migration that we have seen in recent years. Analysis shows that any such reductions in levels of EU migration will make all those trends worse, and will risk a decline in both Scotland’s working-age population and the overall population.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) has pointed out, it cannot be overstated that all this has huge implications for economic growth, for GDP, for GDP per head, for our tax base and public finances, and for our economy and our society. Yes, we need the very highly qualified and well paid, but we also need those who are making an immense contribution to our country and economy but are not earning £25,000, whether they are in the care sector or the tourism industry, are starting out in research, or are working in food and drink, agriculture or retail, or many other sectors of our economy.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, the average starting salary of graduates in Scotland is £23,500, which puts them significantly below the reduced salary thresholds that the UK Government are considering. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need a full roll-out of post-study work visa routes to ensure that talented graduates can make their careers in Scotland?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

My hon. Friend is right, and the sooner that happens the better.

So what do we seek to achieve through today’s debate? I have been in this place long enough to know that even in the rather unlikely event that I make one of the greatest speeches in Parliamentary history, neither the immigration Minister, the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), nor the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), is going to suddenly perform a 360-degree U-turn and wholeheartedly embrace every aspect of these proposals, much as I would love that to be the case. I am simply asking the Ministers, particularly the immigration Minister, to engage with them seriously. Indeed, I make that request of all Members in all parties.

After the recent publication of the report from the Migration Advisory Committee, the Scottish Chambers of Commerce said:

“Business will want to see the Scottish and UK Government working seriously and closely together on these and future recommendations, ensuring appropriate policies are devised and implemented that work for businesses and our economy”.

In anticipation of the Scottish Government’s report, Scottish Labour’s external affairs spokesperson said

“Scottish Labour supports exploring a degree of flexibility within an overarching UK immigration system”.

A spokesperson for the Scottish Conservatives said:

“We’re willing to look at any proposal which helps Scotland prosper in this new era.”

I say to the Ministers that if they were to speak to their MSP colleagues, I think they would find—privately, at least—a degree of sympathy for the proposals that the Scottish Government are making, so I ask them please to engage with them as well.

In contrast, all we had from the Home Office was an unnamed spokesperson dismissing the proposals before they could possibly have been read, and we have since had a fortnight not so much of serious engagement but of knockabout politics, nonsense and soundbites. To draw a line under this skirmishing and to show that the UK Government do indeed treat with respect the suggestions put forward by the Scottish Government and supported by Scottish business, unions and civic society, will the immigration Minister meet Scottish Government Ministers and officials before he finalises the new immigration White Paper and introduces the new immigration Bill? That was something that his predecessor bar one, the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), did on a regular basis when she attended Cabinet as immigration Minister, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman can take his Department back to that form of constructive engagement. That would be far better than the nonsense and soundbites that we have been served in the fortnight since the Scottish Government’s paper was launched.

I want to address some of those soundbites now. We have been told for the 100th time that the UK Government want an immigration system that works for the whole of the UK. Believe it or not, I am quite happy to support that ambition too, as it is entirely consistent with what the Scottish Government propose. We simply believe that a system that works for the whole UK can—and, indeed, must—reflect the different needs and circumstances of its different parts. The Scottish Government paper expressly proposes further change to the UK-wide immigration system. This would involve changes that could benefit all of the UK as well as practical, tailored policies that provide solutions to Scotland’s needs, drawing on international models. There is a whole chapter in the report dedicated to whole-of-the-UK policy change, if only we could get people to read it. Is the Minister seriously saying that the Canadian migration system does not work for all of Canada because it has different rules for different provinces? In fact, most people there would say that the systems and rules work better for the whole precisely because they are tailored to suit the different parts.

We have also been told for the 100th time that immigration is a reserved matter. We are all absolutely aware that that is the case for now, but it does not have to stay that way, and we certainly would prefer that it did not. Once again, however, nothing in the Scottish Government’s paper is inconsistent with that. I have explained that, ideally, it would be for the Scottish Government to draft the criteria and to consider applications for a Scottish visa. However, it could be the UK Government who define the criteria and rules, receive and assess the applications and issue the visas. The UK Government do, of course, implement a shortage occupation list for Scotland, illustrating that tailored approaches are perfectly possible, even if they are not willing to go as far as formal devolution. Again, this is all in the Scottish Government’s paper, and I encourage people to read it.

We have also been told a few times that the Migration Advisory Committee has rejected the idea of a devolved system, but that is absolutely not a fair representation of what the MAC said. It is true that the Committee decided, on balance and accepting that there were good arguments on both sides, that if the Government want a salary threshold for tier 2 visas, it should be one salary across the UK. That went against the majority of stakeholder submissions, particularly from Scotland. Nevertheless, it is totally wrong to say that the MAC rejected the case for devolving migration powers or introducing tailored rules for Scotland. To quote the MAC report directly:

“We acknowledge the desire of the Scottish Government for immigration to become a devolved rather than a reserved matter, a question on which the MAC takes no position seeing it as a political rather than an economic question.”

The one part of the MAC report that we do call on Ministers to implement is its recommendation that a pilot project should be established to look at retention of migrants in remote and rural areas. That is a recommendation that the former Home Secretary—now the Chancellor of the Exchequer—accepted in a written statement back in July last year. An entire chapter of the Scottish Government paper is about wanting to engage in the pilot process, and the Scottish Government have tasked their own expert group on migration and population to consider how that could best benefit Scotland’s rural communities. Again, our ask is simple: will the immigration Minister meet Scottish Government Ministers and engage with them on how that pilot scheme could work in Scotland?

Another old chestnut is the argument that issuing a small number of Scottish visas would make the UK system too complex. That takes some brass neck, given the state of UK immigration law and the complexity and bureaucracy that successive UK Governments have imposed on those who come into contact with it. When it comes to work visas, it is widely accepted that while the bureaucracy of the tier 2 system might be surmountable for large multinational companies, it is ill suited and incredibly cumbersome for the small and medium-sized enterprises on which the Scottish economy is more reliant. The Scottish Government paper expressly adopts as one of its principles the need for the migration system to be easy to access and understand, and indeed the MAC and the UK Government have accepted the importance of making the process simpler. The visa proposed by the Scottish Government seeks to make things simpler still for employers by avoiding the burden of formal sponsorship and ensuring that salary thresholds do not exclude particular jobs. There is every opportunity for the Scottish visa to make life simpler for employers and applicants, rather than more complex.

Finally, the Prime Minister brought up the ludicrous old argument about a tailored system making a border a necessity. Hon. Members will know that successful tailored so-called regional migration systems exist right across the globe, including, of course, in the Government’s favourite Australian system. Not a single one requires internal borders. I might also quietly point out that the UK is happy enough to share an open land border and a common travel area with a country that has an entirely independent immigration system. Over the past five years, Ireland has issued an annual average of 27,000 visas to non-EEA nationals who of course have no right to live and work across the border in Northern Ireland or in any other part of the UK. Next year, EU migrants going to Ireland will fall into that bracket as well, roughly doubling the number of people who will arrive in Ireland with the right to live and work there, but not in the UK. But no one is saying that we need additional checks on people coming into other parts of the common travel area. That is because thinking of immigration control as simply what happens at the border is to fundamentally misunderstand it.

Most immigration control depends on what happens in country. Successful enforcement includes selecting people who are most likely to comply with their visa restrictions, then on placing appropriate conditions on what people can and cannot do once they have passed through the border, and only then on the enforcement action and sanctions that are applied if people do not comply.

The UK’s main work route for non-EU nationals, soon to be rolled out to EU nationals, operates in precisely the same way. People have a visa that is tied to a particular employer. We do not make them comply by erecting a border around them or their workplace; we simply recruit a person we trust to do the job, place conditions on their visa and rely on enforcement and sanctions in the small number of cases where that is needed.

HMRC Tax Office: Cumbernauld

Debate between Carol Monaghan and Stuart C McDonald

Tuesday 14th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. At the end of the day, this programme may well end up being absolutely self-defeating for HMRC, and it is the Government’s cost-cutting agenda that has been the driver behind it. They need to take ownership of what is going on.

First and foremost, the Government need to take ownership of the implications of these plans for the dedicated workforce who have built up considerable expertise over many years in Cumbernauld. The stark truth is that jobs will be lost. Written parliamentary answers confirm that the total capacity of the new Glasgow financial district site is considerably smaller than the number of staff at the sites that have been closed to make way for it. In fact, we are talking about a maximum capacity of 3,000 at the new site compared with a full-time equivalent workforce of 4,700 at the sites that are earmarked for closure.

It seems that HMRC is relying on the fact that many workers will be unable to make the transition because of personal circumstances. Remarkably, it has managed to pick a site in a part of Glasgow city centre that is unusually difficult for people in Cumbernauld to get to within HMRC’s one-hour reasonable daily travel limit if they are using public transport. Those workers who do make the move will be out of pocket. It is true that some reasonable daily travel costs will be met initially, but that will not last for ever. It also refers to the cheapest option, which I know from speaking to staff will be totally impossible for some of them. We have to remember that 57% of staff earn less than £20,000 a year. If, as has been estimated, staff will have to spend, on average, an additional £17 each week on travel to work, that will represent 5% of their take-home pay. It is a similar story with childcare costs, because 55% of staff have childcare or other caring responsibilities. Additional travel time will see care costs rise by an average of £40 a week, which is 12% of an employee’s take-home pay. After decades of service, those workers deserve better.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent case, but this is not just about the finances. At a time when we are so concerned about climate change and are looking to decarbonise where we can, the thought of additional travel to a place of work should be a worry to us all.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend.

Secondly, the Government must take responsibility for the consequences of the proposed closure on the town of Cumbernauld. It is fair to say that HMRC and the Government have failed to show one iota of interest in the implications for the town and community. Earlier written answers sought to assure us that all the appropriate impact assessments would be carried out, but they proved to be hollow assurances as the economic impact assessment was never commissioned.

Thankfully, after a little encouragement, North Lanarkshire Council worked effectively with PCS to do what the Government should have done and looked at the economic consequences for Cumbernauld. The assessment confirmed what we all could guess: local shops and businesses benefit greatly from the footfall of tax office workers spending money in the town centre adjacent to the tax office building. A conservative estimate suggests an annual loss of almost £1 million at supermarkets, local cafés and food outlets alone. That significant loss of footfall will have a severe impact on the local economy.

However, absolutely none of that has played any role in HMRC’s plans, and it has shown no interest in the impacts. If HMRC will not listen, the Government should. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) mentioned earlier, the Government’s towns strategy, published last November, said that

“for too long, the benefits of this unprecedented growth in many of our world-renowned cities has not been felt as strongly by communities in our towns and rural areas… Successive Governments have often focused on cities as engines of economic growth.”

I largely agree with that, but a focus on rebalancing is exactly why the tax office ended up in Cumbernauld in the first place. During the 1960s and 1970s, there was cross-party consensus not only on dispersing existing civil service jobs from London to other parts of the UK, but on the creation of new positions. It was against that background that Cumbernauld was selected for a new accounts office in 1976, albeit that the opening was later postponed until 1978. The office was expected to have a hugely positive impact on employment in the town, with most of the jobs being new and recruited locally, and that is exactly what happened. Everyone in Cumbernauld knows somebody employed in the tax office. What a tragedy it is that, 40 years on, UK Ministers are standing idly by as HMRC runs roughshod over such policy goals.

In reality, the “Building our future” programme seems to be doing the opposite of the Government’s stated aim of renewing our towns. New offices are being located in prime inner-city locations in places where I have absolutely no doubt that the offices would have been filled by private sector tenants in any event. That is not the case in Cumbernauld where the site owner, Mapeley, is protecting its position in case HMRC fails to renew the lease, but it is not protecting the position by seeking new people for the lease and creating new jobs, but by knocking it down and seeking planning permission to build houses on the site. New housing is needed, but not at the expense of around 1,200 good-quality jobs.