Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

As I hope I have made clear, I agree with the hon. Lady. Trade unions play an important part in economic success, or at least they should do. The difficulty is that too many trade unions do not represent their members and do not engage and work with their members. We therefore need to make sure that we have modern legislation for our trade unions so that they do not hold people, in effect, to ransom.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

5. What steps he is taking to tackle security issues on the Stranraer to Larne ferry route.

[The Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)]

Home Office Immigration Enforcement in Northern Ireland and Police Scotland work together closely to intercept and share information about illegal immigrants travelling between the west of Scotland and the Northern Ireland ports.

[Meg Hillier]

Of the people stopped on that route—they are a small percentage of the total number of travellers—a very high number are illegal migrants or people who mean to do harm to our country and seek backdoor routes between the Republic and mainland Britain. What conversations has the Secretary of State had with Police Scotland to ensure that the resources are there to catch those people?

[David Mundell]

I have been heavily involved in this issue and I was very disappointed that the Scottish Government chose to dissolve Dumfries and Galloway police force, which had considerable expertise in that area. Police Scotland has set up a ports unit, which is seeking to deal with these issues, but I will continue to pursue the hon. Lady’s concerns with the Scottish Government.

Debate on the Address

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 27th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) who gave the first maiden speech of this Parliament. I look forward to working with him to tackle the scourge of poor broadband services. It is certainly a scourge in rural areas, as I am aware from my work on the Public Accounts Committee, but it happens in my area of Shoreditch too. I will not detain the House on a topic that I have spoken about many times before, but I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman to tackle that.

I also endorse the comments made by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), the right hon. and learned Members for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) and for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), and the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) about the Human Rights Act. They spoke very well and as they are four of the 12 Member majority, it is quite right that the Government are looking to rethink the question. It might be that a sensible alliance is already arising in the very first day of this Parliament that will ensure that sense is seen and that irrevocable steps are not taken in that direction.

I cast my mind back to the morning of 8 May at 4 am, when my result was declared in Hackney South and Shoreditch. Celebration was far from the minds of the people I represent in one of the poorest communities in Britain. For them, there is now and was then a sense of trepidation and fear about what the next five years might bring. I thank them for returning me, as I did in the early morning of 8 May, but I stand here with some fear and trepidation about what might affect them.

My constituency borders the Square Mile, where vast fortunes are made and millions are traded every second. In Shoreditch, we are also home, of course, to some of the fastest growing tech companies in Britain, the household names of tomorrow. That is the tech hub of Shoreditch and the Silicon roundabout. Hundreds of entrepreneurs and start-ups from around the world come to a borough bustling with ingenuity and innovation, radical thinking and a willingness to take risks. Amid all the buzz and excitement, however, there is a dark heart of poverty and social exclusion, with poor families struggling to make ends meet, poor pensioners shivering under blankets and poor young people without the connections to join that tech revolution on their doorstep. Hackney might be achingly hip but parts of it are also achingly poor.

The Prime Minister spoke earlier about his one nation vision for Britain, and I hope that when he next visits Tech City he will also take the time to visit the Wenlock Barn Estate or other estates in my constituency and see the face of poverty, so that he really means what he says about one nation. In Hackney, 47% of children live in poverty. One local housing association recently told me that it has more working tenants on benefits than tenants who are not working. In many of the excellent secondary schools in Hackney, which are doing a great job, headteachers have a supply of clothing because so many children cannot afford to replace school uniforms. Only recently, one headteacher told me how she had had to buy, after much cajoling, a pair of new shoes for a child which they had been promised but could not afford.

Let me share with the House the story of a local teenage boy who was missing school. He received detentions and when he was still repeatedly absent was excluded. Eventually, the school arranged for a home visit by the education welfare team, which discovered that mum was an alcoholic and that the young man and his brother had a single pair of school trousers to share between them. They shared the trousers and attended school on alternate days. If it sounds Dickensian, that is because it is. The young man overcame that and went on to university, which is a remarkable sign of resilience.

The people of Hackney are asking the Government: “What about us? How do we fit into the Government’s plans for the next five years?” How will Ministers help my constituents make their dreams come true and how will opportunity spread through society instead of being hoarded at the top? How will wealth, power and opportunity be enjoyed by all? We are asking the questions, but we will search in vain for answers as we consider this Queen’s Speech.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) spoke just now about the challenges of housing. Rather than repeating his points, I endorse what he said about the challenges he faces. There are many in Hackney too. More people rent social housing in Hackney than own or rent privately combined and more people rent privately than own their own home. Londoners are crying out for decent affordable housing. The average price of a home in Hackney is £606,000, but that masks the fact that a family house is now typically more than £1 million. House price inflation has sent prices rocketing and the effect is brutal. Young couples cannot afford to buy their first flat, let alone move up from the first flat to their first home. Unless they are millionaires, they might as well not bother.

In 2010, the Government proposed a constituency boundary review, which we note was not mentioned today in the Gracious Speech. According to the figures cited then, my constituency was one of the smallest in Britain. Today, it is one of the largest with a 40% rise since 2005 to 84,000 people on the electoral register. That is a sure sign that we need a radical house building programme to ease the pressure, particularly in London but also nationally.

The Government have done nothing to ease the pressure on the housing market. They have built a pitiful number of houses for affordable rent. The hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), who is not in his place at the moment, although I mentioned that I was going to say this, has sold the fire station in my area for £28 million, which can only mean luxury flats. That is a scandal and not only because the fire response time is now more than six minutes. If it had to be sold at all, why not for affordable local housing? The dividend for the taxpayer would have been much greater over time.

In Bishopsgate in Shoreditch, an area that has not had a single social housing unit built in 10 years, the part-time Mayor of London and part-time Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip is again on the drive for a 48-storey tower block with luxury flats. In contrast, Hackney council is one of the top councils in the country when it comes to building more affordable homes for rent. In its pipeline of 3,000 new homes, half will be for affordable rent—a laudable achievement—but not enough given the scale of the crisis. The word affordable has become meaningless. The new definition of 80% of local private rents has no connection with the money that shop workers, nurses or teachers earn. Without a strict definition of “affordable” based on real incomes and real prices, we cannot have a proper debate about how to put affordable roofs over people’s heads. We need urgent action, and I have not seen enough in this Queen’s Speech about how that will happen. Right to buy will not work in my area. Even if the discount meant that my constituents could afford a home—which would be unlikely because homes are so expensive—it would further denude the stock in London and reduce the opportunities for housing associations to develop.

The Gracious Speech also mentioned childcare. I welcome the move to provide 30 hours a week of childcare for three and four-year-olds free from 2017. It sounds good but the devil will be in the detail, because unless it is properly funded, it is unsustainable. I shall be watching that very closely.

The Gracious Speech mentioned job creation, and it is obvious to me that there is work to be done on that, both in helping young people reach the jobs on their doorstep and providing encouragement and support to the businesses that create those jobs. Although many of my constituents are poor, they have no poverty of ambition, but many of the jobs that the Government say they have been creating—the Prime Minister spoke today about creating 2 million more—have been in low-paid, part-time work. I think of Julie, in one of the local supermarkets. She came off jobseeker’s allowance and was very excited to get a job working 15 hours a week. She hoped that over time she would get more hours and work up to a full-time position. Two years on, she is seeing more part-time staff recruited in her supermarket—no chance of a full-time job for herself. She is just one of many people locally who have raised that issue with me—stuck having to claim in-work benefits but itching, desirous, to work more and earn more.

The Government have only unveiled around £6 billion-worth of cuts to welfare; they are pledged to make £12 billion. We need honesty very quickly from the Government about where that axe will fall, because my constituents are very scared. If they fall out of work, or cannot work as many hours as they want, what happens to them? We are seeing the rungs of the ladder of opportunity pulled away. For the poorest, opportunities to study are costing more, and many of them want to study and improve their skills. Parents, especially, who want to improve their life chances are frightened of getting into debt by taking out loans to go into further education.

This Gracious Speech is a missed opportunity for devolution of real powers from Whitehall. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) laid out a great manifesto. I hope that whoever becomes Mayor of London in May 2016 takes that up and challenges the Government to devolve to local level powers to make decisions on health matters, and the responsibilities for job creation that currently lie with the Department for Work and Pensions. Only that will really help my constituents, who are living in great need but have huge ambition to be part of the one nation that the Prime Minister has promised them. I will be challenging him not to let them down on his vision of a one nation Britain.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor-General]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s continuing work in this field, both when he was a Minister and as a Member of Parliament. The CPS guidelines are clear that the presence of children must be treated as an aggravating factor when deciding whether or not to prosecute. Often, criminal justice procedures are difficult for children and young people, who feel that they have to take sides, and special measures are available if they have to give evidence. I will do everything I can to ensure that children are protected within the criminal justice system.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Last spring in my constituency two women were brutally murdered by their partners within a three-week period, one alongside her toddler daughter. In both cases, families, friends and others in the community were aware that abuse was taking place. Is the Solicitor-General content that evidence gathered by the police from others outside the direct situation is being used effectively and passed to the CPS to aid in prosecutions?

[The Solicitor-General]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. I cannot comment on those specific cases, but she makes an important point about collaboration among agencies, whether social services or other arms of local government. The CPS and the police are clear that there needs to be even better collaborative working to ensure that tell-tale signs are not missed before it is too late.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As my hon. Friend knows, the truth about all these things is that we can afford a strong school system and a strong health system only if we maintain a strong economy. That is why he is absolutely right to say that we must not forget about the deficit, as the Leader of the Opposition did. We have to make sure that we keep getting the deficit down and keep getting the country back to work. The truth is that, as we stand here today, the British economy is growing and more people are getting into work. We are making good progress on all our economic plans, but there is no complacency, because we face real challenges in terms of what is happening in the rest of the world. The biggest threats to the British economy are sitting a few feet away from me—people who have learned absolutely nothing. They would borrow more, tax more and spend more. They would take us right back to the start.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The people of Kobane in northern Syria are desperately fighting off attack from ISIS. The United Nations Secretary-General has asked for immediate action to tackle it and support the beleaguered civilian population. What are the UK Government doing to try to make sure that massacre is prevented in Kobane?

[The Prime Minister]

Of course, we are taking action in the skies over Iraq, but we fully support the action that America and other states, including Arab states, are taking in the skies over Syria, which has had some effect on the town of which the hon. Lady speaks. I think there is a case for Britain doing more, but I recognise that what we have to focus on right now is the air power over Iraq and the training of an effective Syrian national opposition, because in time the right answer for Syria is the same as the right answer for Iraq: a Government who can represent all of their people and armed services that can fight on behalf of all of their people. Britain should play its role in making sure that happens.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I think it is important on this issue to stand up and speak for what you believe in. I believe that the European Commission President should be chosen by the elected Heads of Government and Heads of State on the European Council. That is the right approach, and it is wrong to sign up to this power grab by the parties of Europe and the European Parliament. I also think it is important that the people involved understand that we need reform in Europe. It does not matter how hard I have to push this case, I will take it all the way to the end.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q7. They have been to breakfast with Boris, to tea at No. 10 and have danced with the Business Secretary, but businesses in Shoreditch and the City still cannot get superfast broadband. This is now a national embarrassment. What is the Prime Minister going to do?

[The Prime Minister]

We have put a huge amount of money into expanding superfast broadband, and we are now doing better than other European countries in terms of the roll-out of our network and the speeds that are available. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport is working very hard to deal with those areas of the country that do not yet have superfast broadband, and I will make sure that he puts Hackney firmly on his list.

G7

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which is that we need to keep examining our own legal situation to make sure that where wrongdoing is being planned, we can prosecute. That is why I mentioned in my statement the change we are making through one of the Bills in the Queen’s Speech to ensure that we properly prosecute the planning of terrorist acts. This is now going to take far more resource by the intelligence and security services, the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and No. 10 Downing street, and this is now really one of the biggest security challenges that we face—as big now, I am told, as the problem of terrorism coming from the Afghanistan-Pakistan region—so we need to make sure that the whole Government are focused on it.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Prime Minister for his continued commitment to Nigeria. Last week, I met the Metropolitan police Nigerian police forum. There are now nearly 900 officers of Nigerian origin just in the Met alone. They are very keen to go and work with the police in Nigeria to try to tackle the human rights abuses that they perpetrate as well as the other challenges there. Does the Prime Minister agree that his Government should look into this and should tap the wonderful resource we have in human rights policing in the UK?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. There is expertise in how to police in a way that properly recognises human rights, and how to have other security and intelligence forces that do the same thing. Frankly, that has been one of our problems in relation to doing more with the Nigerians. She makes an excellent suggestion, and it is something that this Government are certainly keen to do.

Debate on the Address

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

There are those pressures for the hon. Gentleman because of east European migration. All parties now seem to be saying they want the maximum level of transitional controls on free movement. That means that the mistake that was made in 2007, whereby the transitional arrangements did not last the seven years, which was not the case with Romania and Bulgaria, will never be repeated. But that is a different form of migration. Those who came from south Asia and the Caribbean came to stay. If the hon. Gentleman looks at his constituency, he will find that a lot of the migration is easyJet migration. The communities will come from eastern Europe, they will work and they will go back. There are some who have stayed, but the vast majority have gone back to their countries. UKIP said that it would be the end of the world on 1 January—that thousands of Romanians and Bulgarians would come into this country. As the House knows, the Home Affairs Committee went to Luton airport and the plane was half empty, and 4,000 Romanians have left the country since 1 January, so the worst predictions were not realised.

When we look at east European migration, we should also consider migration from outside the EU. It is time the Government abandoned their target of bringing net migration below 100,000. I know that the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have tried very hard to reach that target, but unfortunately it will not happen. The Prime Minister gave evidence before the Liaison Committee, and better to abandon the target and admit that it will not be met than continue to say that we still want to ensure that it will get below 100,000, because that will not happen.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that in advocating this policy there is a real danger that the message is going out around the world and to entrepreneurs who want to come to places such as Shoreditch that Britain is closed for business?

[Keith Vaz]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I wish she had seen the Prime Minister’s appearance before the Liaison Committee, because he is a class act in respect of his evidence. He told the Committee that he is responsible for the immigration total not going below 100,000 because he has been going around the world drumming up support for students to come and study in this country. He looked no further. It is a great achievement. When he went to China, he told all the Chinese to come and study in the UK. When he went to India, as he has done four times—full credit to him for being the first Prime Minister to visit India four times—he told all the Indians to come to study in Britain. No wonder the target has not been met. He is responsible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It gives me great pleasure to react to today’s Gracious Speech.

Today’s Queen’s Speech should have laid out a grand plan for this country, tackled some of the issues that matter to my constituents and set the tone for how the general election will be fought in a year’s time. It should have raised the level of that debate and ensured that the Government of the day addressed the issues that matter to people. Sadly, it falls short on those points, possibly because the coalition has run out of steam as a working operation.

Any Government need to act to improve people’s lives, but we heard a rather ragtag set of measures that will go only part of the way to tackling some issues. I want to touch on three of those issues in particular, and on a number of smaller issues that Her Majesty mentioned earlier today. I will touch first on housing, which is a huge issue in my constituency, secondly on the child care measures that the Government are introducing, and thirdly on infrastructure, particularly broadband, which is crucial in my constituency.

Housing is a huge issue in Hackney South and Shoreditch and in Hackney borough as a whole. Prices are rising for those who want to buy homes, and rents are spiralling out of control, yet alongside those seismic economic changes there has come no greater security for highly mortgaged home owners or private tenants. I say “seismic” because the average house price increase in Hackney from 2013 to 2014 has been 19%, which is not affordable in any way and is causing a great deal of difficulty. Although this was not in the Gracious Speech, the Government’s calls for social housing rents to increase to 80% of those private rents are pricing the poorest, the low paid and the moderately paid out of my city and my borough. I applaud Hackney council—led by the newly elected mayor, with 59% of the popular vote—for standing up to the Government and saying, “No, Hackney will not raise rents on new social housing to 80% of incredibly high private rents”.

I mentioned high rents, so perhaps I should give the House a couple of examples—I imagine they are rather different from rents in your constituency, Mr Speaker, affluent though it may be. The median gross monthly rent for a one-bedroom flat in Hackney between October 2012 and September 2013 was £1,235, and for a three-bedroom flat it was just short of £2,000 at £1,993—out of the reach of families. If we add to that child care costs and the other costs of living that we know are causing families trouble, and which my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) is constantly highlighting, how can a family afford to rent privately in Hackney? My constituency has more people renting privately than owning outright, with 12,899 people renting privately and 10,394 owing their homes. This is a real issue now for people, but what have the Government said about it in today’s Gracious Speech? Nothing. That is in contrast to those on the Labour Front Bench, who I am pleased to say are looking at reform.

I declare an interest as a landlady. I welcome the measure to introduce three-year tenancies when tenants want them, putting power in the hands of tenants. With the 19% increase, the average property price in Hackney has risen from £441,000 last year to £525,000. Again, what family can afford that? Banks are constantly restricting borrowing, and even with the Government’s initiatives to try to improve borrowing, the problem in Hackney is not even scraped.

What is the solution? It is, of course, to build more homes. I was pleased to hear Her Majesty say that the Government will sell Government land for housing, but I am somewhat sceptical of that promise because over 20 years we have seen—I have seen this directly as an elected representative in London—how Treasury rules have stymied such moves at each stage. I remember being a councillor in Upper Holloway in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) when the Royal Northern hospital site was being sold off and we sought to turn that into housing. What better legacy could there be for a former hospital than to improve public health by having decent, family housing for people in need? But no, it had to be sold, mostly for private housing and to the highest bidder.

[Mr McCann]

That point highlights the difference between the Opposition and the Government. When the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) talked about giving people the opportunity to buy houses, it demonstrated an obsession by the Government with buying homes, even though a lot of people are looking for rented, affordable accommodation and do not want to buy homes. The numbers that my hon. Friend gave the House demonstrate why they cannot buy a home, and that is why we should build more council houses.

[Meg Hillier]

Absolutely; I completely agree with my hon. Friend. We need a complete, radical overhaul of the rental market so that it is a stable, long-term investment for investors that provides stable long-term housing for families. One reason there has been discussion about the three-year tenancy is that many single young professionals do not want to tie themselves down, but families do. What family would choose to rent privately if they did not have to? They are pushed from pillar to post.

The Government talk about Government-owned land being made available, and we need clarity on that, which I will be seeking over the next days, weeks and months. For example, does it include land owned by the national health service’s PropCo? That amorphous body was set up and has snatched land from the hands of local communities—land such as the St Leonard’s hospital site, which was passed to the centre of the NHS and PropCo, rather than being available for local decisions and local housing. That site is now in the hands of a central organisation. Local people are crying out for affordable, decent homes, but what is the incentive for PropCo to provide that? As with all Departments, the incentive is to maximise income from the sale of the land, which does not mean social housing. Social housing will not provide maximum revenue, but it will give long-lasting social and economic benefits to hundreds and thousands of families across London and the UK who really need it. Those people are working but cannot afford to rent or buy in the private sector, and they certainly do not qualify for other social housing. We need to increase the supply to make that more available.

I represent one of the youngest constituencies in the country with more than one in five Hackney residents under the age of 16. I think—rather to my horror given that I am a shade over 21 these days—that more than a third of residents are under 35. Those taxpayers of the future—those young people—need access to quality child care and early-years education. Their parents need affordable, available child care to help them to work when they want and when they can do so. Instead, the Government take a muddled and ineffectual approach. The Queen’s Speech includes a £2,000 cashback offer for a working parent if they spend £10,000 up front on child care, but for many parents who access workplace child care vouchers, such as me, the existing system works. Instead of adjusting a system that works and perhaps extending it, the Government want to rip it up and start again, adding complexity to the system and confusion for parents. Many child carers might have to register with new schemes. Only this Government would reinvent the wheel to make things more confusing.

The Government are promising to give with one hand, but let us not forget that, with the other, they have removed certain child tax credits and child benefit from higher income earners, of whom there are a number even in my poor constituency. If someone has three children, they would have to earn £4,000 gross extra in order to replace the child benefit. The giveaway is a little less generous for many.

To make matters worse, there are rumours—I hope the Government will clarify them—that Atos will run the new scheme. Atos was ripped to shreds in the Public Accounts Committee, of which I have been a member, for its abhorrent handling of the personal independence payments contract. I hope that, if the Government are minded to go ahead with that crazy approach—reinventing the wheel by introducing the new scheme of which I cannot see the benefits compared with current provision—they take a sensible approach on who delivers it. I am not here to protect the reputation of the Government, but I am here to protect the parents who will use the scheme and who need it to help to pay for their child care. You could not make it up, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is like an episode of “Yes Minister”. Ministers are not saying yes or no and are confused about what they are trying to do.

I am perhaps more radical than Opposition Front Benchers because I have previously called for a child care revolution in the UK—the shadow Chancellor would probably not like to commit to that, but I am working on him. I look to Denmark as an example. The day care Act there means that local councils provide 8 am to 5 pm child care for everyone. The better-off contribute and the poorest get free child care. We see that in some exemplary local authorities in the UK. My children have been through local authority child care where people pay according to their means, which means that children mix and get good quality child care. It is not universal, but I would like it to be universal. In Denmark, the provision means that 76%—more than three quarters—of women work. Child care is a priority in Denmark and other parts of Scandinavia, and children and parents are at the centre.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Lady makes a good point on child care. When women are back in the workplace, increased tax revenue pays for those very schemes.

[Meg Hillier]

In the past when I have raised that in the House, Government Members have accused me of saying, “Women must work and should always work.” I am a great supporter of maternity leave and benefits, which allow women to take a good year off when they are nursing their child. Those who can afford it and find a way can take longer. Women are the first educator of children and it is important that people make their own choices, but many women—women at the school gates whom I have met over the years—want to work and often have to give up work or reduce their working hours because of the lack of affordable, available, safe and secure child care.

For the economic recovery, that proposal is a no-brainer. We need everybody on board the boat to be rowing in the same direction. Allowing parents and particularly women to work is crucial. That proposal makes economic sense, gives women full access to the workplace and removes the discrimination that exists for women who are parents.

I was interested to see that the Queen’s Speech includes an infrastructure Bill. I am not privy to the No. 10 press briefing, which has the full details, but according to leaks to today’s papers and other information, the Bill does not include broadband. I believe it should, and I am not alone. I represent an inner-city constituency where speeds and physical connectivity are woeful and inadequate for many businesses, and yet for the past couple of years everybody has passed the buck, saying, “It is somebody else’s fault and somebody else’s problem.” The Public Accounts Committee has seen the well-documented problems with the rural broadband programme. I am frustrated—I am not the only one—by the intractable nature of this problem, with everyone blaming somebody else and even BT saying that in Shoreditch in my constituency only two thirds of businesses have access to fibre-optic broadband. Quite simply, the Government have to get a grip. The Bill could provide a vehicle for that, but some issues do not need new legislation. Some of this is about enacting what can already be achieved through existing measures.

I ask the Government to do two things in particular. First, they should recognise that universal superfast broadband is as much infrastructure as a new road or railway. Infrastructure is not necessarily about big physical projects, and universal superfast broadband is vital to the future of Britain’s economy and to equality across the piece. Secondly, the Government should come up with an affordable plan that delivers infrastructure and, critically, a competition regime that delivers for households and businesses.

There are a few other measures that warrant a mention. The draft riot damages Bill is very welcome and I give the Government credit for that. I saw the challenges at first hand that businesses in my constituency suffered after the August 2011 riots. I think of Siva in his shop on Clarence road, which I visited the day after it was trashed. It was his life’s work. He had worked seven days a week for nine years or so to support his young family and to establish them here in the UK. He saw his livelihood damaged. Steps to improve, speed up and simplify access to funds are vital if riots happen again, although I hope the draft Bill is never needed. I will be watching the detail to ensure that my experience, and those of other colleagues whose constituencies suffered, will be taken into account. I hope Ministers are listening to that experience in drawing up the proposed legislation.

On access to business finance, I welcome anything that improves the delivery of finance, in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises. I was in Shoreditch yesterday for the launch of LaunchPad Labs, which is helping small and medium-sized enterprises to set up by providing mentoring and access to financial advice. There is a critical difficulty for a business when turnover reaches about £20,000 and needs to grow to about £60,000—the financing challenge. At the moment, the Government’s track record has been woeful. Project Merlin promised a lot in encouraging banks to lend more, but it is not delivering for businesses. Frankly, high street banks are derelict in their duty. They do not understand businesses in their community and they are not lending to them properly. The correlation between people’s borrowing and the lending that banks do back to the community does not match. In all the discussions on finance, we are letting high street banks off the hook.

On pubcos, I have already seen too many pubs close in my constituency. This is probably too little too late for many, but any measures that begin to put power back into the hands of landlords—business people trying to run their businesses—and away from the big companies that force a particular business model on them, can only be welcomed.

On public sector redundancy clawback, we understand that the Government may be offering to claw back the money from people who have been made redundant and are then rehired, particularly in the NHS. I have raised this issue in the House repeatedly. My simple view is this: if it is the same pension scheme it is the same employer. If someone who is made redundant takes a redundancy package and then gets a job with the same pension scheme within a few weeks, that redundancy payment is null and void and should be returned.

I acknowledge and support some of the proposed measures relating to the plastic bag tax. People use far too many plastic bags. From my many trips to the Republic of Ireland, I know that a tax can change attitudes. We have to be careful, however. We must not get too excited and think that a tax simply solves the problem. The British Plastics Federation, which is based in my constituency in Rivington street, has told me that carrier bags make up 0.02% of household waste in the UK.

[Jim Shannon]

Northern Ireland is an example of how well it can be done. It has achieved an 80% reduction in the use of plastic bags and contributed £6 million to the Department of the Environment to use on environmental and consultation projects. It can do good even in a small place such as Northern Ireland, which has a population of 1.75 million people.

[Meg Hillier]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. Both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland have set an example for the British Isles on this measure. I am in broad support, but we should look closely at measures on which the House agrees because of potentially perverse outcomes. Keep Britain Tidy says that carrier bags account for about 3% of the rubbish at sites that it observes. With DEFRA acknowledging that re-use stands at about 78% to 80%, with up to 50% of plastic bags taken from a supermarket being used as bin liners, we need to be clear that if people are not getting plastic bags at the supermarkets, they may well be buying bags elsewhere, so we need to think more about the consequences. It is about looking at the issue in the round. In Northern Ireland and Ireland—Eire—I have seen this working.

On a recent visit to Rwanda with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, I discovered, after arriving there and turning up at the presidential palace with my leaking mosquito repellent in a polythene bag, that the country had some time ago banned all polythene bags. Happily, I was let into the presidential event, after my polythene was confiscated on the way in, but it showed that a country such as Rwanda—20 years ago it faced a horrific situation—can make many strides ahead of the UK on the issue. I support the Bill, but believe that we need to reflect more on the consequences.

We have talked a lot about the successes following the Olympics, but very little, I think, about the Olympic legacy. As an MP representing a constituency that hosted part of the Olympics and still has the Copper Box and other Olympic facilities, I know that we have not seen the dividends that we should have done. For physical activity across the board, we have seen activity levels rise, but it is the same active people doing more rather than inactive people taking up sport.

I believe the Queen’s Speech provided an opportunity for the Government to revisit the issue of VAT on some fitness activities. In my constituency and many others up and down the country, GPs have for many years prescribed fitness activities at the local leisure centre, but when that prescription runs out, individuals have to pay if they want to continue, with the taxman—or, with Lin Homer as the permanent secretary, the taxwoman—taking a cut very quickly. A tax of 20% on fitness seems perverse, reducing the likelihood of people continuing with their health measures. I am not talking about reductions for luxury gyms, as the issue is sometimes reported, because many of my constituents are very poor and have to count every penny in every pound at the end of the week. Constituents such as a young woman who came to see me at my surgery the other week—she is contemplating surgery to deal with her weight problem, but she is not on a high income; she is a single parent not working at the moment but wanting to work—find it hard to pay for these things. She wants to be fit and active and to live long so she can be a good mother to her child, but having to pay an extra 20% for her fitness regime would make a considerable difference, possibly putting her off continuing with it.

There is, then, a little to be welcomed in the Queen’s Speech, but I think it is a missed opportunity, failing to tackle the cost-of-living issues that my constituents and people I have spoken to elsewhere really feel on a day-to-day basis. It seems but a drop in the ocean in comparison with the problems that constituents are facing. I will work to try to improve such measures as are in place to ensure that my constituents benefit as much as possible from the meagre offering they have been dealt.

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[Dr McCrea]

I certainly accept that there could be problems. That is why I believe that there must also be a strong degree of education for those taking out pensions, to be sure that they are doing it for the benefit of the rest of their days, rather than for the immediate moment. Such a decision should be considered carefully, and the proper advice given to them.

It is also imperative that the Government give the lead by ensuring that future Governments spend taxpayers’ money responsibly, so I welcome that commitment in the Gracious Speech. Wastage of public money on gimmicks and non-essentials makes the public cynical about the good stewardship of the nation’s finances, especially at a time of cutbacks on essential services for the population.

In further reference to the Gracious Speech and its relevance to Northern Ireland, the over-reliance of Northern Ireland’s economy on the public sector is a continuing cause of concern. The DUP believes in the rebalancing of our economy, but the answer is not to be found in the slash-and-burn approach. Public sector reduction in Northern Ireland needs to be commensurate with private sector expansion. Northern Ireland is moving forward in that regard, and there have been significant and welcome job announcements over the course of the past 12 months—I certainly experienced that in my own constituency. We are seeing the recovery gathering pace in the Province. My party stands ready and willing to work closely with the coalition Government to continue to bed down the recovery and to enable further private sector growth. My colleagues and I are committed to ensuring that our economic recovery in Northern Ireland is stable, sustainable and enjoyed not only in parts, but in every part, of our Province.

We also welcome the commitment in the Gracious Speech to make the United Kingdom the most attractive place to start, finance and grow a business. I await the details that will outline how the Government intend to support small businesses by cutting bureaucracy and enabling them to access finance. Promises have been made on these issues in the past which have seemed to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises in my part of the United Kingdom, across the rest of the Province and across the United Kingdom as a whole, but the results have fallen short of expectations.

We must ensure that banks will lend money to businesses to allow them to grow. We seem constantly to hear that small businesses will be enabled to access finance, but unless banks lend to them they cannot access it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister have both encouraged banks to do that from the Dispatch Box, but banks seem to be above even the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We must therefore force them to ensure that the money goes to small businesses to allow them to grow as they desire.

[Meg Hillier]

There have been some attempts to map the amount of money people borrow from a bank for mortgages and so on and the amount of money that is then lent out to businesses in the same area, but they have been based on wide postcode areas. Will the hon. Gentleman support me and others in asking to have that carried out in a much more detailed way so that we can see the business of the banks and what they are doing in our communities?

[Dr McCrea]

I would certainly be delighted to see that, because it would bring out revealing statistics as well as the reality of what is happening on the ground. My constituents are still finding difficulties every time they go to the bank. As for those who desire mortgages, let us see exactly what the real situation is rather than the spin that even the banks put on it.

The Gracious Speech referred to a shared future. Members from throughout the rest of the United Kingdom might not be familiar with the concept in reference to Northern Ireland. In a nutshell, it entails a future in which people’s culture, identity and religion are celebrated and afforded dignity and respect. In that context, the Parades Commission’s most recent determination, made today, about the return parade to Ligoniel Orange hall represents a stark contrast with the concept mentioned in Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech. The Parades Commission has bowed once again to undiluted fascism and the threat of dissident republican force. These are people who support the murder of police officers and soldiers, yet the commission has given in to their demands. Sadly, on top of that, the fingerprints of Sinn Fein agitation can also be seen and today’s decision is repulsive to the ordinary decent law-abiding loyalist and Unionist community. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has the power to overturn this ludicrous determination and I strongly urge her to do so.

The DUP welcomes the freeze in fuel duty, but we do not believe that it goes far enough. In Northern Ireland, we pay the highest fuel bills of any region of the United Kingdom. During the years of the Labour Government, fuel duty was a major public concern that resonated throughout the country. In 2000, when the average price was 80p a litre for unleaded and 80.8p a litre for diesel, rising fuel prices prompted protests that brought the country to a standstill. The depth of public anger directed towards the Government of the day over the issue was such that it was the only time during the 1997 to 2001 Parliament that Labour fell behind the Conservatives in the opinion polls.

In many areas throughout the Province, cars are the only mode of transport, as public transport is limited. People can journey to our major cities, but bus timetables mean that getting home later in the evening is absolutely impossible. Public transport can take someone there, but they must stay there because they cannot get home. Trains cover only a limited part of the Province, so they are out of the question. The mode of transport is cars, and fuel costs are a heavy burden on those who have to travel to gain employment.

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[Mrs Gillan]

As my hon. Friend says, a real Conservative Government.

This Queen’s Speech does not bring forward much-required measures on immigration and on enshrining the EU referendum in law, but the Prime Minister and my colleagues in the Cabinet in the Conservative party have been held back by their coalition partners. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood)—I want that referendum. If a Conservative Member is high up in the ballot for private Members’ Bills, I very much hope that they will take forward the valuable work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton).

On the economy, I was pleased to hear the reassurance that we will continue with our tax cuts and reducing the deficit, and the news on personal allowances. I particularly welcome the proposal to recognise marriage in the tax system—something for which my constituents have been asking for a long time and hoping we would fulfil. I am glad that it is finally being brought forward in this Queen’s Speech.

I am pleased that we are again paying attention to small businesses’ needs with the small business, enterprise and employment Bill. Access to finance has always been a problem for small businesses in my constituency. In many instances, they have said that it is the prime factor holding them back from development. If the Government can speed this matter forward, we will all welcome it.

On the provisions on child care, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) and I have something in common. I am passionate about women being able to go back to work if they want to, and having the correct child care provisions is extremely important. There has been a 27% increase in child care costs since 2009. Across the country, the average weekly cost of child care is about £109 for a 25-hour nursery placement for a child under two, and having a childminder for 25 hours could cost £99. The problem is that returning to work is often a marginal decision for professional women. Yesterday I talked to a physiotherapist who works in the national health service and who has just given birth to her second child. She would like to return to work, but she did the calculations and found that, on the basis of working three days a week, it would be a marginal decision as to whether she did so. Yet she is desperate to go back, not only because she has to keep up her professional qualification but because she is devoted to the national health service. I hope that some of our provisions will assist women like her and others so that they can go back to work and make the valuable contribution right across the economy that women do make.

[Meg Hillier]

I welcome the right hon. Lady’s support. We should be dealing with this as a cross-party matter because it is fundamental to the future of our society. I hope that she would embrace not only a wider vision of an increased supply of child care but an acceptance that it should be available. When we get our child care we should not have to all dance around feeling grateful that we have got something; it should be provided and it should be good quality so that we are able to work.

[Mrs Gillan]

I agree. I almost intervened on the hon. Lady earlier because half my family live in Denmark, so I am familiar with the child care facilities there. The importance of this issue is now being recognised in the highest echelons of Government.

As we are legislating not just for child care but for the protection of children, I would like the Government to consider again an important matter that I have raised before—the mandatory reporting of activity around children by those engaged in regulated activities. Since 1950, the reporting of suspected and known abuse of a child by a member of staff at a school or location of a similar regulated activity has been entirely discretionary. Despite legislation in 2002, nothing has changed. There is still no legal requirement to report abuse of a child in an institutional setting. The statutory guidance says only that such abuses or allegations “should” be referred to or discussed with the local authority designated officer.

Given the flood of non-recent cases of child abuse in schools that we see reported every week in the media, we now know that discretionary reporting does not work. Mandate Now has done some terrific work of which I am very supportive, as are a number of MPs across the House. We should consider a law that requires professionals who work with children in regulated activities and who know, suspect, or have reasonable grounds for knowing or suspecting child abuse to compulsorily inform the local authority designated officer or, in appropriate circumstances, children’s services. Failure to do so would be a criminal offence. At the moment, the guidance is frequently ignored. The legislation that the Government have proposed on the protection of children could allow us to consider introducing this measure in this Bill at this time. I hope that they will at least consider that.

The Government are legislating not only for those at the start of life and our young people but for those in the twilight of their years. I welcome the pension provisions, which are long overdue and welcomed by many of my constituents. However, I remind the Government that there is still a running sore in the pensions world—that is, Equitable Life. The fact remains that nothing has been done for the people who took out pensions with Equitable Life before 1 September 1992. I pay tribute to Paul Braithwaite and the Equitable Members Action Group, who have done so much work in this area. As the economy is now starting to grow and to look much healthier, now is the time for the Government to strike—to go back and collect those people, who are getting fewer and fewer in number. I very much hope that my words will be heard in the Treasury. The compensation scheme needs to be seen to be fair. At the moment, there is some controversy about the fact that the actuarial firm that is calculating the compensation payouts and the one assessing the validity of appeals is one and the same. I hope the Government will look at that, because it does not send out a message that the situation is fair and equitable.

I have had a long and privileged association with the land of my birth, Wales, and I am pleased to see the proposed measure on carrier bags and plastic bags. We often think that devolution is a one-way street, with us giving things to the countries that have devolved powers to themselves, but this is just a little proof that we can carry out a measure in Wales or in Northern Ireland and bring it back to this House. However, although the measure will take a large number of plastic bags out of circulation, let us not be lulled into a false sense of security that it will save the environment. At first, people’s habits are formed by the charge, so they save their bags and take them to the supermarket, but then they forget and buy the 10p bag for life, so the number of bags for life mounts up at home in the same way as the little, thin, annoying bags mount up from every visit to the supermarket. I want to avoid having to re-legislate on this matter, so I hope the Government will look closely at the detail of the Bill, but so far, the action taken has been a force for good. When I did some research, I found that since 2007 Marks & Spencer has charged 5p for all its standard food carrier bags—as I know to my cost, because when I do not have a bag with me, I end up having to juggle a large number of parcels or buy a bag for 5p. The profit from that charge goes to charities—the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Marine Conservation Society—and towards educational projects in primary schools to promote awareness of marine life. I believe that since the measure was introduced in Wales, it has raised some £4 million for good causes, which is something we could all support. We could bring about a similar result from making these charges across the board.

I was also pleased to have it reaffirmed that NATO will meet in Wales. I think it will have a warm welcome and enjoy very good facilities in the Principality.

The proposed change in the planning laws to ease access to land for the process of fracking will prove controversial. I hope the Government will learn a lesson from the experiences of my constituents about to access to land and High Speed 2. It has not been a happy event. HS2 and the Government do not have statutory powers to access private land without the owner’s consent; that will only happen once the hybrid Bill has been approved by Parliament. I wonder whether the Government’s new proposed provisions will override those in the HS2 hybrid Bill with which my constituents have come to terms, and whether they will allow, in effect, compulsory access to people’s land. Many of my constituents have been very concerned that giving access could result in them losing some rights over their land. Indeed, I think that some 40% of the phase 1 route of HS2 has yet to be examined, in some cases because landowners have refused access.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I share with my hon. Friend the good news that the Government have formally recognised the distinct identity of the Cornish people and, indeed, have provided more support for the teaching of the Cornish language. On the issue of the so-called convergence programme and the management of EU funding programmes in Cornwall, discussions are ongoing. Cornwall will have full input through the growth programme board and through local committees.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

T10. The Government are keen to talk up their investment in cities, but they are doing nothing to ensure that superfast broadband is rolled out properly, with a third of businesses in Shoreditch, where Tech City is, not having access to it. Will the Deputy Prime Minister take that up in government? What will he do about it?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

If the hon. Lady wishes to write to me about a particular instance in which she feels that progress has not been made, I am more than happy to take that up. As she will know, huge progress has been made in rolling out superfast broadband across the country, but she is right that there are bottlenecks that we are working constantly to alleviate. If she wants to raise any specific instances with me, I am happy to make sure that they are addressed.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Solicitor-General]

The hon. Lady will appreciate that that is not a decision for the Law Officers. It is important, however, that all support for victims should be considered within the inter-ministerial group, and I will certainly ensure that it is fully considered. In other terms, I cannot go much further.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Nigeria is the largest source country for people trafficked into the UK. Given that there is widespread fear that the girls who were kidnapped a month ago could become victims of trafficking, what special efforts are the Government making to work with and support the Government of Nigeria, and agencies there, to prevent that from happening?

[The Solicitor-General]

As the hon. Lady may know, the Crown Prosecution Service has had staff in Nigeria and has worked hard on capacity building. The response to the Boko Haram outrage is being dealt with by other Departments, but I know that right across the House there will be very great concern for those girls and their families, and that is certainly something I share.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 12th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Of course I will. As someone who witnessed the terrible flooding in my own constituency some years ago, I know that flooding can hit different parts of the country in different ways. As we adapt to this new, very difficult reality, we must make sure that we build up resilience in all parts of the country and provide assistance as fully and consistently as we can across the country.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q12. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) agrees with me that the hated bedroom tax is causing misery for those affected. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree with the president of his party or with his friend the Prime Minister?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I think, and everybody thinks, that we need to deal with the mismatch between large numbers of people on the housing waiting list—something the hon. Lady’s party never did anything to address in 13 years—and with the fact that there are large number of spare bedrooms that are not being used. Her Government presided over the change—which we are now delivering in the social rented sector—in the private rented sector. She needs to explain why they want to support the change in one part of the housing system and not in the other.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

First, if there is adverse publicity in respect of prosecutors not doing their jobs properly, that is a matter of very serious concern to me and should and would be a matter of serious concern to the Director of Public Prosecutions. That provides some sanction in itself, quite apart from the fact that I have to answer for the work of the Crown prosecutors once a month in this House.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The day after we saw barristers and solicitors withdrawing their labour in the teeth of the cuts to legal aid, what is the Attorney-General doing to try to improve the efficiency of the Crown Prosecution Service? When I was a witness just over a year ago, I saw at first hand the inefficiencies and time wasted—for victims, witnesses and prosecutors—in the system. With these stringent cuts, that should surely be an area in which to look for efficiencies.

[The Attorney-General]

The hon. Lady will be aware that we are seeking to introduce many efficiencies into the system, including digital working, early guilty plea systems and better warning of witnesses. Some of those are in the hands of the Crown Prosecution Service, but others, as she will appreciate, are not. They lie with my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor and the Court Service. There is a great drive for efficiency: efficiency delivers savings and in a time of austerity, there is no doubt that improving the efficiency of the Court Service and of the throughput of the criminal justice system is one of the highest priorities—both for me and, I know, for the Director of Public Prosecutions.