Business of the House

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I think that my hon. Friend is seeking to draw me into areas related to privilege which are very much above my pay grade, but you, Mr Speaker, will have heard what he has suggested. I have written to him in the last day or so, suggesting other ways in which he might pursue his concerns.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

A response from the Government to a consultation on the use of body image scanners at airports is overdue. Will the Leader of the House urge his colleague the Secretary of State for Transport to publish a response as soon as possible, so that concerns about the appropriate balance between the protection of privacy and dignity on one hand and security on the other can be addressed?

[Sir George Young]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point. At its heart is the balance between security and dignity to which she has referred. Transport questions took place earlier today, so the opportunity may not occur again for three or four weeks, but in the meantime I will write to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport and see whether he can shed some light on when the outcome of the consultation will be known.

Summer Adjournment

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I start by paying tribute to the maiden speakers this afternoon: the hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) and my hon. Friends the Members for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) and for Livingston (Graeme Morrice). I have a particular affection for Livingston because my father was head teacher of one of the very first primary schools there in the mid-1960s.

In my maiden speech I spoke about my constituency, its people, their ambitions for their families and their care for their community, and the dignity of work. Stretford and Urmston is not the most deprived of constituencies in the country. We do not have the highest levels of unemployment or the worst poverty rates, but many families are very worried about the future and their local community. My constituency sits in the northern part of the borough of Trafford, Conservative-controlled since 2004. In that time my constituents have come to feel that they are very much the poor relations, as they watch funds flow to the leafier, more prosperous south of the borough. One trivial but telling example is that in January, when we suffered the heavy snowfalls, it did not escape notice that the council’s snowplough was seen almost immediately in Hale, in the south of the borough, whereas in Stretford and Urmston we waited weeks. In fact we never saw the snowplough at all; we had to wait for the thaw.

My constituency also loses out in much more serious ways. Unemployment is twice the level in the wealthier next-door constituency of Altrincham and Sale West. Inequalities in health mean a difference in male life expectancy of 11 years between the poorest wards in my constituency and the richest in the south. Investment in our town centres, parks and youth facilities has all too often seen my constituency at the back of the queue.

Last week Trafford metropolitan borough council announced cuts of £70 million in public spending over the next few years. It made that announcement at a press conference: it took a leaf out of Ministers’ books, because councillors were not the first to hear. We do not have all the details of the cuts, but we already know that 81 more jobs will be lost this year and an elderly people’s home will close, and that social care, libraries, education, play facilities and parks are all likely to be hit.

That is the reality of spending cuts. It is no use seeking to suggest that they are the result of local decisions alone, because the £6 billion of Ministers’ so-called efficiency savings will have a direct effect on education and youth facilities in my constituency, on community cohesion programmes and on programmes to address health and the quality of life. It is Ministers who have frozen the playbuilder scheme in my constituency. Last week I asked the Leader of the House about that, and he said that it was a local decision, but I have since learned that it was an instruction from the Department for Education. Do not tell me that Labour had put in place spending plans that could not be afforded, because in Trafford a choice is being made about what to spend money on, and to cut front-line services first. Trafford council has still been able to find the money for consultancies and senior director posts, and to refurbish the town hall.

It is the public services on which my constituents rely—services that are popular, accessible and good quality—that face the first of the threats. Those are the services that bind society more closely together, and legitimise the right to social support. Now, under the guise of the big society, we see many of them picked apart. I am all in favour of people acting together to improve and strengthen their communities, and we have many examples of that in my constituency, from Positive Partington to Trafford peace week, the 60-plus action group, the companions and carers lunch club, and the Urmston partnership. Those and many other groups do tremendous work in the community. They enrich people’s lives. But let us be absolutely honest: they can in no way replace the public infrastructure. Their role is not, and should not be, the strategy or stewardship of public resources, or securing universal access. For that we need the state. That role has been fulfilled by Government offices for the regions, primary care trusts and local authorities—all now being airbrushed out, or seeing their roles minimised as part of the Government’s local delivery plans.

Volunteers do great work in our community, but they volunteer: they do what they want, when they can. That is why a local police inspector told me the other day that although special constables make a great contribution, they can in no way replace police community support officers. We cannot insist on where or when specials work, and we cannot secure a critical police presence from special constables at the visible policing level that the public want and expect.

Let us think about relying on volunteers to run our local library or swimming baths. Those roles require skilled, qualified and paid staff, guaranteed to maintain minimum standards of access, quality and safety. Let us also consider the Sure Start centres that support young families, or the carer who goes every evening to help an older person to get to bed. Those are core services that cannot be left to the chance of voluntary provision, yet I fear that the direction of the big society will be a cover for reducing investment, and that the result will be patchy unreliable provision.

I want Ministers to come to the House and tell us what the big society really means for public service quality, public sector employees, the voluntary and community sectors, communities, individuals and families. I want for every one of my constituents a guarantee that open, accessible and quality provision will be maintained in the services on which they rely. I want assurances for my local voluntary sector that it is not expected to become a cheap substitute for proper public provision. And I want to hear from Ministers, from the Prime Minister downwards, that the big society will be truly fair to us all.

Business of the House

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

There will be Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions on 9 September and an opportunity next Tuesday for my hon. Friend to share his concerns with the House.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Yesterday in my constituency, we learned that a number of Playbuilder schemes in children’s parks are to be cancelled. We are not sure whether that is because the funding has been removed entirely or whether it is merely because of the removal of ring-fencing. Will the Leader of the House encourage ministerial colleagues who make statements about financial plans to ensure that the House is fully informed about those plans’ impact on children, who are most deserving of our protection?

[Sir George Young]

It is important that local authorities should know in advance what their budgets are likely to be. However, how they spend their budgets and balance their responsibilities for children with other responsibilities is essentially a matter for local government rather than central Government.

Information for Backbenchers on Statements

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this debate tonight and to give the perspective of a new Member of the House who has spent the past 11 weeks trying to make sense of what has been going on. I am tremendously grateful—I know that I speak for other new Members—for the welcome that we have had from right hon. and hon. Members and from the staff of the House. However, I regret to say that that welcome is not sufficient to enable us as new Members to feel that we can do the job effectively, as our constituents expect us to from day one. As someone who knew a bit about the House before I was elected to represent the constituency that I now have the privilege to represent, I have found it difficult to navigate Parliament geographically and procedurally. I welcome this debate, not just in its own narrow terms but as the means to open up a discussion about a modern and well-informed Parliament.

All this matters so much not because of some abstract debate about the importance of the Commons, notions of procedure or ideas of self-importance—to which many of us are prone, I guess—but because this Government, in common with preceding Governments, are proposing to make massive changes to our welfare state that will have a significant impact on the lives of my constituents. Such changes to our system of social support must be fully debated with the benefit of the best information and understanding.

Already, in only a few weeks, the introduction of new legislation such as the Academies Bill and the launch of the White Paper on the national health service have revealed the scale of the changes that I have described, as will the future proposals on welfare reform and pensions reform. They are not theoretical or empty political gestures of change but fundamental changes to the quality of my constituents’ lives.

I hope that the motion will open up a debate about how we can do government better and more effectively. For me, that means that the new politics require a modern Parliament. Many of the issues that hon. Members have touched on would help us to become that more modern Parliament. Many of the parliamentary instruments and devices that we are encouraged to use are, from the point of view of the newcomer at least, opaque and unwieldy at best. My concern is that we should be well informed, that matters should be well scrutinised and that we should have time to consider properly the absolutely vital issues that we are rightly debating and addressing in the House. That means that when statements are made and legislation is brought before the House, they must be in a form that enables hon. Members to consider them properly, fully and appropriately in terms of the time available and the extent of the information that is laid before us.

That point was made repeatedly and from both sides of the House in yesterday’s debate on the Academies Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) has said, measures that are brought forward in haste and without adequate scrutiny turn out to be poor when we have to live with them. Given the scale of the changes and the ambitions of the coalition Government, it is important that we should have time to reflect on the proposed changes. We are being asked to respond and to legislate before the detail is properly filled in. There is a lack of opportunity both inside and beyond the House for informed debate. Welcome steps have been taken to improve that—I particularly welcome knowing the date of the spending review in advance as well as the first steps that have been taken in the Budget Red Book to try to open up some of the impact assessments—but there is still a long way to go.

[Robert Halfon]

You mentioned that because of all the big legislation coming through, it is important that Parliament has the right powers, and of course I agree with you, but do you agree that under the last Government there were also very big legislative measures and that Parliament was then neutered by programme motions and having only one question time a week instead of two? Do you agree—

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Green]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments. In common with all the hon. Members who have spoken this evening, I am anxious that this should not be a partisan debate. I was not in the House during Labour’s terms of government, but I was certainly aware of many of the proposals and debates that were brought forward and we often lamented how they came at us out of nowhere, without proper time for input and consideration. I certainly hope that we will start to see some changes coming from all the political parties. I know that would be warmly welcomed by informed opinion outside the House.

[Robert Halfon]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way again. What I wanted to ask is whether she agreed that there has already been some progress in that we are having this debate at all, in that there is now a Backbench Committee with an elected Chairman and in that we now have elected members and Chairmen of Select Committees? In some ways, the Government are giving powers back to Parliament.

[Kate Green]

It is right that the House has begun to take on more powers that improve the democratisation of processes, but I do not think that is a consequence of one particular Government, as there has been pressure from Back Benchers as a whole. Also, the steps taken so far have been relatively limited. To sit back now and be complacent about what has been achieved under the first few weeks of this Government would be a very serious limitation on where I suggest we ought to go as a House.

In conclusion, I support the thrust of the motion, but I hope that it is only the beginning of the debate. I believe that I have been elected to do the best I can for my constituents, and the provision of timely, comprehensive information is key to enabling me to do that.

Business of the House

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Along with many other hon. Friends, I had occasion to visit Crewe railway station some two years ago, in order to secure his election to the House. He will have heard my right hon. Friend the Chancellor refer in his Budget statement to a generous regional investment fund to take forward transport and other infrastructure projects that will lead to jobs. My hon. Friend will also know that we favour much longer railway franchises, which will enable the train operating companies to take a longer-term view and therefore afford major investment projects such as that in Crewe railway station.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Yesterday the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government informed me that he would not be calling in a planning decision for a mega-Tesco in my constituency. Although gains in jobs will be welcome in the local economy, just down the road in Stretford town centre, there is a shopping centre in deep financial difficulties as a result of the Tory council’s failure to invest and support it. Can we have a debate on how this Government intend to support and regenerate local town centres, which is something that I know is of concern across the House?

[Sir George Young]

I will of course draw to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government the failure to call in a particular planning decision, but I have to say to the hon. Lady that one of the thrusts of the coalition Government’s policies is to devolve decision making down to local communities—to local councillors who are answerable to local people for the decisions that they take on planning and others matters.

Business of the House

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

Whether it would save money to sit in Birmingham, rather than in London, given some of the costs involved for some Members, is a moot point. So I am afraid that the motion on September sittings, which I have tabled, presumes that the House will continue to sit here. But may I commend the hon. Gentleman? He is the first Opposition Member who has made a proposal to save money.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House will be aware of the significant concerns among hon. Members about the business practices of banks, in which, of course, we now hold a substantial stake. The Royal Bank of Scotland in Partington—one of the most deprived areas of my constituency—has just announced closure plans. Will he ensure that there is time to debate the future of the banking sector and to discuss economic and social responsibilities, and emphasise to his colleagues in the Treasury team that the House will want that to be covered?

[Sir George Young]

I was sorry to hear about the proposed closure of the bank in the hon. Lady’s constituency. She will have heard me announce that the Budget statement will be made on Tuesday week, after which there are a number of days to debate Budget resolutions. That will provide an opportunity for her to raise this concern with Treasury Ministers.