UK Plans for Leaving the EU
Seema Malhotra Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is of course right that the trading relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union is very important to the EU, as well as important to the UK. What I did in my Florence speech was set out a vision—a proposal—for the future relationship between the UK and the EU, based on our current relationship, showing how we can develop that relationship in a way that is in the interests of both sides. This has switched the dial in our negotiations, and obviously we look forward to being able to enter negotiations on those aspects in more detail.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
The Prime Minister said in her statement that she proposes “a unique and ambitious economic partnership” with the EU. If she is confident that the new unique and ambitious economic partnership that she envisages will be better for the UK economy than our current quite ambitious economic partnership and membership of the single market and customs union, then, further to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), why will she not today, alongside her White Papers, finally publish the list of the sectors of the economy for which she has undertaken impact assessments and their results, so that the public can have the information about the impact of Brexit on the economy?
Grenfell Tower Fire Inquiry
Seema Malhotra Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Damian Green
The expert panel published new advice last week in a memorandum of understanding about what should be done about new blocks, so that issue has been addressed very directly over the past month.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
On the points that were just made, I have constituents with disabilities who live in tower blocks on higher floors who have expressed great concern about what they should do in the event of an emergency. Sometimes they have been given conflicting advice about, for example, whether people in wheelchairs should be using lifts, which is contrary to general advice. Will the First Secretary encourage the inquiry to consider people with disabilities who live on higher floors?
Damian Green
As the hon. Lady will know, rules are already in place to cover precisely that type of thing. The best advice is obviously that those rules should be obeyed. The fire safety advisers are looking at what happened and what should happen in future, but it will be the local fire safety authorities that give that advice. I am sure they will all have been looking carefully at the advice they have been giving, particularly to people in wheelchairs and so on, who clearly will be understandably concerned about whether they are getting the right safety advice. I advise the hon. Lady to talk to her local fire safety officials.
Over the past month, the Cabinet Office has established a cross-Government working group called the public estates response group, with a technical sub-group to ensure that all technical advice is understood and is being properly applied. The Government are ensuring full engagement and alignment with activity in the devolved Administrations—I am conscious that they will be concerned as well. As I said, DCLG has formed an expert advisory panel made up of a range of building and fire safety experts to advise the Government on any immediate action required to ensure that buildings are safe. The Cabinet Office is working with DCLG’s expert panel and others to establish a remediation plan and the next steps towards the review of building regulations that several Members have asked for. All that work is under way outside the inquiry’s timetable, so its completion will not be dependent on the publication of the inquiry’s report.
Some of those affected by this terrible event are concerned that an inquest would be more appropriate than an inquiry, and that the inquiry might delay the identification of those who died. I can reassure them that there will be an inquest: the coroner, Dr Fiona Wilcox, is already investigating the deaths—that is a statutory duty. Once the identification of each of the deceased has been completed, I understand that the coroner will open the inquest into each individual death and then adjourn proceedings pending the outcome of other investigations, including the inquiry. The coroner will consider the inquiry’s recommendations to determine whether to resume the inquests. The process will not delay the formal identification of victims.
I can reassure those who want a criminal investigation into this terrible tragedy that that is in hand. The Metropolitan police announced the investigation on 16 June. It is one of the largest and most complex investigations ever undertaken by the Metropolitan police, with around 250 specialist investigators currently engaged. I hope that Members will be reassured by the clear statements about the investigation from the Metropolitan police. Detective Superintendent Fiona McCormack said on 23 June that the investigation would
“identify and investigate any criminal offence and, of course, given the deaths of so many people, we are considering manslaughter, as well as criminal offences and breaches of legislation and regulations”.
That point was reinforced on Monday by Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt, who said:
“The investigation we are conducting is a criminal investigation that quite obviously is starting from the potential that there was something that effectively amounts to the manslaughter of those people.”
It is clear that it will be a rigorous, detailed investigation; the police are determined that, if wrongdoing has occurred, the perpetrators will be brought to justice.
The Grenfell Tower inquiry’s task is of the utmost importance to establish the facts and make recommendations about the action needed to prevent a similar tragedy from happening again. The Government will provide the inquiry with all the resources it needs to complete its work thoroughly and rapidly. This was a terrible tragedy; we must learn the lessons to ensure nothing like it can happen again.
John Healey
The short answer is yes; the longer answer is that I pay tribute to Camden Council for taking the tough decision that it had to make in those circumstances. My fear is that other housing associations, councils and landlords of high-rise blocks around the country will hold back or perhaps cut corners because they know they cannot afford to do the works required—either to remove and replace cladding, or to make the inside safe and fully fire-safety compliant—and that they will do so only because they cannot get a straight answer from this Government on a clear commitment to up-front funding where it is needed to make sure that this essential work is done. The situation leaves hundreds of thousands of residents in tower blocks around the country still uncertain as to whether their block is safe.
I hope that Ministers will stay to hear the debate because a number of colleagues from around the country will set out concerns about the testing system, including the problem that landlords and residents are confused. The testing system does not meet the needs of those residents or landlords. We know from the Lakanal House fire that cladding is not the whole problem—nor, I suspect, was it in Grenfell—yet only one component of one type of cladding had been tested until very recently. We are therefore talking about no tests on cladding systems, on insulation materials, on the interaction between cladding and insulation, on installation, and on the fire breaks between floors. I can tell the First Secretary of State and the Secretary of State that housing associations across the country, such as Bradford-based Incommunities, cannot get their type of cladding tested, so they cannot reassure their residents that their tower blocks are safe. Councils such as Salford have stopped stripping off cladding from their high-rise flats because they have no guidance from Government on what to replace it with.
Seema Malhotra
I wish to comment on that point in relation to Hounslow Council. I commend it for the speed with which it was able to de-clad a block in my constituency, but it has hit some of these concerns about what to replace that cladding with. Given the amount of re-cladding that might take place across the country, I am worried that the producers of that cladding could jack up the prices, thus making the replacement even more expensive.
John Healey
My hon. Friend is right. Her council, like Oxford, is in the dark on this—it simply does not know what the Government’s guidance and advice will be. If it takes off the cladding, what does it replace that with, because the council must be certain that it is safe?
The First Secretary of State rightly made great play of the panel of independent experts in his speech. The panel is there to advise Ministers on the urgent lessons that need to be learned and the action that needs to be taken, and that is very welcome. I hope that the panel can help the Government to get back on track and deal with some of the following concerns, which Ministers will hear about from colleagues right across the country. What advice will the Government give to landlords—and what reassurance will they give to residents—if cladding systems pass the new second round of tests despite the fact that they failed the narrow first test? If cladding fails the Government’s tests, must it be taken off tower blocks in all circumstances, and will the Government cover the costs of taking it down and replacing it? When will councils and housing associations be able to get other cladding or insulation tested? How will the Government make sure that all internal fire safety works that are now being carried out inside tower blocks meet the highest safety standards? Will the Government launch an immediate review into the approved inspectors responsible for building control checks, as well as who hires them, who pays them and who approves their qualifications, starting with all those responsible for signing off the systems that are being failed by the Government’s tests?
Four weeks on, Ministers must widen their testing programme and reassure all high-rise tenants that their buildings are safe, or commit to fund the urgent work necessary to make them safe. The clearest warnings that the system of fire safety checks and building controls was failing came more than four years ago following the inquest into fatal tower block fires at Lakanal House and Shirley Towers. Both coroners wrote formal rule 43 letters to Ministers with recommendations to improve fire safety in high-rise buildings. Such letters are written by coroners only when the Government can prevent further loss of life—that is their importance. Some of the recommendations were simply rejected, such as making internal cable supports fire resistant and providing onsite information about a tower block to firefighters arriving to fight a blaze.
Ministers said that they would act on other recommendations, but they have not. The Government passed all responsibility for retrofitting sprinkler systems on to landlords. In 2014, one Minister even said:
“We believe that it is the responsibility of the fire industry, rather than the Government.”
On overhauling building regulations, the Government promised a review but it did not happen. The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma), has just told me that
“this work will now need to be informed by any recommendations that the independent inquiry into Grenfell Tower fire makes.”
Rather than waiting months or years to start this work, Ministers must put this right now. They must start installing sprinkler systems in the highest-risk high-rise blocks and start the overhaul of building regulations, into which any findings from the fire investigations or the public inquiry can be incorporated.
Oral Answers to Questions
Seema Malhotra Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is very important that decisions relating to services provided by the NHS are taken on a clinical basis by those who understand the needs and requirements of people in different areas. That is why we set up NHS England, which has a plan for developing services in the NHS over a five-year period. It is important that politicians allow clinicians and others in the NHS to make the decisions they need to.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
I know that the House will be thinking of my constituents Connie Yates, Chris Gard and Charlie at this incredibly difficult time. It is clear that if Charlie remains in the UK no further treatment is available and life support will be switched off. There are differing views about the chances of the nucleoside bypass therapy, which other children—albeit with less severe forms of Charlie’s conditions—have benefited from. I understand that the chances of improvement for Charlie are low, but the doctors would be able to say within three months whether Charlie was responding and whether that change was clinically beneficial. If there is any room for discretion in the court rulings for Great Ormond Street to allow Charlie to leave and to transfer his care to doctors at Columbia University, and if he is sufficiently stable to receive treatment, would the Prime Minister do all she can to bring the appropriate people together to try to make this happen?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady is right to raise the concerns of her constituents in this matter. I am sure that the thoughts of all Members of the House are with the family and Charlie at this exceptionally difficult time. It is an unimaginable position for anybody to be in, and I fully understand and appreciate that any parent in these circumstances would want to do everything possible and explore every option for their seriously ill child. I also know that no doctor ever wants to be placed in the terrible position of having to make such heartbreaking decisions. The hon. Lady referred to the fact that we have that court process. I am confident that Great Ormond Street hospital has considered, and always will consider, any offers or new information that have come forward along with the wellbeing of a desperately ill child.
Debate on the Address
Seema Malhotra Excerpts(6 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman refers to control orders. What was happening with the control orders, which were introduced by a previous Labour Government, was that they were increasingly being knocked down in the courts. We introduced terrorism prevention and investigation measures, and we have subsequently enhanced those measures. Through the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, which we introduced when I was Home Secretary, we have also ensured that our police and our intelligence and security agencies have the powers that they need. What we have seen is an increase in the tempo of attack planning. We have seen the terrible terrorist attacks that have taken place, and we should remember that over the same period, five other plots have been foiled by our police and security services. That shows the increasing scale and tempo, and it is in that context that we need to look to ensure that our security services and our police have the powers that they need in the future. I look forward to the right hon. Gentleman joining us and ensuring that we give those powers to our agencies.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
The Prime Minister will be aware that concerns have been raised across the country about the cuts in policing that were made in the last Parliament and the impact that they have had on the connection between the police and our communities. Will she now confirm that she will seek to reverse those cuts to ensure that we have such a connection when there are greater demands on police time and we need much more reassurance about the return of that connection with our communities?
The Prime Minister
As I am sure the hon. Lady is aware, we have protected counter-terrorism policing. We are providing funding for an uplift in armed policing, but we are also protecting police budgets, which of course is a different approach from the view that was put forward by the former shadow Home Secretary—he is now the Mayor of Manchester—who said that the police could take 10% cuts in their budget. We did not listen to that; we protected them.
I would also like to say a few words about the disaster at Grenfell Tower. The whole country was heartbroken by the horrific loss of life and the utter devastation that we have seen. I am sure that the whole House will join me in sending our deepest condolences to the friends and families of all those who lost loved ones. Today, we also think of those who survived but lost everything. One lady I met ran from the fire wearing no more than a T-shirt and a pair of knickers. She had lost absolutely everything.
Let me be absolutely clear. The support on the ground for families in the initial hours was not good enough. People were left without belongings, without a roof over their heads, and without even basic information about what had happened, what they should do and where they could seek help. That was a failure of the state—local and national—to help people when they needed it most. As Prime Minister, I apologise for that failure and, as Prime Minister, I have taken responsibility for doing what we can to put things right. That is why each family whose home was destroyed is receiving a down payment from the emergency fund so that they can buy food, clothes and other essentials, and all those who have lost their homes will be rehoused within three weeks.
There will also be an independent public inquiry, chaired by a judge, to get to the truth about what happened and who was responsible, and to provide justice for the victims and their families who suffered so terribly. All those with an interest, including survivors and victims’ families, will be consulted about the terms of reference, and those affected will have their legal costs paid. Because it is clear that the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has not been able to cope with the scale of the tragedy, we will also develop a new strategy for resilience in major disasters, which could include a new civil disaster response taskforce that can help at times of emergency. We must learn some of the lessons of this and previous disasters when bereaved families have not had the support they need.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in today’s debate. I start by thanking the people of Feltham and Heston for re-electing me, and for the trust that they have placed in me to be their Member of Parliament.
We were lucky to have a Queen’s Speech at all this year, following a snap election that did not go according to plan and a coalition that has not yet gone according to plan. It is a Queen’s Speech that the Queen had not planned for, and that today saw 13 commitments from the Tory manifesto go unmentioned. We could be forgiven for thinking that the contents of this shortened Queen’s Speech will not last the two years that the Government intend. With the Queen’s Speech being as wafer-thin as the Prime Minister’s majority, there is a lot more to come in the next two years.
With the challenges that we face, it was more important than ever for the Queen’s Speech to tackle the issues facing this country and leave a legacy for our nation. It should have been a Queen’s Speech that gave hope to a nation and tackled the issues that we heard our constituents talking about at the election: a better future for our NHS; an increase in community police officers, with greater powers to tackle drugs and antisocial behaviour; more funding for our schools, which are now grappling with the impact of the estimated 8% cuts to pupils’ education; the cost of education for young people going to university; more affordable housing for our families; and a Brexit that puts jobs first, that seeks the closest possible economic relationship with our neighbours, and that delivers the improvements in quality of life that people want.
After a difficult year, we have a nation that wants to believe that better is possible. The London mayoral campaign last year showed the Government driving the language and politics of division, and Sadiq Khan’s victory was as much a victory for Sadiq and Labour in London as it was a victory for Londoners, and for the values of respect and inclusion that this country stands for.
We remember our friend Jo Cox and her inspirational life of love and of passion, so tragically cut short by hate. We think about the EU referendum, the rise in hate crime and Islamophobia and, more recently, the attacks in Westminster, Manchester, London Bridge and Finsbury Park, and the devastating fire at Grenfell Tower. They are all part of a growing sombre mood, but one that goes beyond terrorism to much that is of our making and down to the choices that the Government have made.
Some of the challenges are made clear in the 2017 social progress index, published in the past couple of days, which shows the UK ranking 12th in factors relating to basic needs, wellbeing and opportunity. Social progress has not increased in the past four years, and we are going backwards on key measures. The report’s results also show how widespread the impact of austerity has become. There is disillusionment about the affordability of housing, rising crime, growing intolerance and poor health outcomes. Far from our seeing quality of life improving, things show every prospect of going backwards. Is it not devastating that we, as a developed country, risk creating a homeless generation with people being unable to get on to the housing ladder or living in cramped accommodation where they work? Our children and our families deserve better.
Destitution in the UK is on the rise. A report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation a year ago highlighted some key facts. The general public consider people to be destitute when they cannot afford to buy the essentials to eat, stay warm and dry, and keep clean. About 1.25 million people, including 300,000 children, were in that situation at some point a year ago.
After seven years of austerity, it is becoming increasingly apparent that there are those in this country who are suffering deeply due to the Government’s policies. People are struggling to make ends meet. We live in a country where nurses are having to go to food banks, where last summer almost 10% of tenants in the UK fell behind with their rent payments, and where the percentage of council tenants on universal credit in rent arrears has increased to a critically high 86%.
The Chancellor said in his Mansion House speech this week that we need a stronger economy to generate tax receipts that we can invest in our public services. Let us put aside for a minute the £20 billion that the Conservatives’ corporation tax cuts have cost this country; on his basic point, the Chancellor is right. The problem is the backdrop of an underperforming economy. We see GDP growth slowing in the first quarter of this year, wage growth slowing—the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has called it “anaemic”—and proof with every step that the Government have taken that we cannot cut our way to prosperity.
Prices are rising and wages are stagnating. We need much more thought about how we Brexit, about transitional arrangements to stop a cliff-edge of tariffs and non-tariff barriers, about remaining part of the customs union and of a reformed single market, about protecting the rights of our young people, and about ensuring that we as a nation are not worse off.
If we want a proper growth plan, we need a wider economic plan for the future—and one for the long term. On the productivity crisis, UK productivity lags way behind that of other countries. We also invest far less than the OECD average in research and development. Improvements in UK living standards are much needed, and to achieve that we need wages to grow. Our future income will depend on increasing output per hour.
I welcome the Government’s proposed new modern industrial strategy, which the Labour Opposition have called for. There is much that we share with the Government regarding how we move forward, but we can go much further. I would have liked a productivity Bill in the Queen’s Speech to address the issues that we need to face to deal with our productivity challenge. The Government have made positive moves—the productivity plan and the national productivity investment fund—but, as the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee has said, the productivity plan was
“more of an assortment of largely existing policies”
than a new plan. The London School of Economics has said that although there are individually sensible policies, it is difficult to discern a clear growth strategy emerging from the plan. Without such a vision, it is likely that shorter-term considerations will dominate. We need a renewed and much more centralised plan that takes a holistic approach to the many ways in which we can drive up our productivity. We are looking for proper and solid partnership between business and Government, a much more thoughtful sense of how our wider net of tax reliefs can make a contribution, and new strategies for entrepreneurship that include women and business.
We need much more thought about how social and economic progress for all our communities go hand in hand. In the light of the growing uncertainty we face as a nation, and the need for us to consider much more thoughtfully the turning point we face, we need a strategy for how we go forwards and not backwards as a nation.
The Queen’s Speech lacked a positive vision for our country’s future. It should have had a vision for an end to unemployment and underemployment, with food banks becoming a thing of the past; a vision for children growing up without mental health issues; a vision for a nation that is proud, confident and prosperous; and a vision of a nation happy, with diverse communities living side by side with mutual respect. A vision of a better society was what our country needed, and I am sorry to say that this Queen’s Speech did not deliver it.
Article 50
Seema Malhotra Excerpts(7 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
I also want to put on record how proud I am of what we have achieved as members of the EU, not just for our security and the economy, but also as regards peace between our nations, which twice in the last century have been at war. We know that there is more than one way to Brexit, and over the next two years there will clearly be a big debate about the trade-offs we will need to make. We also know that the Prime Minister wishes to ensure the future prosperity of Britain. So far, however, there has been no economic assessment of the Government’s plans. Will the Prime Minister confirm that an economic assessment will be published with the final deal, and that it will compare the expected outcome both to what we have now, and to the prospect if there is no deal?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady asked me to make a comparison with what we have now. Of course, we have decided to leave the EU and therefore to change our relationship with it, but we will make sure that Members have the necessary information when we come to the vote in Parliament on the deal we are putting forward.
European Council
Seema Malhotra Excerpts(7 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
The European Investment Bank provides vital funds for affordable housing, hospitals, investment in new technologies and our utilities. We received £5.6 billion last year for projects up and down the country. Has the Prime Minister had any discussions about our stake in the European Investment Bank—we hold a sixth of the shares—and will she confirm that she will do nothing to put it at risk?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady makes an important point. I can inform her that the Treasury is in discussions with the European Investment Bank. We recognise the important role the bank plays and want to ensure that nobody loses out as a result of the decision taken by the British people. Those discussions are ongoing with the European Investment Bank.
Outcome of the EU Referendum
Seema Malhotra Excerpts(7 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
The question is not “Could there be a second referendum?”, but “Should there be a second referendum?” I do not believe there should be. That is the point that I would make. It is not clear from the Daily Record poll today that the Scottish people want a second referendum. They, like me, want to focus on getting the best relationship for the United Kingdom with Europe. Let us try and keep all these single markets together.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
At the weekend I received an email from a teacher in my constituency saying that children from ethnic minority and EU heritage backgrounds
“were crying and telling me that they were going to have to leave. Other children told us that their parents were proud and said it was great.”
The teacher said that
“we reassured all of the children and talked about the fact that everyone here would be able to stay but our community was afraid.”
What guidance is the Prime Minister giving to teachers and head teachers? I am sure that my school was not the only one affected.
The Prime Minister
We should be very proud of our diversity in this country and of the welcome that we have given to immigrants and refugees coming to our country, and we are proud of the contribution that they make. That message needs to go out loud and clear. Just because we are leaving the European Union, it will not make us a less tolerant, less diverse nation. That needs to go out loud and clear from all of us, whatever side of the debate we were on and whatever we felt about the campaign and some of the posters in it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Seema Malhotra Excerpts(8 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
David Mundell
I certainly think I know better than the Liberal Democrats, who have been complicit in covering Scotland with wind farm developments. It is clear that ours is a popular policy among communities right across Scotland who do not want to see our landscape covered with unnecessary wind farm developments. I stand behind our policy.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
4. What recent discussions he has had with Ministers of the Scottish Government on progress on implementing the Scottish rate of income tax.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)
The UK and Scottish Governments continue to work closely with each other on the implementation of the Scottish rate of income tax. The question now is how the Scottish Government will use the new power when it comes into effect in April 2016.
Seema Malhotra
Transferring control of income tax to Scotland requires Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to identify who Scottish taxpayers are, but over the last year we have seen an increase in the risk rating by HMRC in terms of its ability to identify those taxpayers. Has that risk increased or decreased recently?
David Mundell
I can tell the House that the UK Government and the Scottish Government work closely together on this issue. Despite the bluster that we often see here, the reality is that the UK and Scottish Governments are working closely on many important issues for the people of Scotland. I am absolutely confident that the Scottish rate of income tax will be capable of being introduced next April. HMRC has done the necessary work; what we need now is to hear from the SNP what it intends to do with those tax powers.
Debate on the Address
Seema Malhotra Excerpts(8 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
I agree that we need to help people who are out of work into work, and for those people in work, we want to see their living standards rise. We will do that by seeing the welcome increase in the minimum wage that is taking place this year, and also by taking people on low pay out of tax altogether. That is the choice we made in the last Parliament, and we pledged to continue it in this Parliament by saying that people can earn £12,500 before they start paying income tax. That is one of the best ways in which we can encourage work in our country.
The greatest driver of opportunity is education. Some argued in the election that school reform had gone too far. I disagree. I think it is time to increase the pace of reform in education. Every child we leave in a coasting or failing school is an opportunity wasted and potentially a life wasted, so our schools Bill will crack down on coasting schools and force them to accept new leadership, so that every child has the opportunity to go to a great school.
At the heart of our education reforms will be our commitment to create a further 500 new free schools at least, creating an additional 270,000 extra places. We should be clear about the facts about free schools. Almost half of free schools so far have been set up in the most deprived communities in our country, and most important of all, almost a quarter are rated as outstanding compared with a fifth of other schools. Considering the short time that free schools have been going, for a quarter of them to be outstanding is truly remarkable. It is the fastest growing and most successful schools programme in recent British history, and it is opening up the education system and giving new opportunities to children who in the past would not have had them. Anyone who cares about equality of opportunity should support the free schools programme.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Prime Minister see the fact that 60,000 people used food banks in 2010 as opposed to a million last year as a sign of the success or failure of his Government?
The Prime Minister
I do not want to see anyone having to rely on food from a food bank. That is why we need to take more people out of poverty, get more people into employment, cut more people’s taxes, and continue with the long-term economic plan that is working.
European Council
Seema Malhotra Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
It is worth one last effort to try to renegotiate Britain’s place inside the EU, to give the British public a proper choice between a reformed membership of the EU or leaving. That is what people want. That is what I will deliver. I think it is possible to get a deal that would make it in Britain’s interests to stay. My hon. Friend may take a different view, but let us get the deal and then trust the people.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
The then Economic Secretary to the Treasury, now sitting next to the Prime Minister, sent a letter to Lord Boswell on 11 March this year noting the UK’s GNI reservations, the EUROSTAT verification visit to the UK in February and the fact that the Government “give high priority” to addressing these issues. If these issues were indeed a high priority, could it be that in the interim the Treasury dropped the ball, and could that be why Britain is in this situation today?
The Prime Minister
Very well read, but we have dealt with this issue already. It is only when the figures are available from all the European Union countries that it is possible to see what the net contribution for Britain will be. It is only at that point that that judgment can be made.