The Growth Plan

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Friday 23rd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Absolutely. We fully intend—while I am in the Treasury, certainly—to talk to Departments to deliver the vision that I know my hon. Friend is driving in his constituency.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Newcastle paid a very heavy price for Conservative austerity economics: wages cut, public services slashed, growth stifled, businesses closed, good jobs lost. We were told that there was no money to invest in north-east regional economic growth. Now the Chancellor is borrowing billions to gamble on tax cuts for the rich and boosting oil companies’ profits—and working people are still expected to foot the bill. Will he apologise to my constituents for making them poorer and expecting them to pay for it?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The tax cuts that I have announced affect everybody who pays tax, and they will affect many, many people in the hon. Lady’s constituency. I am very pleased that, through levelling up, we are now focused on driving growth right across our country, particularly with investment zones. I look forward to the investments there.

Delivery of Public Services

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr McFadden]

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.

As I have said, the number of cases grew by 23% to over 40,000 before the pandemic, and that number now stands at 57,000. For magistrates courts, the number is 364,000. The typical wait for a case of robbery to come to court is two years, and for rape it is often three years. No wonder that in a recent sexual offences case that had been delayed for more than three years the presiding judge, Patrick Thompson, branded the delays “absolutely farcical” and said:

“How this is justice is beyond me.”

He is not alone in his judgment. These delays leave victims without redress and without justice and with the crime that they have suffered hanging over them. They are not just a symptom of the pandemic: we must remember that in the year before the pandemic the number of cases awaiting trial had grown by 23%.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making excellent points. Does he agree that the excessive delays in the justice system, in particular for rape, have a huge mental health impact on the victims yet our mental health system is also failing to respond quickly to those needs?

[Mr McFadden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As she outlines, these backlogs have real and important human effects; they are not just numbers on a page.

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[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)]

I hasten to say that we very much remain in office, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am pleased to respond for the Government to this debate. I begin by saying, as I have on many occasions, that we understand the impact of global inflationary pressures on the cost of living. We have already acted in many different ways to ease those pressures, and we will continue to do so; we are acting, as we see it, reasonably and responsibly to help UK households get through this. The reality is that we are experiencing a perfect storm of international supply shocks. High global energy and commodity prices, together with problems affecting international supply chains in the wake of the pandemic, have pushed up prices around the world, and consumers and businesses are feeling the pinch.

[Chi Onwurah]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Clarke]

Gosh, it is early for an intervention, but why not?

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the Chief Secretary for giving way. Is it his view that 10 years of austerity economics, which slashed the capacity of both central and local government to spend, left our Government’s public services with the resilience to meet the demands of the covid crisis, and the cost of living and inflation crisis?

[Mr Clarke]

I take the view that 10 years of responsible government made sure that this Government had the financial resources available to unleash £400 billion of support for the UK economy in response to the pandemic.

On top of the issues with supply chains, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has significantly worsened the situation. I know that the House is united in the view that we should stay the course with Ukraine and stand up for freedom and democracy there in the face of this barbaric onslaught, but that comes at a cost. Domestic factors have also started to play more of a role. For example, although our very low rate of unemployment is welcome and good in its own right, that contributes to the relatively high rate of inflation.

Rising inflation poses a challenge for the public finances, as it does for family budgets. As in many other countries, high inflation is acting as a curb on growth. The good news, which I will come to, is that the Government have the tools and the determination to tackle inflation and boost growth—namely, an independent monetary policy, a responsible fiscal approach and a focus on supply-side reform.

Downing Street Parties: Police Investigation

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

I will gladly send the Prime Minister that message. In fact, my hon. Friend’s message is very similar to those that the Prime Minister is hearing from colleagues around the House, and that is the focus that matters.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Does the Minister really think that it is in the interests of our country—our country, not the Prime Minister—that the Prime Minister remains at the helm, giving public health advice to the people of Newcastle and security reassurances to the people of Ukraine, while mired in scandal and facing criminal investigations?

[Michael Ellis]

I do, passionately. I think that the Prime Minister is the best leader for this country, and he would bring to shame any leader that the Labour party might put forward for this country. The Prime Minister knows what matters and focuses on the matters that are important to the British people. This investigation is also important, but it is being conducted by the Cabinet Office and the Metropolitan police. We recognise the upset that has been caused by these allegations, which are being properly investigated.

Downing Street Garden Event

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

What the Prime Minister will have heard, and what I have heard, is that Ruby lived by the motto “Live kindly, live loudly”. To lose such a young life at such a tragic age in such appalling circumstances is a sorrow that those who loved her will never be able to get over. There is nothing that I can say that will ameliorate that. What I can say is that both the Prime Minister and I—and the entire Government—would offer our condolences for their loss and say that, in the short life that Ruby lived, she made people around her happy and she will be remembered throughout the lives of her family and friends.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that every moment that goes by that the Government of the United Kingdom are unable to say where the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was on 20 May makes the Government more and more of a laughing stock and undermines the critical public health messages on which so many lives depend? Will he apologise to the heroes of the NHS, such as those at Newcastle hospitals trust, who spent hours and hours in full personal protective equipment, working exhausting and often traumatic shifts and yet managed to keep to lockdown rules?

[Michael Ellis]

The Prime Minister has personally thanked all of those who have worked to protect people during this pandemic and will continue to do so. He has visited hospitals, spoken to medical professionals—doctors, nurses, scientists—and to those directly involved and has repeatedly thanked them. He feels that thankfulness from the bottom of his heart. He himself was served at St Thomas’s Hospital by medical professionals who helped to save his life when he was admitted to intensive care. He knows this at first hand.

Covid-19: Government Support for Business

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

We will continue to engage with the sector. I just draw the hon. Lady’s attention to the £2 billion culture recovery fund; the emergency resources support fund, which gives up to £3 million of support to charities and £1 million to commercial entities in that sector; and the £800 million to the live events reinsurance scheme. However, we will continue to engage across different sectors of the economy.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Newcastle has a fantastic night-time economy and the Chancellor should visit, as it is a lot closer than California. Those businesses will be seeing a real reduction in footfall and trade, as will their suppliers directly, because of the omicron variant. What support is the Minister offering to them directly as a result of the omicron variant?

[John Glen]

As I mentioned, there is outstanding support from the local additional restrictions grant, which local authorities have available. I would be happy to hear from the hon. Lady where Newcastle’s local authority is on the disbursal of that grant. As I said, we are meeting representatives from across the economy this afternoon and we will look carefully at what can be done.

Budget: Pre-announcement of Provisions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

No, I do not accept the premise of the hon. Gentleman’s point. We remain committed to our ambitious target of the national living wage reaching two thirds of median earnings by the end of the Parliament and expanding it to include workers over the age of 21. We have done an awful lot to help with living standards—doubling the personal tax threshold, doubling free childcare, expanding free school meals for all five to seven-year-olds, and introducing the new household support fund and the energy price cap—and further measures will be announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor tomorrow.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I suppose the attraction of delivering a Budget by press release is that it bypasses this House, so when the Government announce billions of pounds to level up transport in the north, I do not get to say that there is nothing in that for Newcastle, where extortionate bus fares are part of the cost of living crisis that my constituents are facing; and when the Minister says that the minimum wage is going up, I do not get to point out that universal credit recipients in Newcastle will still be £800 a year worse off. Why does he think that the Government should not be accountable to the people of Newcastle upon Tyne Central?

[Mr Clarke]

I absolutely do believe that we should be accountable to the people of Newcastle upon Tyne Central. That is why I am here. It is why there will be a five-day Budget debate over the course of the days ahead. It is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will appear in front of a Select Committee. On the hon. Lady’s point about transport settlements, we need to unlock devolution in north-east England. My No. 1 ask of the Labour authorities in that part of the world would be to make sure that they get their act together and unlock a devolution settlement.

Ministerial Code/Register of Ministers’ Interests

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The British public want us to focus on the issues that matter to them. They want us to recover quickly, both economically and in dealing with the backlog of issues we have in education and healthcare. They want us to get on and deliver. What they do not want is this Punch and Judy politics. They are tired of that. They want some delivery. They want some competence. That is why they are electing Conservatives across the country.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab) [V]]

The Government face a slew of allegations over contracts for mates, lobbying, conflicts of interest and influence. Does the Minister think now is the time to exempt a new Government agency, the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, with £800 million of public money from existing procurement and freedom of information rules? When faced with sleaze, surely the response is to stop the sleaze, not the scrutiny?

[Penny Mordaunt]

Sadly, again more smear. It seems that anyone who was awarded a contract for PPE or anything else is a Tory mate, even when they turn out to be a Labour party donor.

Covid-19: Disparate Impact

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

Yes, absolutely; it has to be evidence-led. Everything that we are doing in the Equality Hub is evidence-led. We have a real focus on data, to ensure that we base our decisions on what is actually happening and do not take them for reasons of politics or other things that are not science-based. I completely agree with my hon. Friend; I do not think there was anything to disagree with in what he said.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

When, in Tuesday’s Black History Month debate, I said I was angry that six months into this pandemic all we seem to know is that black and ethnic minority people are two to three times more likely to die from covid, but not why, the Minister intervened on me and said that she would give me the answers today. I am sorry, but she has not. She seems to be saying that there is no link with ethnicity but it is up to individuals to protect themselves. The report is quite clear in that it mentions factors such as socioeconomic background, but it does not say whether those factors are causes or correlations. So I ask her again: when will we have the data-based evidence as to the causes of this heightened risk? Specifically, are the Government using artificial intelligence techniques to correlate the different factors so that we know why this is happening in our black communities?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I disagree with the hon. Lady. I think we have answered the question. Saying that something is a factor means it is having an effect—it is part of the reason. She says—[Interruption.] It does mean that. She asks for the causes of covid. What is causing the disease is people catching it; it is a contagious disease. This is not rocket science. What we are explaining is why certain groups are disproportionately impacted. We have explained that it is household size, it is population density, it is geographic factors, it is socioeconomic factors—all those things are having an effect. I know where the hon. Lady is getting to, but we have also explained that for some groups, such as Bangladeshi women and white women, when we take out comorbidities, the disparity is completely gone. I am sorry that the report does not give her the answer that she is looking for, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) rightly said, we are basing it on the science, not politics.

Black History Month

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

George Floyd is murdered agonisingly over nine long minutes in Minneapolis, and in Newcastle 5,000 people of all ages, races and backgrounds join an online protest seeking real change. Racism is global, and our response must be.

Let me start by saying why Black History Month matters so much to me personally. I grew up in Newcastle in the ’70s. I went to fantastic local schools, where I learned the history of our great region, and I was inspired by local heroes such as Stephenson and Parsons to become an engineer, but I learned nothing of black history. I would have been hard put to name a dozen famous black people outside music or sports. My knowledge of black achievement was limited to those two sectors and a few walk-on parts in the great histories of nations, generally as hapless victims or stereotypical villains.

I remember as a child being inspired by the words of Martin Luther King, but I did not know that he had come to Newcastle University, that it was the only non-American university to honour him in his lifetime and that he made an amazing speech accepting that honour—a call to arms and international solidarity in the fight against racism. That speech is online and remains relevant today. I did not know that Frederick Douglass, the American campaigner and abolitionist and the most famous black person of his time, lived and lectured in Newcastle in the 1840s. Indeed, it is sad to think that, given the lack of diversity in academia now, Newcastle may have had a higher proportion of BAME lecturers then than it does today. I never learned that African soldiers were garrisoned on Hadrian’s wall. I want in particular to thank historian and fellow Geordie David Olusoga for celebrating the long history of black Britain, often in the face of virulent racism.

That is why Black History Month matters. Yes, there is justice in telling the stories of those whom history has overlooked; there is also power in sharing the diversity of achievement that is our history. My own achievement of being Newcastle’s first black MP is put into context; I am not an outlier, but I stand on the shoulders of the many who go before me in our shared past. So yes, I want black history taught in our schools. I want young girls and boys of each and every ethnicity to learn British history, and I want them to know that Geordie Africanus has a long and exciting history and future in our region.

The stories of black lives now need to be celebrated. Let me give just one example. My constituent Miriam Mafemba came to England 21 years ago from Zimbabwe, where she faced harassment because of her trade union activism. Here, she studied nursing and now works on the frontline against covid. As an active Unison member, she fights for better conditions for all, seeking to address the snowy white peaks that unfortunately remain in our beloved NHS. Miriam, and all those fighting to improve working lives, represents the future of Newcastle.

I praise the work of trade unions such as Unison and all who seek to improve the working conditions of their black members. When Martin Luther King was assassinated, he was in Memphis supporting American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union sanitation workers in their struggle to be recognised as key workers. Their sign was “I am a man” because they were always called “boy”. We may not be called “boy” now, but racism in the workplace remains a barrier to the success of so many. Explicit racial discrimination may be illegal, but implicit stereotyping, exclusion and the burden of being the only black person in the room forms the ceiling of achievement for so many.

The impact of workplace discrimination has been highlighted by the pandemic. Covid feeds on inequality, but I am angry that six months into this pandemic, all we seem to know is that black and minority ethnic people are two to three times more likely to die, not why, where or when. Does the Government Equalities Office have no data analysts?

[Kemi Badenoch]

It is interesting that the hon. Lady raises that point. She may not be aware that I have been looking at that issue since June, and I will give an oral statement on Thursday that will answer many of those questions.

[Chi Onwurah]

I look forward greatly to that statement. Perhaps then the Minister will tell me whether it is true, as I have been told, that the number of BAME women with covid in Newcastle hospitals is eight times that of white women with covid.

I praise the impact of Black History Month and what it does in telling our shared history, but it needs to do more. How do we eradicate racism? I was set that challenge by young people during a Black History Month event recently, and I was flummoxed. I realised that I do not spend enough time imagining the end of racism, but we should. Yes, it will take a race equality strategy, and real action and legislation, but there is more that we can all do as individuals. As someone who was on the national executive of the anti-apartheid movement for many years, I often think about why that international movement was so successful. Certainly, we protested in huge numbers all over the world—and certainly we had the best music—but we also made organisations, companies, politicians and countries change. We boycotted, we voted, we made apartheid South Africa a pariah state. We have to do the same thing for racism. We have to make it unacceptable. Do not buy its products, do not vote for its advocates, do not fund its perpetrators and do not click on its content—and, yes, I mean Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and all the social media platforms whose business model is predicated on promoting the extremes.

I look forward to a day when parents will explain racism to their children in the same way that they now explain hanging, drawing and quartering: as a barbaric practice of our past. Black voices will be celebrated in the story of the ending of racism. For too long, history has been written by the victors. We want a world in which success is open to all, and Black History Month can help to achieve that by remembering all our history in colour and making racism history.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to support self-employed people affected by the covid-19 outbreak.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

What assessment he has made of the financial effect of the covid-19 outbreak on people who were not eligible for either the coronavirus job retention scheme or the self-employment income support scheme; and if he will make a statement.

[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)]

What assessment he has made of the financial effect of the covid-19 outbreak on people who were not eligible for either the coronavirus job retention scheme or the self-employment income support scheme; and if he will make a statement.

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[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend raises an important point, and we recognise the vital role that alternative lenders can play in providing finance to SMEs. We continue to work with them and the sector to see what more we can do. As he recognises, the bounce back loan scheme has proved enormously successful, and so far we have accredited 28 bounce back lenders, who have provided loans to more than 1 million businesses. In the first instance, I urge businesses in my hon. Friend’s constituency to look online at one of those 28 lenders, and see whether they can provide the loans that that business requires.

[Chi Onwurah]

The Chancellor, and all of us whose salaries have been paid throughout the pandemic, may find it difficult to grasp the deep sense of unfairness felt by those who, through no fault of their own, are entirely excluded from any support. Perhaps they followed their entrepreneurial dream and left a good job to start their own business, as encouraged to do by this Government, but did not file their tax returns in time. Perhaps they have an event business that has been left to fend for itself without any events. There are thousands of such people in my constituency alone. How can the Chancellor expect the country to come together to fight the virus when so many have been excluded from all support?