Oral Answers to Questions

Catherine West Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is a fantastic champion for Torbay. The Chancellor will make a statement tomorrow and I cannot speculate on the spending decisions, but my hon. Friend will have noticed already the tourism recovery plan, which will help recovery from the pandemic and is also part of the wider levelling-up agenda.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Q6. Private rents in my constituency are completely out of control, and since the Government broke the economy and broke the mortgage market, the hope of earning a home is quickly receding. With the cost of living skyrocketing, Tory tax rises through the roof, and an extra 1 million people in the private rented sector since 2010, will the Government get a grip and tackle housing in my constituency and across the country?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As a former Housing Minister, I know how important these issues are. I can tell the hon. Lady that the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is looking very carefully at the situation of renters and landlords, and legislation is to be brought forward shortly.

COP27

Catherine West Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We will not solve this problem without the investment and co-operation of the private sector. Governments simply cannot do it alone. When it comes to electric charging infrastructure, we have helped with seed funding of around £2 billion. We have one of the most developed charging infrastructures in Europe, but she is right that, ultimately, it has to be the private sector that delivers the investment required.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Will the Prime Minister say what view he takes of the role of local authorities in the climate emergency? In 2010, there were some fantastic programmes. Had they continued to 2022, we would have a third of our homes in which people—homeowners or renters-—would be paying a third of the bills they are paying now. What view does he take of local authorities getting stuck in to retrofit, particularly in the private rented sector, which is very draughty and leaky?

[The Prime Minister]

I am pleased that, in the spending review I conducted as Chancellor, we put aside almost £5 billion to support energy efficiency, including several programmes that support local authorities to upgrade the energy efficiency of both low-income private rented tenants and those in the social housing sector. Those programmes are up and running. They are well funded and local authorities can benefit from them.

Early General Election

Catherine West Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Mundell. It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate under your chairmanship.

This is a Tory crisis, made in Downing Street but paid for by working people, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) has said. Changing the Chancellor over the weekend or making a partial U-turn does not undo the damage that has been done by the Prime Minister and the Conservative party, who selfishly used the whole summer for their infighting, rather than focusing on the needs of working families, such as their energy bills. Now look where they have landed us; they have undermined our institutions and trashed our standing on the world stage, damaging the country’s credibility as a place to invest. They need to get on with reversing this Budget in order to reassure the markets. However, the statement that is being delivered in the main Chamber as we speak here in Westminster Hall does not give me much cause for pleasure, because I believe that it will lead to more hardship for working people. Basically, it is balancing the books on the backs of working people, who have played no role in crashing the economy.

The problem is the philosophy of trickle-down economics, which the Prime Minister seemed to promote when she was first elected to the post by Tory party members. However, the confusing thing—for members of the public, the markets and for us as MPs—is that the new Chancellor appears to have turned all that on its head.

The Conservatives crashed the economy for unfunded tax cuts for the wealthiest, causing mortgages to skyrocket and making people worried sick about their pensions. When the Prime Minister was asked to come to Parliament to explain, somehow she sent someone else and was not even able to turn up to apologise for what she had done to wreck our standing in the world and to wreck the economy.

I would be very happy with a general election. I hope that some fresh faces might improve the situation somewhat. The important thing is that, as a representative from Tesco said yesterday on the BBC, the Labour party has a plan. It has the confidence of large groups such as Tesco and others. When Tesco, or another large company like it, agrees with the trade unions that the Government have wrecked the economy, we know it is time for some fresh faces.

We are ready. We have been watching for 12 years. We have been watching as child poverty has skyrocketed. We have been watching as the promise of levelling up—which was a good Tory pledge and a good idea—has utterly failed. We will see that as the Chancellor now announces the cutting back of capital and revenue spend in the poorest corners of the UK.

With the Office for Budget Responsibility not having laid out its view, it is difficult for us to say exactly, in pounds and pennies, what Labour would do. However, we have enough of an outline; we have something that is much more convincing than what the Government will take to the general election. It may not come today and it may not come tomorrow, but we all know that the general election is not far off.

Let us talk briefly about the mortgage situation. We will need a plan for people’s mortgages. The eye-watering mortgage increases will cause homeowners across the country sleepless nights. In the area I represent, where there are very expensive mortgages because the cost of housing is so high in London, those who can buy their own homes are very stretched indeed. One mum told me that she had sleepless nights, saying, “How am I going to come up with £800 as of next spring? I don’t know where that’s going to come from.” Her job is quite well paid, but it does not pay another £800 a month. Those are the sorts of conversations that families are having up and down the country. Mortgage increases will lead to more families breaking up, too. It is a fact that the more financial worries people have, the more that families tend to break up under their weight.

Another thing that is very much on our minds as Labour MPs is the question of benefits, and what will happen to the poorest in our society. The events that we are most often invited to attend in our constituencies are food bank openings. I have been involved in both local and national politics since 2001, and I have never gone to so many food banks. Bounds Green food bank tells me that it used to open at 10 in the morning and close at 1 pm, but it now closes at 11 am, because in one hour all the food is gone, and there are fewer and fewer people who are able to donate. This crisis is doubly unfair on those who need to use food banks.

Working parents, disabled people and the poorest pensioners must have the knowledge that, when we get in, our Government will ensure that they can pay for the cost of living. In fact, once we get in, and there are fresh faces and fresh energy, I believe that the economy will improve a bit—just on the basis that we have more energy and some ideas. In a democracy, any Government tend to run out of ideas. After 12 years, this is a genuine fact: the Government have run out of ideas. We saw that in the summer, when Tory candidates said some nonsensical things and were completely out of touch with what the average person is deeply worried about.

I have another couple of points to make. I am very worried about the treatment of the civil service during the last month. It was not just the fact that the Office for Budget Responsibility was not permitted to give an outline to MPs, journalists, markets and citizens; pushing out the head of the civil service and the Treasury on day one sent a very bad message to all those parties. Over the years, civil servants in our system have held up a non-partisan approach to what the right thing is for the country. That is not to say that there cannot be conflicts or debates between a politician and a civil servant, but sacking the most senior civil servant in the Treasury was one of the most troubling things I have seen since being in this House.

The OBR was not allowed to make its statement, institutions such as think-tanks and the Institute for Fiscal Studies were publicly trashed over the summer, and very negative language was used about the Governor of the Bank of England, when his job is to provide financial stability for the country. Time and again during the leadership election there were subliminal and quite outspoken criticisms of the Governor. The scene was being set for trashing the institutions that basically, through a gentleman’s agreement, hold together our standing domestically and internationally. That was completely detonated when the current incumbent in Downing Street—I assume she is still there—got into power. The judgment of that individual has come into our sight.

Something else has been really bothering me in the last couple of weeks. As we have a couple of minutes up our sleeve, may I be indulged, Mr Mundell, in mentioning that I read in The Guardian that when the Prime Minister moved into Downing Street she moved out of the former Prime Minister’s office—Mr Johnson’s office—and allowed her assistant, Mr Mark Fullbrook, to move into it? Mr Fullbrook is based in Mr Johnson’s office, and apparently the current Prime Minister uses the Cabinet room for her discussions. Fair enough, but it worries me deeply that this individual has a very questionable record on two counts. First, there is a question over who he has advised in a Libyan set-up, and whether he has advised correct people there. Secondly, there is the question of his advice in a gubernatorial race in the USA. Money came into his company so that he could work on somebody else’s campaign, and the FBI has been looking at whether the funding has been correctly transferred from one party to another.

To have somebody who is being investigated by the FBI sitting in Mr Johnson’s former office chills me to the bone, but that is the sort of Government who have finally got into power in this country. Regardless of how many days this Government have left, we urgently need an independent ethics adviser to be appointed. Other Members may be able to clarify this, but my understanding is that the Prime Minister said that that was not urgent, and not particularly necessary. I think it is urgent, but only a new Government can clean up the mess that this Government have got themselves into.

I will talk briefly about constituents who have written to me about the cost of living crisis. They are not necessarily going to food banks currently, but they are finding life very difficult indeed. They have told me how much food in the supermarket has gone up by—real basics, such as milk, butter and chicken. People should be able to put those basics on the table to feed their families. Energy costs and the cost of petrol to go into someone’s car have been soaring; yet what we have been discussing in the House of Commons often does not reflect the pain that many people are going through. We want to see workers getting decent pay, being respected, and having their rights at work respected—not a Government who seek to roll back further the rights of trade unions, or of people who want to protest against what the Government are doing. We are seeing increasing authoritarianism, which seems to go hand in hand with the financial mistakes that the Government have made.

We want the question of the national grid and energy shortages to be addressed with some sincerity and honesty. Last week and the week before, when National Grid warned that there would be blackouts, no one really believed the Government when they said, “We’ll be fine”. We have been told that before and then we have had a crisis. It is deeply distressing to see the lack of honesty. We need the Government to be honest and say, “There could well be blackouts, and if there are, this is what you do: one, two, three.” They should not let people live in fear that that will happen without the correct advice on what to do if it does.

On clean power, which links to the national grid question, the next Labour Government will launch an urgent mission for a fossil fuel-free electricity system by 2030, making the UK a clean energy superpower that will export clean power to the rest of the world. Gas futures price projections show that that would save UK households £93 billion over the rest of this decade, or an average saving of £475 per household every year until 2030. This world-leading commitment would support the creation of more than 200,000 direct jobs and 260,000 to 300,000 indirect jobs.

That kind of vision, plan and investment in skills and the future, with a proper plan for our regions, is giving the likes of the Tesco boss who said that Labour had a plan confidence that we do. The UK would be the first major economy to make that world-leading commitment, alongside smaller European countries such as Austria, Portugal, Denmark and the Netherlands. It complements Labour’s plans to increase energy efficiency, including through our warm homes plan to insulate 19 million cold, draughty homes over a decade.

A number of Members have been on local councils. When I was a borough leader in 2010 we had a very good programme for giving away boilers to the private rented sector, and a plan to retrofit draughty Victorian properties. After 2010, it was disappointing to see Mr Osborne decide to trash all spending to councils, including for all the important green programmes to insulate homes. We would have had 30% more warm homes in my constituency if that small amount of funding had been allowed to continue. I am sure that if that had been replicated across the UK, we would spend so much less as a nation on fuel and energy.

Martin Lewis has made his most recent projection of what our fuel bills will look like next year. I am pleased that we will not be opposing the energy price guarantee legislation this evening, but for goodness’ sake, get the money off the companies. Do not put it on to debt, because that will make the markets go crazy again. The Government must listen to the Opposition and accept that we have sometimes come up with some good ideas.

Thank you for your patience, Mr Mundell, as I have been on a circuitous route around the question of a general election. I have laid out some of our good ideas. We will have an energy policy for the future. We will have a plan for working people. We will have a vision for no more food banks, for the building of more affordable homes for our residents, and for enhancing our role in the world. I hope we will look at eliminating our huge trade deficit, which is another area that worries many of us on the Labour Benches. I hope that with some fresh faces and energy through the upcoming general election, which I am sure will come, we will end up with a wonderful team of committed Labour Cabinet members and a Labour team that will restore us as the best country in the world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brendan Clarke-Smith]

We need to look at interest rates around the world, the strength of the US dollar and inflation rates around Europe. Curbing inflation is important to us, and I will come on to that and what the Chancellor is talking about today.

Families were facing bills of up to £6,000 this winter. Tesco, which has been mentioned a lot today, says, “Every little helps”, but we think we can do better than that, because a little is not enough for many families around the country. That is why we took such decisive action with our comprehensive package, so that families would not face that. It has substantially reduced the expected peak inflation that we might have been looking at. We have supported the families who needed it the most, have been dealing with the tax burden and have cut the national insurance contributions of 28 million people as a result.

Global economic conditions are worsening, so we have had to adjust our programme. That is the sign of a pragmatic Government. We are still going for growth, but need to change how we approach it. The Government are committed to investment zones, speeding up road projects, standing up to Russia and increasing our energy supplies so that we are never in this situation again. We are making it easier for businesses to take advantage of Brexit freedoms, so that they may do things more easily, leading to lower costs, lower prices and of course higher wages. The Government are on the side of hard-working people who do the right thing, and it is for them that we are delivering.

We are putting our great country on to the path of long-term success. We are taking on the anti-growth coalition, from Labour and the Lib Dems to the protestors stopping people going to work by grinding roads and rail to a halt, as we have seen outside today. The Government’s focus is on bringing economic and political stability to the country. That will lower interest rates and restore confidence in sterling. We cannot afford any drift to delay that mission. Therefore, the last thing that we need now is a general election.

The Government have several priorities for the remainder of this Parliament. We will use the power of free enterprise and free markets to level up the country and spread opportunity. We will drive reform and rebuild our economy to unleash our country’s full potential. We will cut onerous EU regulations that smother business and investment.

A mandate is one of the reasons we are in Westminster Hall today. The Conservative party was elected with a majority in 2019. Recently, we have been through a process of electing a leader of our party who is committed to delivering that Conservative programme in government. We face significant global events that have changed our economic circumstances. We cannot ignore the impact of covid or Putin’s deplorable war in Ukraine, which has created much of the economic hardship that has pushed up the price of energy, not just for us but for the world. The Government acted immediately to provide energy support for families who needed it the most by laying out a plan for economic growth.

The UK, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson), is a parliamentary democracy and does not have a presidential system. Prime Ministers hold their position by virtue of their ability to command the confidence of the House of Commons. Consequently, a change in the leader of the governing party does not trigger a general election.

The fact that a change in the leader of the governing party does not necessitate an election is well established. There is precedent among both Labour and Conservative Prime Ministers in the past. Indeed, five of the last seven Prime Ministers, including my right hon. Friends the Members for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) and for Maidenhead (Mrs May), Gordon Brown and John Major, began their tenure in office without the need for a general election.

In many cases the next election followed several years after a Prime Minister had been in office. In the post-war era, that has become very common. Gordon Brown was in office for three years before the 2010 election, and John Major for two between 1990 and 1992. Jim Callaghan held office in the 1970s without holding an election, just as Douglas-Home held office for a year without one in the 1960s. Prior to that, Harold Macmillan was Prime Minister for two years before calling an election in 1959. Famously, Winston Churchill’s wartime Administration were in office for five years, in exceptional circumstances, without an election taking place. I could go on. Chamberlain, Lloyd George, Asquith and Balfour are all relevant examples. My point is that Prime Ministers hold their position by virtue of their ability to command the confidence of the House of Commons. There is no requirement for an incoming Prime Minister to call an election immediately on assuming office.

[Catherine West]

The Minister is very generous in giving way. He is making an important point that general elections are not always necessary. Does he agree, however, that one of the problems besetting the majority party is that before the 2019 general election, Mr Farage’s party tipped into the Tory party, and that that has resulted in it splitting in two?

[Brendan Clarke-Smith]

The hon. Member makes a good point. Of course, all political parties will at times have disagreements. One of the things that makes me such a proud Conservative is the broad church of our operation, and I believe that it is that broad church that allows many of my colleagues with differing views to come together with shared values. That is why Conservatives, who have been elected and given a mandate, can change leadership but still have a Conservative Government delivering Conservative policies.

Earlier this year, delivering on a Conservative manifesto promise, Parliament passed legislation repealing the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. It was a flawed piece of legislation, which ran counter to the core constitutional principles of our country, and I believe that it had a damaging effect on the functioning of parliamentary democracy. The Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 returned us to tried and tested constitutional arrangements for dissolving Parliament and calling elections. It received broad agreement across the House, and I do not believe that a single Labour MP voted against its Second or Third Reading. By repealing the 2011 Act and it opaque provisions, it reaffirmed the convention that the Government hold office by virtue of their ability to command confidence in the House of Commons.

Members are in a privileged position to put views to the Prime Minister and senior colleagues, and I encourage them to do so. We have debates, such as this one, and other appropriate forums. The Government are entitled to assume that they have the confidence of the House unless and until it is shown to be otherwise. That can be demonstrated unambiguously only by means of a formal confidence vote. Thus, the Government, under the new Prime Minister, continue to command the confidence of the Commons.

The Prime Minister can call a general election at any time of her choosing by requesting the Dissolution of Parliament from the sovereign, which, if accepted, leads to a general election. As a result, the decision of when the next election will take place rests with the Prime Minister.

On the appointment of the Chancellor, who is currently giving his statement on the Floor of the House, the Prime Minister asked my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) to assume the role. As the Prime Minister has said, he is one of the most experienced and widely respected Government Ministers and parliamentarians. The Prime Minster has asked the Chancellor to deliver the medium-term fiscal plan, and he is giving a statement to the House as I speak. That will explain the support that the Government are giving.

The hon. Members for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) and for Newport West (Ruth Jones) mentioned the cost of living. That is very important to us; we want to get this right. We want to bring in the energy price guarantee. We have already given £400 to every household, with £1,200 going to the most vulnerable, and £150 back on council tax, along with other support. We want to help the most vulnerable in society and we want the right targeted packages. Of course, to do that, we need to have sustainable public finances and to show fiscal responsibility. The Chancellor of the Exchequer will talk about that today. We want to bring our debts down; we want to ensure that inflation is low; we want to ensure that interests rates are sensible. We do not set interest rates—the Bank of England does—but we want people to be able to afford their mortgages.

After I had bought my first house, the financial crisis happened—that was a difficult period for homeowners. We want to help people to get through this; we are a nation of homeowners. We want to protect people, including the most vulnerable, and, of course, we want people to be able to pay their energy bills and for their food shopping.

Contaminated Blood Scandal: Interim Payments for Victims

Catherine West Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

My hon. Friend’s eloquent point is noted and will be relayed.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

My constituent Nick was infected with hepatitis C. When he died in 2012, he left behind his partner and a tiny baby. Ten years on, this little girl is about to go to secondary school. These families cannot afford any more delay. Will the Minister pledge today that not only the living but those who have been so badly affected by the loss of a loved one over the decades will receive interim payments?

[Michael Ellis]

I cannot, at this moment, prejudge the ultimate decisions on this matter, but I can say that the matter has my full attention and the full attention of officials across Government, and it will be given the attention it so richly deserves.

Standards in Public Life

Catherine West Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

I have no idea what the hon. Gentleman is referring to. I do not recall at any point anyone’s saying that that would be the case. I cannot confirm something that I do not know to be the case. In fact, on the contrary, the Prime Minister is focused on ensuring that proper mechanisms are in place to uphold all standards in public life.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I give the Minister another opportunity: will there be another ethics lead appointed by this Government?

[Michael Ellis]

I think we have said that arrangements will be put in place. [Hon. Members: “When?”] In due course.

Sue Gray Report

Catherine West Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with them profoundly and passionately, and that is exactly what I am going to do.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister said that on 13 November 2020, he attended the “Abba party” briefly. His defence was a job interview. Can he confirm that he was only in his flat, and that he met Henry Newman to discuss a job, and can he tell us what the other special advisers were doing? Were they part of the job interview as well?

[The Prime Minister]

That evening was extensively investigated, to the best of my knowledge, and I do not believe I can improve on what Sue Gray has had to say.

Debate on the Address

Catherine West Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

It is a real delight to follow my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), who I know has such a deep understanding of housing and the problems that so many of our constituents face, from the basics of mould and infestations right through to the complexities of leasehold properties, cladding and all of that. It was a very good speech, and I thank her for that.

There are some very good themes in the Queen’s Speech; the question will be in the detail and about how much we manage to achieve in this parliamentary Session. I welcome this opportunity for the Queen’s Speech and the platinum jubilee celebrations. I do not know whether you will be at any street parties, Mr Deputy Speaker, but you will be very welcome to come along to the Cecile Park street party if you are available over the four-day holiday. No one has mentioned that today, but giving us those extra few days to enjoy the jubilee is probably the best thing that the Government have done in the past few years. It is a bit of a boost for the local economy and a bit of a celebration as well that we have got through a pretty tough time with covid. We are hopefully at the other side of that.

The other positive elements that have a lot of potential in the Queen’s Speech are the modern slavery Bill, about which the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) spoke at length, with the possibility of civil penalties for organisations that do not comply with modern slavery requirements; and the economic crime and corporate transparency Bill, which will hopefully contain the long-overdue Companies House reform. We know that that is key to cracking down on the kleptocracy that was so evident when President Putin began his terrible assault on Ukraine earlier in the year.

I will focus in my short remarks on the context of this Queen’s Speech coming straight out of an election period. I wonder whether that is why the Government Benches are completely empty except for one Whip and one Front-Bench Member. Perhaps the wind is out of their sails following the 500-odd losses at local government level. Who is to say? I am not sure why the Government Benches are so empty, but the context of the Queen’s Speech is pretty desperate. We are on the verge of a recession, and we cannot afford to be complacent. We want to see an emergency Budget as well as this Queen’s Speech, and I was a little unsure as to whether there would be a statement from the Chancellor. The Prime Minister mentioned that, but that was then ruled out by his spokesperson at 10 Downing Street. If anyone can clarify, please do intervene.

I was surprised also that in the Prime Minister’s brief remarks about the Queen’s Speech, Peppa Pig did not make any appearance. At one point, given the speed at which he delivered his remarks, I thought “Peppa Pig” might just accidentally pop out of his mouth as he was speaking. It felt like one of those speeches. I do not know if anybody else shared that sentiment. Listening to how it revved up and then slowed down again, I thought it could have perhaps gone into that.

Speaking of Peppa Pig, I note that the CBI today has said that the Queen’s Speech and the economic measures proposed are not good enough. That is a real pity, because the Chancellor’s response during covid was a correct tripartite response among our Government, the CBI and the TUC. The TUC has severely criticised the Queen’s Speech for sadly not having an employment Bill where we could address: the lack of security in our workplaces; the vexed issue around flexibility at work and who should be in work and who should have the right to work at home; and maternity provision, pregnancy provision and adoption provision. Those are all things we could have put into that speech to improve our workplaces and address retention. We know that a lot of good workplaces do not know why they cannot retain staff. That is a real missed opportunity.

The other missed opportunity is on the environment. We really want to be turbocharging the insulation of all of our homes, particularly in areas where those of us have very old Victorian stock, which is expensive to retrofit, but desperately needs to be tackled.

An hon. Member spoke earlier about the failed green deal in 2010, which was a tragedy, and the second scheme that failed after the 2017 election. Time after time, we have had schemes that have failed. I was pleased to hear the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) praise the role of local government during covid; if local government were given cash to get all its own stock up to scratch, we would be doing a lot for the environment and fuel poverty, and a lot to reduce people’s bills. We have had two failed schemes that cost a lot but did not do much for the environment or the consumer, so in the end, those sorts of basic schemes cost less. That would be a way to achieve things again.

We have heard many contributions about food poverty. All hon. Members want to see fewer queues at food banks in our constituencies and people being able to afford to work a decent week’s work and put food on the table with their earnings. I do not know why that is so difficult, but I do know that by the end of the year, when inflation hits 10%, we will see even more people queuing at food banks, which is not a sight that any of us wish to see. Of course, that situation will also be exacerbated by the 30% drop in Ukraine’s exports, particularly of cooking oil and wheat, which will increase hardship at our tables. We need the Government to step in, take responsibility and roll out a programme that addresses that lack.

We also need much more innovation in our industrial strategy. I was disappointed that the Government cancelled the industrial strategy last year; that was a real missed opportunity. For example, why do we not just fund the manufacturing of more personal protective equipment? We know that we need it because we need to have stock ready. We have plenty of centres, such as Leicestershire, parts of London or parts of the midlands, where we could begin that and fund it, and then it would pay for itself over time. Let us get innovating, have a Brexit dividend and be creative.

In addition, we have the productivity challenge, which comes back to the fact that we have far too many people in low-quality further education courses because we still have not put right the 50% cut to FE in 2010. That desperately needs to be addressed. It was good to hear other hon. Members speaking about the apprenticeships and the way that many apprenticeship schemes have failed.

On public services, it is essential that we tackle the lack of GP appointments and that we look at the record NHS waiting lists to see doctors and nurses. We simply do not have enough health practitioners working in the health service. We have been promised parity of esteem for mental health for years and we still do not have it in this sketch-out of Bills, but we will keep fighting for people who have mental health problems for those to be considered as seriously as physical health problems.

On supersize classrooms, we know that the last time that a Labour Government came in in 1997, they immediately reduced classroom sizes and kids started to learn better. We need to do that now—let us not wait for Labour to come in and do it again—because we know that it works. We are still spending per child only what we spent in 2010 on education, which is holding our productivity back severely. We need to address that urgently.

I am pleased that victims of crime are mentioned in the Queen’s Speech, but I want to see what that means. Far too many victims of crime are not being supported and are getting desperate that our justice system is not working for them. I will be following that detail closely. We know that just one in 35 victims of rape, for example, end up with a successful charge. That must absolutely stop.

My time is up, but we can revisit those issues. You are shaking your head, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I will conclude as I know that there are one or two more speakers to come. All I will say is that an opportunity has been missed today. We have had a very interesting and engaging set of speeches from Government Members, but perhaps not attached to what the reality is in our own constituencies—whether on the Northern Ireland protocol, which we had a bit of a debate about; apprenticeships and young people; manufacturing in some of our hubs; or the housing crisis, which my hon. Friend the Member for York Central mentioned. There are so many areas that could have been addressed by those on the Government Benches, yet it did not seem to occur to the Prime Minister to talk about the pressing issues. To come back to my first point about the empty Benches on the Government side of the House, I wonder whether this disconnect led to the loss of 500 council seats, because in the end in a democracy, if we do not talk about the issues that matter to working people, we do not end up winning an election.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I would like to start by passing on the very best wishes of the people of Chesterfield to Her Majesty the Queen, who we were all very sad was unable to able to address us. It is the first time since 1963 that the remarkable woman has been unable to be here, and I know people will be wishing her well.

This was a remarkable Queen’s Speech day, and not just for that reason. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) said, the speed at which the Prime Minister’s speech was delivered suggests to me that when he finally loses his job, which he should have done several months ago, he might be gainfully employed as a horse-racing commentator. Alongside that, the debate has been remarkable for two things. The first is the fact that, as we were listening to Government Members and the issues they wanted to address, it was remarkable to think that the Government were responding to a country they have been running for 12 years. It was also so clear that so many of the issues facing the country are not an accident, but a deliberate result of the policies this Government have pursued for the last 12 years. It was a Queen’s Speech simultaneously packed with different initiatives, yet at the same time failing to meet the challenges that the British people are struggling with so much at this moment. It is for precisely that reason that this Government look so exhausted, so tawdry and so out of touch.

Let us have a look at what this Government’s priorities will be—as Mr Speaker suggested we should, I have obtained a copy of the Gracious Speech. The Government start by claiming that they will

“grow and strengthen the economy and help ease the cost of living for families.”

On growth, this is a Government of high taxation because they are a Government of low growth. They are a Government who have had low growth during 12 wasted years. They have consistently grown our economy by less than the previous Labour Government. In all but one year, growth under this Government was less than 2%. Under Labour, 2% growth was achieved 10 years straight. So why should we believe that this is a Government capable of delivering on their priority to grow the economy?

On strengthening the economy, the Government’s consistent failure to deliver the Brexit they promised means that our economy is considerably weaker and less resilient than it was before the Prime Minister was elected. On the cost of living, their refusal to implement a windfall tax means that this Government, uniquely among all the European Governments, are allowing oil and gas producing firms to enjoy obscene profits while raising taxes on working people. We are only two lines into the Gracious Speech, and already the Government are referring to three areas—growth, strengthening the economy and the cost of living—in which they have indisputably failed.

The speech goes on with the Government claim that they will support the police to make our streets safer, but we have 7,000 fewer police than we had in 2010. Our court backlogs mean that terrified victims of crime wait months and even years for their perpetrators to face justice, and the Government were forced to exclude fraud from their crime statistics to try to pretend that crime was falling.

Just last week, I met a woman in my constituency, Jane Allen, who still mourns the loss of her brother, Phillip. He was murdered by a man who was on licence after being released from prison halfway through his sentence. The murderer, Jordan Maltby, should have been housed in an approved premises, but none was available. He should have been in regular contact with probation officers, but he was seen only once in the nine weeks he was out. He should have been monitored by police, but the demands on police time meant that did not happen. In a completely unprovoked attack, he murdered Phillip Allen in cold blood outside his house.

The Government’s failures to provide the number of police we need, or properly to fund probation or address court delays, mean that under this Government our streets are less safe, not safer. In 2013 there were 634,000 violent offences in England and Wales. Last year there were 1.78 million violent crimes, which is 1.78 million opportunities to see the full cost of that failure. We have a larger population, but fewer police, more violent crimes, longer court delays and a failing probation service, and the Government want us to believe that they will make our streets safer.

[Catherine West]

Our condolences go to my hon. Friend’s constituent, Jane, for the loss of her brother. Does my hon. Friend agree that as so many crimes happen because of the same group of people, if we do not get them the first time, the issue multiplies? The failure to bring a charge in the first instance makes the situation ever so much worse for more and more victims.

[Mr Perkins]

That is absolutely the case. Whether courts are not seeing people in time, or deciding not to send people to jail who they really should because jails are so overcrowded, or giving people shorter sentences, there are a whole variety of reasons why these violent criminals are making our streets less safe.

The Government claim that they will fund the NHS to reduce covid backlogs. This is the Government who caused the pre-covid backlogs. We went into covid with the longest waiting times since—guess when?—the last time we had a Tory Government. Labour left government with a two-week cancer guarantee and waiting times below 18 weeks across the country. This Government reduced NHS spending from when they came to office in 2010 to 2019, when the covid pandemic hit, so that Britain went from being in line with the European average to being a backmarker once again. They presided over an NHS staffing crisis, failed to train enough doctors or nurses, and discouraged European nurses from helping out. This failure is on their watch—and I have not even got to the end of the first paragraph of the Gracious Speech. We have a Government who ask us to believe that they are the party to address the very problems they have caused. These are not issues that the Government inherited, but ones that through a decade of austerity, through their failure on Brexit and their prioritisation of culture wars ahead of the business of government, explicitly acknowledge the failure that 12 years of Tory rule has led to.

We should not be fooled into believing that this is a Government with a plan to address those failings. The Budget showed that a Government who have normalised food bank usage will not be a Government committed to helping people with the cost of living. It is remarkable. We heard the Prime Minister on his feet today claiming that we will see action on the cost of living in the coming days, only for Treasury sources to brief that the Chancellor of Exchequer knows nothing about that, and that there are no plans. This Government not only fail to take action on the cost of living, but they fail even to agree on a line about when they will take different steps.

The Government had a choice about how the global rise in energy prices could be tackled. They could have chosen to ask energy companies to share a little of their grotesque wealth, or they could have asked landlords and property billionaires to pay a little more. Instead, the Chancellor’s eyes fell, as they always do, on the working poor, with the British Government uniquely raising taxes for working people. This is a Government big on tactics but bereft of strategy. The Home Secretary wanders around looking for a culture war to join, while failing to address the issues that make our streets, and indeed our homes, less safe.

A Labour Queen’s Speech would have contained measures genuinely to alleviate food and energy poverty, and support people with the cost of living crisis. We would have seen a commitment to an industrial strategy that targeted the greatest resources on those areas that need them most, and addressed the ways that things such as the apprenticeship levy are failing. A Labour Queen’s Speech would have recognised that we cannot cure NHS waiting times unless we resource and value carers in our community, and that overseas workers help us to allow our elders to grow older in dignity. A Labour Queen’s Speech would have tackled tax avoidance and non-dom status—as it turns out, that was the modus operandi of prominent members of the Cabinet and their families—and rooted out the scandalous wastage of public money that the Government routinely allow. It would also have prioritised repairing relations with our European counterparts so that Brexit can be a mutual success, rather than revisiting previous failures as it appears that, depressingly, the Government intend.

This is a Government exhausted of ideas and too mired in their own disgraces to address the problems of the nation, and it is well past time for them to be gone. They have now reached the stage where the Prime Minister is so weakened that he has to threaten his own party with an election if they do not offer him their support. Labour will be ready when that election comes, and that cannot come a moment too soon.

Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(David T. C. Davies.)

Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges

Catherine West Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger), but may I politely and respectfully point out the difference between the approach of the Prime Minister and that of the Leader of the Opposition? When the Leader of the Opposition erred, he came straight to the Dispatch Box and amended the record, and that is what we are asking the Prime Minister to do. There is a huge distinction between the two cases.

We are at a crisis point for our democracy. The Nolan principles provide clear guidance as to conduct in public office, but they are being honoured more in the breach than in the observance. We know that, when the Prime Minister stood at the Dispatch Box and told this House that there had been no parties and that all guidance was followed at all times, neither of those statements were true. They were palpably untrue, and this matters. It is beyond the realms of credibility that the Prime Minister could possibly have thought that either of those things were truthful when he said them. He has gone through his life with the rules not applying to him, but the public have made their mind up. In opinion poll after opinion poll, the public have said very clearly that the Prime Minister of our country has lied, and this sorry issue has to be resolved.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this boils down to trust, and that the motion refers to trust within this House, trusting a Committee that reflects the proportional balance of the House to deal with the matter in a proportionate way once all the evidence is in?

[Andy McDonald]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. It all comes down to trust in this place. As other Members have pointed out, it is trust that we need if leaders are going to make important decisions about the cost of living crisis and interventions that may be demanded of us in Ukraine as we go forward. That is why trust matters.

It is bad enough that a serving Prime Minister has broken the law, but the public are certain that he lied when he denied that he had broken the law, and his lame defences as to what he believed are now in tatters. It is therefore imperative that the appropriate mechanisms of this House are engaged, as so expertly described by colleagues and as on the Order Paper, and that this behaviour be referred to the Committee of Privileges to see whether the Prime Minister is in contempt of this place and, indeed, in contempt of the country.

Easter Recess: Government Update

Catherine West Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I want to say again how sorry I am for the loss of the hon. Member’s constituent, and I apologise to him personally and to his family—all those who lost loved ones—and it is a measure of the seriousness with which I take this today. Of course, we think the law applies to us: of course it does.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

At high altitude, one’s nose starts to bleed. With the rise in national insurance and more tax than for 70 years, our constituents are crying out for help—whether with their energy bills, whether with the rents that have gone up by at least 20% in some parts of my constituency—yet we will be facing this sort of debate day after day until the Prime Minister faces up to his responsibility and resigns, or the Conservative Members here take him out. That is the choice before we can actually start to focus on the things that matter.

[The Prime Minister]

May I respectfully say to the hon. Member that I think the real choice that this Government —this House of Commons—should follow is getting on with the job of serving the people we were elected to serve and helping them with the costs of living? That is what we are doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Catherine West Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend. I know how passionately he has campaigned on this issue. I also thank the judges in Hong Kong’s court for everything that they have been doing. Evidently, they have concluded that the constraints of the national security law make it impossible for them to continue to serve in the way they would want. I appreciate and understand their decision. It is vital that we all continue to make our points to the Chinese, as I did in my conversation with President Xi the other day, about freedom in Hong Kong and the treatment of the Uyghurs. We will continue to do that.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Q9. Gas and electric prices and bills are through the roof. The “just about managing” are no longer managing; they are coming to surgeries and queuing at food banks. Last week, the Government had a golden opportunity to tackle this. Why the devil did they not take that opportunity to do something to relieve the pressure on our constituents?

[The Prime Minister]

I understand the pressure that people are under, but the best thing we can do, rather than endlessly taxing more and borrowing more, is make sure that we support people through this tough time, which we are doing, and ensure that we have a strong and growing economy in which we get people into work. We are cutting the cost of energy, but we are also taking the long-term decisions that the Labour party failed to take to invest in our energy for the future.