Points of Order
Debate between Debbie Abrahams and John Bercow
Mr Speaker
We cannot have a replay of Question Time because people are disappointed with the answers they got or whatever, but if there is some material point of order to be articulated briefly, I will hear it.
Debbie Abrahams
Can you advise me, Mr Speaker? I think the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), might have inadvertently misled the House in her response to Question 3 on health inequalities when she stated that there was an increase in life expectancy. In fact, the latest figures show that life expectancy has been revised downwards. Public Health England has done an investigation into this trend. Can you advise me, Mr Speaker, on how she might correct the record?
Mr Speaker
What I would say to the hon. Lady is that every Member in this place is responsible for what he or she says in it. If a Minister believes that an error has been made from the Treasury Bench, it is of course incumbent upon that Minister to correct the record. We shall have to wait to see whether the Minister judges that that is necessary in this case. If it is and it happens, I dare say the hon. Lady will be at least partly satisfied. If it is not thought to be required and therefore does not happen, my advice to her is to persist, if she wishes, through the use of the Order Paper, repairing to the Table Office to table questions, and seeking opportunities to ventilate the matter further at appropriate junctures in the Chamber.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Debbie Abrahams and John Bercow(5 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
As always, I want to help colleagues with important questions, but we are up against it, so I will take the next question and possibly one after, but they have to be one-sentence questions, and nothing more—we do not have time.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Employment and Support Allowance: Underpayments
Debate between Debbie Abrahams and John Bercow(5 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Debbie Abrahams and John Bercow(5 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry to disappoint remaining colleagues, not for the first time and assuredly, I predict, not for the last. Demand massively outstrips supply, but time is our enemy and we must now move on.
Mr Speaker
The point of order will come after the urgent question. [Interruption.] I hope that it is not a point of argument or of advocacy, but a point of order requiring an authoritative ruling from the Chair. I am sure the hon. Lady is an honest seeker after truth.
Debbie Abrahams
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Although I was very disappointed with the dismissive response from the Secretary of State and Ministers to the UN rapporteur’s report on poverty in the UK, it was nothing compared with the remarks made by the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) on “The Andrew Marr Show” yesterday in response to a question regarding the report and the dire circumstances faced by Emily Lydon. Emily is brain damaged, following her mother contracting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease when she was pregnant. She is being forced to sell her home as a result of transferring on to universal credit. The hon. Gentleman absolutely dismissed her plight, and he brought shame not only on the Government, but on this House by the type of remarks he made. Have you had any indication that he will be making an apology to Emily and to this House? If not, how can I take this further?
Mr Speaker
The short answer is: no, I have received no such indication of any plan on the part of the Minister or any other Minister to make a statement on that matter. However, the hon. Lady, using the parliamentary guile she has nurtured over a period of years in this place, has registered, with some force, her—and possibly others’— concerns, to which I feel sure, through parliamentary means, she will return before long. If there are no further points of order flowing from questions, or purporting to flow from questions, we come now to the urgent question.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Debbie Abrahams and John Bercow(5 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
As in the health service under successive Governments of both colours, demand exceeds supply and we cannot carry on indefinitely, but let us hear a few more questions.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Last week, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health revealed that there has been an increase in infant mortality for the first time in 100 years. Four in every 1,000 babies will not reach their first birthday, compared with 2.8 in every 1,000 babies in Europe. This was warned against as an effect of austerity. What assessment has the Health Secretary done on the effects of next week’s Budget on child health and the longevity of our children?
Points of Order
Debate between Debbie Abrahams and John Bercow
Mr Speaker
Let me say a number of things to the right hon. Lady. First, I think that she has found her own salvation, because in raising her point of order she has aired her very specific and detailed concern about the alleged inaccuracy of what has been said, and what she has said by way of contradiction of those statements is now on the record and will, as she knows, be published in the Official Report tomorrow. It is also imaginable—I put it no more strongly—that the right hon. Lady might wish to communicate what she has said, and supply copies of the Official Report, to her constituents or to media outlets in her constituency, which is a perfectly legitimate and proper thing for her to do.
Secondly, I say to the right hon. Lady that this is not a matter for the Chair. Thirdly, I say to her that there are many mechanisms available to her to pursue the matter further. I believe that there is to be a debate in Westminster Hall on the relevant subject tomorrow; there will be business questions tomorrow; and, of course, matters that are judged to be urgent can be heard tomorrow. So I think that there is a long way to go, and I have a sense—knowing the right hon. Lady as well as I do—that we will be hearing from her regularly on this important subject in the period that lies ahead.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Yesterday the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions announced in a written statement that the personal independent assessment contracts of current assessors would be extended. Given that two thirds of assessments are overturned on appeal, and given the general public concern about personal independence payments as a whole, is there any advice that you can give to ensure that future announcements of this kind can be properly scrutinised by the House by means of an oral statement?
Mr Speaker
The question of whether either a change of policy or a controversial confirmation of existing policy warrants a written or an oral statement is first and foremost a matter for the Government; it is not a matter for the Chair. If, however, a matter is not treated in the form of an oral statement and a colleague, or maybe more than one colleague, reckons that to be unsatisfactory and thinks that the matter should be aired in the Chamber, there are means by which to increase the prospect of that happening. I think that the record over the years shows that I have not been shy in granting such opportunities.
I am not familiar with the full details of this matter, although I understand the thrust of what the hon. Lady has said, but it seems to me that—rather as with the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening)—there is still a considerable distance to travel, and there are plenty of opportunities for the hon. Lady to try to secure ministerial attention to the subject in the Chamber.
NHS Outsourcing and Privatisation
Debate between Debbie Abrahams and John Bercow(5 years, 12 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
I rise to speak as a former public health consultant and the chair of a primary care trust.
I want to start by recalling a conversation I had with Brenda Rustidge, a constituent of mine. She was born in the 1930s, and she described to me what it was like living in a pre-NHS world. Her father, who had just been demobbed after the war, was unemployed. She had a number of brothers and sisters, and they used to have to hide under the window when the doctor’s secretary called round on a Friday night to collect the money. She described the real fear and shame that she felt as a result. Of course, all that changed nearly 70 years ago when the NHS was created. Brenda and her family have thrived because of that.
This debate is not about scaremongering. It is about raising awareness of the real concerns not just of political parties but of clinicians, academics and experts across the country and across the world about what privatisation means. Okay, it is on a small scale, but in terms of spending it has increased from about 2.8% in 2006 to over 7.5%—over 10% if we include not just private providers but all non-NHS providers.
I want to reflect on a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Dr Williams): we have within the NHS a system that provides universal, comprehensive and free healthcare. That is something we should be very, very proud of. We are seeing that being eroded. For example, private providers of knee and hip replacements exclude certain people. They do not want the complex cases because they are too time-consuming and costly. I take issue with the point that the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) made, because it does entirely matter who provides the care that we get. There is a slow and steady erosion of the NHS as the sole provider.
In 2014, I conducted an inquiry into the international evidence on the effect of privatisation, marketisation and competition across different health systems. We commissioned a review of reviews, which is the strongest type of evidence, on the impact on health services, particularly looking at equity and quality. It was submitted to peer reviews and accepted in peer-reviewed journals subsequently, and it showed clearly and conclusively that health equity worsens in terms of not only access to healthcare but health outcomes.
It also revealed that there is no compelling evidence that competition, privatisation or marketisation improves healthcare quality. In fact, there is some evidence that it actually impedes quality, increasing hospitalisation rates and mortality rates. Of course, that was the key argument and the sole reason that the Government put forward for the Health and Social Care Act 2012.
The report found a whole host of other issues. I am sure that Members will go to my website to read about that. The transactional cost was one example—
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Debbie Abrahams and John Bercow(6 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
I understand the rhetorical significance of the Secretary of State’s point, but I must exhort the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) to stick to her last. That is to say, this is not the occasion upon which she is invited to expatiate on the matter. She may find other opportunities if she is so inclined, but she should stick to the line of questioning that is relevant to the questioning of a Government Minister.
Debbie Abrahams
I will indeed do just that, Mr Speaker, especially as there was absolutely no answer to my original question. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary working people including my constituent, Philip Wild, have lost half their retirement income because of the Government’s failure to tackle pensions governance—from Carillion to Capita, and BHS to the British Steel Pension Scheme. How many more pensions scandals does the Secretary of State need to see before she introduces the robust regulatory oversight needed to protect people’s pensions for the future?
Mr Speaker
Order. I am advised that we have had 23 topical questions, and we must now move on. I am sorry to disappoint colleagues who have waited. I try to extend the envelope a bit, but the time comes when we must move on.
Mr Speaker
I hope it is a genuine point of order, as opposed to a point of irascibility.
Debbie Abrahams
Further to the comments made by the Secretary of State during oral questions, Mr Speaker, I seek your guidance on how I can place my response on the record. I agree it is important for everyone to use data responsibly and to provide the sources and contexts of those data, but I will take no lessons from this Secretary of State or her cohort, who accuse us of scaremongering as a way to distract from the reality of their Government’s cuts. We know what happened last time they accused Opposition Members of scare- mongering about the impact of cuts and universal credit: the Government introduced £1.5 billion of measures. Our concerns were accurate and well founded, and the Child Poverty Action Group found that cuts to universal credit will force 1 million more children into poverty.
Mr Speaker
The shadow Secretary of State has found her own salvation. She asks me, I think rhetorically, how she can put her thoughts on the record, and she knows perfectly well that she has just done so through the device of a purported—I use the term advisedly—point of order. One day somebody will do an academic analysis. I have not done so myself, but, in my experience in the House, at least 90% of points of order are bogus. The hon. Lady has made her point.
Points of Order
Debate between Debbie Abrahams and John Bercow(6 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Speaker
Order. I will come to the hon. Lady first and then I will come to the hon. Gentleman.
Debbie Abrahams
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It was reported in the media this morning, but not to this House, that the Government are to cut the controversial and damaging six-week wait for universal credit payments, as we have repeatedly called for. Given the clearly expressed will of the House to pause universal credit—the vote was carried by 299 votes to nil—and the subsequent emergency debate on the Government’s failure to respond to that decision, I seek your guidance on whether you have received any indication that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions plans to make a statement in the House on this extremely important issue. Is it not an affront to both sides of the House and to the people we represent that these important policy issues are being announced in the media, not in a statement to the House?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order, and for her characteristic courtesy in giving me advance notice of her intention to raise it.
There are two points. First, policy announcements, particularly when a change is involved, should first be made to the House. Secondly, my understanding is that there is a debate tomorrow in the Chamber that is being led by, or taking place under the auspices of, the Chair of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions. That debate will be an obvious and perfectly proper platform for an exchanges of ideas, and indeed for any announcement that the Government might have to make.
If there is an announcement to make, and I do not know whether there is, it should be made in the Chamber; it should not be briefed out to the media first. I very much hope that that has not happened, and it should not happen. I imagine that the hon. Lady or a member of her team will be present for tomorrow’s debate—in all likelihood she will be present—and I trust that she will make her views on that point and others with her characteristic force.
Universal Credit Roll-out
Debate between Debbie Abrahams and John Bercow(6 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Debbie Abrahams
I start by thanking everyone who has spoken in this debate. I cannot express how disappointed I am that the Government do not seem to have heard the concerns raised by our constituents, charities and so many others, including some of their own Members, and how disappointed I am that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions did not come to the House today. What message does that send? It is profoundly disrespectful to this House and to the people we represent. I sincerely hope that we have not reached a constitutional impasse, as the Government seem to be refusing to act on the will of the House as expressed in last week’s vote.
This important constitutional debate is, however, little relief for those living in areas about to be placed under universal credit full service. They face the debt arrears and possible eviction that have occurred elsewhere. In my opening remarks, I made clear the areas on which Labour wishes to see improvement from the Government. Those areas fall under three broad headings: programme design flaws; reversing cuts to funding; and implementation failures. Our criticisms have been confirmed time and again by hon. Members throughout this emergency debate and last week.
What we have here is a rare case in which Members of all parties are agreed on the fundamental principles at stake, and we are willing to work together to ensure that universal credit is a success and supports people into work without fear of a loss of income. The Prime Minister stood on the steps of 10 Downing Street and told the nation that she would help those struggling to get by, that she would build a country for everyone. More than a year has passed now, and no conceivable action has been taken to alleviate the miserable effects of seven years of failing austerity upon those on the lowest incomes.
The House’s view is clear: the Government must act. Should they fail to do so, we will keep holding them to account. We will keep fighting on this vital issue, standing up for the 7 million people who will be affected, until change has been realised and we have built social security that is fit for purpose and is there for all of us in our time of need.
Mr Speaker
The Question is as on the Order Paper. I will say it again—[Interruption.] Order. Some people seem to need help. [Interruption.] Order. I do not need harrumphing from a sedentary position from a junior Whip, the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mrs Wheeler). It does not avail her, and it does not assist the service of the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the Government’s response to the decision of the House on pausing the Universal Credit full service roll-out.
Universal Credit Roll-out
Debate between Debbie Abrahams and John Bercow
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
I rise to propose that the House should debate the specific and important matter of universal credit roll-out.
May I thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing this important application, which arises, as you know, after a decisive vote on a motion to pause universal credit roll-out. It was supported by this House last week by 299 votes to zero.
That was the second such Government defeat on an Opposition day motion in 40 years. Since that debate last week we have heard nothing from the Government, despite the fact that, after the last time this happened, the Government made a statement within three and a half hours.
Worse still, in business questions on the day after the Government’s resounding defeat, the Leader of the House used a change to Government policy on the phone lines for universal credit, which was made before the vote last week, as a justification for refusing to inform the House on when we might expect a further statement on this matter.
I thank my right hon. and hon. Friends who have pressed the Government for a statement as well as the hon. Members for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) for their remarks on the constitutional issues to which the lack of a statement exposes the Government.
One of the few formal rights of Opposition parties is to decide the topic and motion for debate on 20 sitting days. All previous Governments have recognised that the failure to carry the House against an Opposition motion is a serious rebuke to the Government’s policy on an issue and has treated that accordingly. That is even more important when the House has spoken on an issue that could dramatically affect the lives of up to 7 million people, who will soon be subject to the flawed universal credit programme. I thank you once again, Mr Speaker, for considering this application.
Mr Speaker
I have listened carefully to the hon. Lady’s application, and I am satisfied that the matter raised is proper to be discussed under Standing Order No. 24. Has the hon. Lady the leave of the House?
Application agreed to (not fewer than 40 Members standing in support).
Universal Credit Roll-out
Debate between Debbie Abrahams and John Bercow(6 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The last time that the Leader of the Opposition spoke on this issue, he made a series of entirely unsubstantiated factual claims about housing in Gloucester. Are these further unsubstantiated claims?
Mr Speaker
Order. That is not a point of order and it is an abuse of our proceedings. I strongly counsel the hon. Gentleman not to make the same foolish mistake again.
Debbie Abrahams
I wonder how that intervention will be seen by those people affected by these issues. Some 900,000 working-age adults will be pushed into poverty, while 900,000 children and 800,000 adults will be living in severe poverty.
Earlier, I mentioned the design issues that are affecting disabled people. This week, I heard from someone who has lost nearly £80 a week—a week—because of their transfer to universal credit after they moved house, ending their ESA claim. When UC was first launched, the Government said they wanted to
“simplify the current complex rules which have been prone to error and complex and confusing for disabled people”
and to replace
“seven different premiums with a simpler, two-tier system that focuses support on the most severely disabled people who are least able to work”.
However, subsequent social security changes, particularly the abolition of the UC limited-capability-for-work element from April 2017, have meant that, instead of a net gain, it is likely that there will be a net reduction of support for people with health conditions and disabilities.
Under this Government, we are seeing unprecedented cuts in support to disabled people, with the consequence that more and more disabled people are living in poverty. The number currently stands at more than 4.2 million; this cannot go on. This is exactly what the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities said is causing a “human catastrophe”.
Debbie Abrahams
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a major defeat for the Government on their flagship social security programme. Conservative Whips and the Prime Minister have spent the day strong-arming Conservative MPs to vote against a pause in the roll-out of universal credit, while the Secretary of State has retreated on various aspects of his universal credit policy in a panicked attempt to appease Tory MPs who know that the policy is not fit for purpose.
Yet again, the Prime Minister and the Tories cannot command a majority in the House of Commons. The Prime Minister is in office but not in power. Mr Speaker, have you had an indication from the Prime Minister or the Secretary of State that they intend to come to the House and clarify how they will ensure that the Government implement the clearly expressed will of the House to pause the roll-out of universal credit?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order. The short answer is that I have received no indication as yet that any Minister intends to come to the House to make a statement on that matter, although it is of course open to colleagues to request such.
I should say the following in these relatively unusual—not unprecedented, but relatively unusual—circumstances. There is nothing disorderly about a recorded vote of the House in which there are no Members recorded as voting no. Members who shout “No” when the question is first put must not vote aye, but they are not and cannot be obliged to vote no. As Standing Order No. 39 states:
“A Member is not obliged to vote.”
A Division requires two Tellers on either side and that was the case.
I should add as follows. A resolution of the House of Commons is just that: an expression of the view of the nation’s elected representatives in the House of Commons. This is important and Members need to hear this part of what I have to say. Constitutionally, from my own experience but based also on procedural advice, and as clearly as what I said a few moments ago, the House cannot direct Ministers. It is for Ministers in the Government to decide how to respond to the clearly expressed view of the House. I feel confident that they will do so, bearing in mind the mood of the House expressed in the urgent debate, which I allowed just two weeks ago, on the need for Government respect for the proceedings of the House.
Point of Order
Debate between Debbie Abrahams and John Bercow(6 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Further to the earlier remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), I seek your advice on how to elicit a response from the Government on the question of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its report of 31 August. I wrote to the Secretary of State on 5 September, calling on him to come to this House to debate the UN report, but to date have not received any response from him. Obviously, the House rises tomorrow and I am again concerned that the Government have not been held to account on this very important issue. As you know from the earlier remarks, Mr Speaker, the UN describes this as “a human catastrophe”. Have the Government given you any indication as to when they might report to the House? May I also seek your guidance on how to ensure that this House is the first place to hear of how the Government intend to take forward the Committee’s detailed recommendations?
Mr Speaker
I am most grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order. The short answer to her particular inquiry is that I have received no indication from any Minister of an intention to make a statement on this matter. However, I note what the hon. Lady has told me, and I am conscious of, and sensitive to, the fact that the House will cease to sit tomorrow for the period of the conference recess, and therefore I understand the rationale behind the hon. Lady raising the matter with some sense of urgency today. My response to her is to say, first, that an attempt could usefully be made at business questions tomorrow to elicit from the Government their thinking as to whether, and, if so, when, they intend to broach this matter in the House. My secondary suggestion is that if that does not bear fruit, it is open to the hon. Lady as soon as we return from the conference recess to seek to raise the matter, and if she thinks she can justify doing so, to do so on the basis that it is by then demonstrably urgent.
Points of Order
Debate between Debbie Abrahams and John Bercow(6 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. The short answer is that nothing disorderly has taken place. The timing of Government statements and the release of Government reports are matters for Ministers, not the Chair. However, if there is a completed report and if the hon. Lady and others are keen to know its contents and are not aware of any particularly compelling reason why it cannot be published sooner rather than later, it is open to the hon. Lady to seek to cajole or entice an appropriate Minister to come to the House in the remaining days before we rise for the summer recess. I cannot commit that that will happen, but I have this keen sense that the hon. Lady will return to the issue and probably seek some sort of adjudication from me in the days ahead.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During Prime Minister’s questions, the First Secretary of State claimed that people with mental health conditions are more likely to be supported by the personal independence payment than the disability living allowance. The mental health charity Mind has made it absolutely clear that 55% of people with mental health conditions transferring from DLA to PIP have no award or a reduced award. I would be grateful if you could advise me on how we can have the record corrected.
Mr Speaker
It is fair to say that the hon. Lady has found her own salvation, in that she has put her thought on the record in characteristically robust, but thankfully pithy, form, and that will now form part of the Official Report. I am well aware—I would be failing in my duty if I were not—that she has strong views on this matter, and that those views differ markedly from those of the First Secretary of State. I think it is fair to say that this is properly a matter for debate, but we shall leave it there, albeit only for today.
If there are no further points of order, we come to the general debate on the Grenfell Tower fire inquiry, and I am looking to the First Secretary of State to open the debate at his second outing at the Dispatch Box today.
Points of Order
Debate between Debbie Abrahams and John Bercow
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your guidance on how we might compel the Government to respond to the Cridland review on the increase in the state pension age. You will be aware that the Government are already in breach of their own Pensions Act 2014. They should have reported on 7 May and failed to do so. Given the real mess that they made of the increase in the state pension age of women—the so-called WASPI women—this needs to be dealt with as a matter of urgency. Can you inform me of any information that you have about when the Government might be reporting on this, or offer some guidance on how we might encourage them to do so?
Mr Speaker
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order, but I am sorry that I am not able to provide her with satisfaction at this juncture. I have not been advised of any intention on the part of a Minister to make a statement on that matter. If it were imminent, I should rather expect, in the ordinary course of events and on the basis of past evidence, to have been so notified. However, the hon. Lady has drawn attention to her very real concern about this matter, of which I hope that Members on the Treasury Bench will have taken account.