Backbench Business

Debate between Mary Creagh and Kelvin Hopkins

Thursday 17th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of the Post Office.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. I am pleased to secure this important debate on the crisis in the Post Office. First, I must declare an interest: my constituency Labour party has a formal agreement with the Communication Workers Union, which provides financial support, and I am a member of the union.

The Post Office is inflicting severe cuts. Its cost-cutting measures are affecting both its employees and the public it serves. Some 59 post offices are being closed or franchised, and the Post Office’s defined-benefit pension scheme is being terminated. That has all come about as a direct consequence of the separation of the Post Office from Royal Mail when Royal Mail was privatised. Cuts to Post Office funding followed, and the Government failed to deliver on their 2010 promise to turn it into a

“genuine Front Office for Government”

and to grow its financial services.

This is a matter of serious concern. Trends in the Post Office’s traditional work and the lack of a proper strategy for growing new revenue mean it will not have a secure long-term future, or possibly a long-term future at all. It cannot survive simply by imposing cuts and going through further cost-cutting regimes. The Government must stop the cuts—particularly the proposed closures and franchising—and bring together stakeholders, including the Post Office itself, trade unions, and industry and customer representatives to develop a meaningful and convincing plan for the future.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. WHSmith is now operating more than 100 post office branches. Does he agree that the franchising operation means that the Post Office is losing experienced staff, providing poorer service and offering a smaller range of services? For example, the closure of the Crown post office in my constituency means that the biometric enrolment service is no longer offered.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. In fact, later in my speech I am going to say more or less what she just said. I thank her for reinforcing that point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kelvin Hopkins]

My hon. Friend demonstrates the point: we need to put pressure on the Government and the Post Office at both a national level and in local campaigns if we are going to save the Post Office for our communities and its staff.

For employees, good jobs have been replaced by insecure employment. In 2014-15, only 10 out of 400 staff from former Crown offices were TUPE-ed over to new retailers. Public money was used to pay off long-term staff so the franchisees could employ more low-paid, less experienced staff with less job security—effectively, a taxpayer subsidy to the private franchises. All that amounts to a failed strategy for the Post Office.

[Mary Creagh]

On that point, if a member of staff is TUPE-ed over, they could end up managed by somebody on the minimum wage in a WHSmith, even if they are on a significantly higher salary. That creates difficulties and tensions in the workforce in the new environment.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. The union and I support the idea of having proper pay for all staff so that sort of discrimination and inequality does not occur. All staff should be TUPE-ed over as they wish. They should not just be bought off with public money to enable WHSmith to make more profit.

High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill

Debate between Mary Creagh and Kelvin Hopkins

Thursday 31st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend was here when this was discussed, but we tabled an amendment on Report that was agreed by the Government and which makes it clear that any contingency spend must be reported to the House annually.

We will continue to hold up the weaknesses of the management of HS2 until every one of them has been addressed. We want to see swift progress with the hybrid Bill and we shall scrutinise the latest strategic case, published this week, to satisfy ourselves that it is based on sound assumptions. The Government must drive down those contingency costs and have a clear strategy for doing so. This fiscally disciplined scrutiny is what one would expect from any credible official Opposition seeing a Government desperately mismanaging a project. We will go ahead with the project, but the Government must bring down the costs, and the benefits to the nation must be clear. We say: get a grip on the project, get control of the budget and get it back on track.

The increase in rail usage during our time in government was a record to be proud of, but we now face serious challenges. We understand that current and future capacity constraints on the existing rail network place a brake on regional and city growth. We know that demand for rail travel continues to grow, despite the tough economic times, and our support for a north-south line rests on tackling that capacity problem and supporting 21st century transport infrastructure. This week’s strategic case shows the intense pressure our major mainline stations are under, and not just in the south. In four years, there will be 200 people for every 100 train seats arriving into Birmingham New Street at 5 o’clock. Rail freight is growing at 3% a year, and HS2 would free up space for more freight trains on the east coast, west coast and midland main lines, and take those lorries off our roads.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

As I said in my speech, if we want a serious transfer of freight on to rail, we must make it possible to transport lorries on trains, but we cannot do that on the existing network because the gauge is not big enough. We need a dedicated freight network for that to happen.

[Mary Creagh]

I am not sure whether my hon. Friend is proposing that we build an entirely new freight network—

[Kelvin Hopkins]

indicated assent.

[Mary Creagh]

Okay, well perhaps we will park that thought for another day, because many others want to come in. My hon. Friend is absolutely right, though, that we have to shift freight from the roads and on to the more environmentally friendly railways, and we want to ensure that this line can do that. We want HS2 to give people a real choice between short-haul aeroplanes and the more environmentally friendly trains. We want to see more inter-city services for cities that currently have a poor service to London. We want HS2 to free the west coast, east coast and midland main lines for new commuter services between the midlands and the north.

These are not just transport arguments. They are social and economic arguments about the sort of country we want to be: a country in which no town or city is left behind. We want to ensure that cities such as Wakefield, which currently enjoys a twice-hourly inter-city service to London, are not downgraded. I obviously have a particular interest in Wakefield’s twice-hourly service to London, which I am happy to declare.

The public consultation on compensation arrangements is important, and the Government need to ensure that they respond fully to specific local issues such as those raised by the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), and that proper compensation is given to residents who are affected or blighted, such as those in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson). We will maintain pressure on the Government to work closely with the communities affected.

We will vote today in favour of this paving Bill to allow preparatory expenditure on the scheme. We believe that how we build something is as important as what we build. This is not just a transport project; it is also a social and economic project. I am glad that the cities are already looking at how they can invest in skills so that local people can benefit from the employment opportunities that HS2 will bring. We are pleased that the Government have agreed to our amendments on vocational training audits for the scheme. That will help us to realise our Labour vision of creating 35,000 high-quality apprenticeships over the lifetime of the project, representing a step change in vocational education for this country’s young people. HS2 is not just a transport project; it is also an employment project.

We are glad that the Government have accepted our amendments on annual reports to Parliament on contingency spending to ensure that the scheme is kept on budget, and on linking the railway with active travel such as cycling and walking. Having said that, I will not make any promises about cycling the new cycle path that will run alongside the track. After cycling from London to Brighton, I think I know my limits. We will also continue to scrutinise Ministers to ensure that they work closely with UK companies to use procurement to deliver the maximum jobs, growth and skills for UK companies, small and large.

High Speed 2 is a huge project which, if managed properly, will bring great social, economic and environmental benefits to this country. The project is about how we deliver capacity for more passengers and services, and connectivity to bring cities closer together, while ensuring that the trains run on time. We will serve our great cities by having HS2 come in with a budget that is under control and with benefits that are clear for all to see. The Secretary of State should do his job and I will do mine, and my job is to ensure that he does his job properly.

High Speed 2 is a project that is in the national interest. It has suffered from the fiscal and project management incompetence of this Government, and I hope that this Secretary of State will get it back on track. Britain deserves better than this. It will fall to the next Labour Government, a one-nation Government, to build HS2—on time, on budget and in the national interest.

Environmental Protection and Green Growth

Debate between Mary Creagh and Kelvin Hopkins

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

It is at the Minister’s discretion whether she appears in the Chamber. She could have been informed this morning about an urgent question and would have had to appear before the House. The motion was tabled last night at about 5 o’clock, so she has had almost 24 hours to prepare her speech. I am sure that the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), has been beavering away on his remarks.

Let me start by taking the House back to 2006 and a fresh-faced Leader of the then Opposition visiting the Arctic circle. We all remember the Prime Minister hugging a husky, as well as “Vote blue, go green”. The Tory manifesto told us,

“That is why we have put green issues back at the heart of our politics and that is why they will be at the heart of our government.”

Several megatonnes of carbon dioxide and hot air were emitted by a variety of Conservative MPs confessing their green damascene conversion. In opposition, going green was an essential part of detoxifying the Tory brand, but in the 18 short months that the Government have been in power we have seen progress stall on the environment. As their disastrous economic policies take hold, with confidence failing, unemployment and inflation rising and growth flatlining, the green talk has not been matched by green action.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has had a disastrous settlement in the comprehensive spending review—the second-biggest spending cut of any Department—taking £2 billion in cash out of the environment over the next four years. The Secretary of State was bounced into a disastrous plan to raise £100 million by selling England’s forests, and we await the review of the Bishop of Liverpool, Bishop James Jones. [Interruption.] I am glad to see that the parliamentary private secretary is distributing lines to take from the Government. It is always good to see the briefing machine in action. We hope the brief has been printed on Forest Stewardship Council paper.

The Government have abolished the Sustainable Development Commission, the Government’s watchdog on sustainable development.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

Would not the Government do better to try to close the tax gap and stop people hiding their money in foreign accounts, rather than cutting valuable budgets?

[Mary Creagh]

Yes, I agree, and I know that the Government are working to close tax loopholes, as we did in government.

DEFRA published its “Mainstreaming sustainable development” strategy in February—just seven pages to cut across the whole of Government. Its sustainable development programme board has not met since December last year and the sustainable development policy working group has not met since November. We got those answers in June 2011, so we can see that sustainable development is clearly no longer at the heart of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

What does this add up to? The Government have a plan for cuts but no plan for the environment, yet at the Tory conference the Environment Secretary told her colleagues:

“I passionately believe going green is both a moral and economic imperative.”

The very next day the Chancellor told the conference:

“We’re going to cut our carbon emissions no slower but also no faster than our fellow countries in Europe.”

It was the day the husky died. The greenest Government ever were not even the greenest Government in 2010.

Our Labour Government were the greenest Government, and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn). I pay tribute also to my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), who makes a welcome return to our team, for the progress that he made on the environment when he was a Minister.