Public Services
Debate between Madeleine Moon and Jonathan Reynolds(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a privilege to follow the distinguished hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) and to be able to say a little in response to the Queen’s Speech on behalf of my constituents in Stalybridge and Hyde, Mossley, Dukinfield and Longdendale.
If I were to begin by saying something positive about the Queen’s Speech, I would say that it is good to have the opportunity to discuss some issues other than Brexit. Brexit is clearly very important, but in itself it does not solve any of the pressing issues in my constituency, and the neglect by Government of other issues in the last few years is now evident. But that is where my praise ends because, as I listened to the Queen’s Speech, I did not feel that this was a serious, considered programme for the future of the nation. It felt like something between a publicity stunt and a response to what people in focus groups list as all the things they dislike about the Conservative party. The last Conservative Government were notorious for being pretty soft on crime and reducing the number of police officers to unsafe levels, so this Queen’s Speech says, “We will recruit a load of police officers, even though there is no basic guarantee we will go back to the levels we had before we first came to power.”
The last Conservative Government presided over some of the most miserly funding settlements for the NHS—since 2010, there have been very low funding settlements by historical standards—so this Queen’s Speech says there will be 40 new hospitals, although apparently the number now is barely six.
Many Conservative MPs have mentioned school funding today. The figures for my constituency are very depressing and I have just had an email telling me that 83% of schools in the country will have their funding reduced, effectively, next year, so I am afraid I am not convinced on that point either. I feel that the British people will see through all this.
Of course I recognise, and am pleased, that there seems now to be a recognition that austerity must end and that it has caused real damage, pain and suffering, but I do not just want the Government throwing money around to address their brand negatives; instead, I want it spent on the things that will make a difference, and for me that has to start with in-work poverty.
The number of people in Britain in work who are in poverty is a disgrace. I want us to spend money on some of the burdens that working families have difficulty with, whether it is school meals, uniform costs, prescription charges or in much bigger terms the social care bill when you need support as an older person. If we have money to spend, we should spend it there, and then I want to see us target resources on measures that will raise investment, productivity and wages.
That means acknowledging that the Government’s strategy of cutting corporation tax to the bone to stimulate private investment has not worked. Other countries with considerably higher rates of corporation tax than us have much higher levels of corporate investment. What we have now is a tax base that is simply insufficient to meet the kind of public services that people in this country expect, because we need to invest big money in some areas. For me there is no bigger area than transport. We need new rail infrastructure and subsidies to build urban transport networks that are comparable with what this capital city has—every morning my constituents tweet me pictures of the overcrowding on the railways—but instead of that every day what we get is a daily menu of possible cuts to HS2.
Although I appreciate this is probably unlikely from a Conservative Government, I also think that there has to be an acknowledgment that, while the gig economy has many upsides, for too many people it makes them vulnerable because they have a fundamental lack of power and control over their own working lives. Whenever we on this side of the House propose an increase in employment rights, we are accused of wanting to return to the winter of discontent in the 1970s. I was not yet born during the winter of discontent, but I was a member of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee when we did an inquiry into the working practices at Sports Direct, and I will never forget the evidence we received in confidence from members of staff: workers not being paid the minimum wage, one woman who had to give birth in the warehouse toilets, and young female employees explaining that they were promised full-time employment contracts but only in exchange for sexual favours.
I am not in favour of a return to the winter of discontent, but I am in favour of making sure that such employment practices have no place in modern Britain, and that requires fair and independent representation in the workplace.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
This is one of the most shocking abuses I have heard of late. People in my constituency are losing 15 minutes of salary every time they have to leave the floor to go to the toilet. One of my constituents has been deeply distressed as a cleaner because, on emptying a bin, she found it was full of faeces and urine; people were using the wastebaskets rather than lose salary. That has to stop.
Jonathan Reynolds
That is completely unacceptable and I would hope there was agreement across all sides of political opinion on that, but the question I have is: will this post-Brexit free trade world deliver the employment rights that will combat that? At the minute I am, frankly, unconvinced.
I would also like to have seen some action in this Queen’s Speech on absolute poverty. I have no problem with universal credit simplifying the benefits system and I want a system with a taper mechanism that makes it cost-effective for people to increase their working hours if they can do so, but the five-week wait is pushing too many people into a level of destitution that is unconscionable by any reasonable standard. The charities say so, the Churches say so and, frankly, most of us say so, too, and I do not know what more evidence or arguments the Government need to see or hear before they are willing to treat people with the minimum level of dignity they should reasonably be able to expect.
Due to time constraints, I want to make just one more point about something that is in the Queen’s Speech: the proposal to introduce photo ID to cast a vote in elections, which risks being an injustice of significant proportions. It has already been said in this debate that 3.5 million people do not have access to photo ID, and if it is restricted to a passport or driving licence the figure is 11 million.
Standing Orders (Public Business)
Debate between Madeleine Moon and Jonathan Reynolds(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
This is one of those days when I find myself broadly disagreeing with everyone else in the House. The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) have summed up the issue in the most accurate way. I am sympathetic to the case put forward by the Leader of the House and other Conservative Members. The status quo is not a tenable settlement and it needs to be discussed and probably to change. I acknowledge that Labour has struggled with this issue. There is no doubt that the question of English votes for English laws poses a substantial problem for Labour MPs in England, such as me. Once we have shattered the common interest between Scotland or Wales and the northern cities and London, it is hard to see how a non-Conservative Government could be elected here, based on the numbers in this House, yet it is reasonable to say that there are millions of people in this country who have a legitimate aspiration for a non-Conservative Government at some point or other.
Increasingly, we are creating another political problem by denying that this problem exists and by failing to respond to it. There is no doubt that the status quo is a source of resentment, and some movement on the issue is essential, but I cannot agree with how the Government are dealing with it.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
Would my hon. Friend acknowledge that the resentment is growing partly because of the suspicion among people in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales that these measures represent further gerrymandering by a political party that they do not support in order to ensure that the spending that comes in our direction is not distributed equally? That resentment is growing.
Jonathan Reynolds
My hon. Friend makes a reasonable point, and it is one that Conservative Members need to hear. Having listened to the speeches so far, I wonder how many Conservative MPs spent a substantial amount of time in Scotland during the referendum campaign. They seem to have a cavalier attitude to these issues.
We are in a constitutional mess at the moment—there is no doubt about that—but the worst thing we could do would be to make that mess even worse by adopting ill-thought-through proposals that have not been properly considered and that would probably create an even bigger problem. There are many complicated issues that need to be considered. First, the proposals lack clarity. They are not easy to understand, and I can envisage a situation in which, even after a vote, we will not really know what has happened until we get the figures through.
Furthermore, the proposals will create two tiers of MPs, and it is pointless to pretend otherwise. We also need to consider the situations in Wales and in Scotland. I wonder how many Conservative MPs really appreciate just how slender a thread the Union is hanging by. We must also consider the role of the Lords and the question of English devolution to areas such as mine in Greater Manchester. Then there is the question of an English Parliament. Should this place be the English Parliament on some days but not on others? There is also the question of a possible federation in the UK.
Most of all, we need to consider the voting system for this place. The Labour party has got itself into a difficult position on that. We look at the electoral geography and we wonder how we can achieve an equitable solution that would give us the chance of a Labour Government now and again. The situation will get even worse if the newly gerrymandered constituencies are brought into being.
A change of this sort must be achieved through consensus and by convention. That is how we have done everything under our unwritten constitution in the past. I am afraid that to go down this route with such an obvious partisan advantage for one party, when only that party supports the change, is reckless and cavalier.