Oral Answers to Questions
Sharon Hodgson Excerpts(1 day, 9 hours ago)
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Emma Reynolds
I remind the hon. Lady of her party’s role in trebling tuition fees when it was in coalition with the Conservatives. We have helped this year by capping interest rates at 6% for plan 2 and 3 loans, and from the academic year 2028-29, we will reintroduce targeted maintenance grants to support students from low-income households.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Gateshead South) (Lab)
I am sure that the Chancellor is always open to new ways to save money. New modelling suggests that universal access to fracture liaison and prevention services could save £606 million over five years, with the investment paying for itself within two years. Will the Chancellor encourage the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that its promise of universal access to fracture liaison services by 2030 is backed by a funded delivery plan?
Emma Reynolds
I will ensure that my hon. Friend gets a meeting with the relevant health Minister. More broadly, the Chancellor announced last week that in the spending review next year, we will set out a new preventative departmental expenditure limit spending category to get ahead of problems before they get more expensive, because we recognise that preventing problems before they arise is a good use of taxpayers’ money.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sharon Hodgson Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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John Healey
The right hon. Gentleman sets out the challenge facing the country in the long term. That is exactly why we have commissioned Alan Milburn and the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) to do the reviews they are currently doing. When they produce them in the autumn, we will look at them and act on the recommendations.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Gateshead South) (Lab)
What conversations has the Chancellor had with the Department of Health and Social Care on providing compensation to those harmed by valporate and vaginal mesh, as per the Hughes report, which was published over two years ago?
Emma Reynolds
I reassure my hon. Friend that I am working extremely closely with the Health Secretary and discussing overall levels of NHS spending—of course, the Department has the biggest budget across the Departments. The NHS is performing well, but I will take back the specifics that she mentioned.
Regional Growth
Sharon Hodgson Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Darren Jones
The Government recognise the strategic importance of the hon. Member’s region to the UK economy. This will be reflected in the industrial strategy when it is published in the coming weeks, alongside our other plans. On his specific question, announcements for funding outside of the Transport for City Regions funding will be made at the spending review next Wednesday.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Gateshead South) (Lab)
Twenty years ago, when first standing for election, I was told to limit my ambitions with regard to campaigning to bring the Metro to Washington, but I persisted and now, thanks to this Labour Government and the new Mayor of the North East, my ambition is going to be realised. Does the Chief Secretary to the Treasury agree that that is the difference that Labour in government can make and that what we are seeing is promise made and promise delivered?
Darren Jones
I congratulate my hon. Friend on her decades of campaigning for that project. I also welcome her suggestion that this is a Labour Government delivering the change that they promised to the country, but may I add to that and say that it is also the difference that brilliant Labour MPs can make in their constituencies campaigning for change for their constituents? I offer many congratulations to my hon. Friend, and I hope that she will be able to cut the ribbon when the lines are up and running.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sharon Hodgson Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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John Glen
I hesitate, because my hon. Friend is so effective in campaigning for his constituency. I am glad that we were able to confirm that extra £20 million in the Budget. We will continue to look with a constructive mindset at all the many bids that he brings forward to the Treasury.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
Jeremy Hunt
What the hon. Member forgets is that it is not just doctors or, indeed, millionaires who want to save for a decent pension pot; it is ordinary people, and that is who we are on the side of in this Government. When it comes to reforms to the state pension age, we follow a process that balances the interests of taxpayers and the interests of pensioners, and also looks at life expectancy.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sharon Hodgson Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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John Glen
We keep these matters under review, but I am sure my colleague the Financial Secretary, who takes a close interest in these matters, will follow up in the appropriate way.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)
Value for money is a central priority for the Government and at the heart of every decision we take. The Government take our responsibility for managing the public purse seriously. The Government recently launched the efficiency and savings review, and that will help to keep spending focused on the Government’s priorities and manage pressures from higher inflation. It will include renewing our efforts to drive efficiency, tackle waste and re-prioritise spending away from lower value and lower priority programmes.
Mrs Hodgson
I hear what the Minister has just said, but he will be as aware as I am that, in the 2020-21 annual report from the Department of Health and Social Care, the Government wrote off a total of £8.7 billion-worth of the personal protective equipment they had acquired in the first year of the pandemic. When families are facing a choice between heating and eating this Christmas, does the Minister understand the real public anger that people are facing these difficulties at this time, when the Government are having such rampant waste of public money?
John Glen
I acknowledge that figure in that report, but it refers to the write-down that was necessary following a situation where we acquired a lot of PPE at a time of acute demand and shortage of supply. It was an adjustment for that. Of course, 97% of all PPE was suitable for use in healthcare and non-healthcare settings. While I take the general point that the hon. Lady is making about concern for the most vulnerable in communities, which has been addressed by the £37 billion of support we have put in this year, those are the facts around the figure that she raises.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sharon Hodgson Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Steve Barclay)
People who are instructed to self-isolate by NHS Test and Trace and are on a qualifying means-tested benefit, unable to work from home and losing income as a result may be entitled to a payment of £500 from their local authority.
Steve Barclay
It is right that there was support in place, but it is also right that my right hon Friend the Chancellor has listened to points made by Members across the House, which is why the discretionary support has been increased and also why it has been extended to cover parents who are unable to work because they are caring for a child who is self-isolating and a number of other factors. I think that shows once again the willingness of this Government to respond to the path of the virus and to adapt our schemes to what is needed with, in particular, the extensive support that is now being offered and has throughout the pandemic been offered to local authorities.
Mrs Hodgson [V]
In November, a constituent of mine was told to isolate via the NHS covid-19 app. She would have been eligible for the isolation payment, but as she was told to isolate via the app, she was never given an NHS Test and Trace account ID, and therefore her application could go no further. My constituent was affected financially as she could not work, and she has been going round in circles, even with my help, trying to access the payment. Can the Minister advise if my constituent can still access this payment retrospectively?
Public Health Restrictions: Government Economic Support
Sharon Hodgson Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Steve Barclay
I think we all agree in this House that we want to do all we can to get the virus down and get businesses open. We do not want businesses to be in tier 2 or indeed tier 3. We want to support them so that they are able to function as much as possible.
The timing of moving between different tiers is shaped by a range of factors—the number of positive tests, the amount of testing that is being done, the views of the local director of public health and the views of local leaders such as Andy Street. We all want to ensure that as many businesses as possible remain in tier 1.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab) [V]
Data out today shows that over 1,700 more people in my constituency were unemployed in August 2020 than in August 2019, and that is before the existing furlough scheme ends. With unemployment in the north- east already rocketing to 6.6%, the highest of any UK region, why is the Chancellor allowing damage not seen since Thatcher in the 1980s to befall my region?
Steve Barclay
The hon. Lady is usually one of the most constructive Members. To suggest that a pandemic that all countries are grappling with is down to some sort of ideological approach by the Government is not accurate. The Government have put in place a furlough scheme for eight months that stands very good comparison with those of other countries. We have more than £200 billion of measures to support businesses, including in her constituency, and that is not only to help retain people in jobs. From a peak of 8.9 million on furlough, more than half of those remained in employment through the job support scheme. We are ensuring that more businesses are able to bring their staff back. But at the same time we are being honest. Some businesses will not be able to survive. That is why we put £2 billion into the kickstart scheme. It is why we are tripling traineeships. It is why we put funding into apprenticeships, with a £2,000 sign-on. It is why we are bringing forward infra- structure investment. It is to create those jobs for her constituents.
School Meals: Hull
Sharon Hodgson Excerpts(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
It is very nice to see you back in your place, Mr Deputy Speaker. I convey my thanks to Mr Speaker for allowing this debate, and it is very good to see the Minister in her place.
I requested this debate to talk about primary school meals and their cost in Kingston upon Hull. I am sure that the Minister will have been told by her civil servants that Hull has had a reputation over many years of taking forward pioneering policies on school food, thanks to councillors such as Colin Inglis and Mary Glew. For a period, Hull had free school meals in all primary and special schools and, in more recent times, it has had a very well supported, low-cost school meals policy, even though most of our primary schools are academies. However, some of those schools have now increased the price of school meals by 200% in the last year. My debate seeks answers on academy accountability and how councils can influence academies’ decision making under the current legal framework.
It will be useful to give a bit of background. Hull is one of the most deprived cities in the country. Twenty years ago, we needed to up our game in terms of educational achievement. While huge improvements had been made, more needed to be done. In the 2003 local elections, Hull Labour campaigned on the connection between good nutrition and educational achievement and on the fact that in order to learn effectively, children must be well nourished. The vision was summed up in four simple words: “Eat Well Do Well”.
Labour believed passionately that by introducing a free, healthy school meal it could break the vicious cycle of educational underachievement, greater welfare dependency with limited life chances, and the subsequent poor health in later years at a great cost to the NHS, and that that could all be linked back to poor nutrition in childhood. Labour won the election and set about turning its manifesto pledge into reality, showing the power that progressive local government can have to help to change lives. The council was adamant that the cost of providing universal free school meals would not lead to cuts elsewhere. It believed that by not taking decisive action to tackle the city’s inequalities, the council would be failing in its responsibilities.
Research has also shown a clear correlation between a healthy diet and improved school performance, attainment, self-esteem and behaviour, and, in the case of breakfast clubs, better attendance and punctuality. It could therefore be argued that the cost of the scheme was a very good investment for the far-reaching and long-term benefit of the health of future generations in Hull.
An evaluation of the Eat Well Do Well programme by Professor Derek Colquhoun at the University of Hull found headteachers to be delighted with the success of the scheme in creating calmer learning environments in which children had the opportunity to reach their potential. For its three-year duration, the programme was the envy of local authorities across the country. It displayed long-term vision and ambition, using the buying power and economies of scale of the local authority to invest in the future of Hull’s children and families.
In addition to tackling food poverty and childhood obesity, the pioneering initiative aimed also to eradicate the social stigma attached to the current free school meals system and ease the bureaucracy of means-testing. It also promoted good practice for parents in making healthier hot food attractive to children—more attractive than cold packed lunches, which were often of poor nutritional value.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech on a very important subject. On the nutritional value of packed lunches, I am sure she is aware that studies have found that only 2% of packed lunches meet the standards required of food provided in schools. In every way, we should want our children to be eating the food in schools, rather than bringing in packed lunches that, with the best will in the world, are unhealthy. Does she agree?
Dame Diana Johnson
I pay tribute to the amazing work that my hon. Friend has done over the years on school food and free school meals in particular. I absolutely agree with her.
It is worth reflecting that in Hull 23% of primary school children claim free school meals, yet Hull City Council has estimated that as many as 800 pupils entitled to free school meals are not claiming them, and we know that many thousands across the country do not take up their entitlements, largely due to parental fears of social isolation or bullying. In addition, thousands of children classed as living in poverty or just above the poverty line but not entitled to free school meals could access Hull City Council’s Eat Well Do Well scheme.
Sadly, the scheme came to an end in the summer of 2007 after the Liberal Democrats took control of Hull City Council and reintroduced charges of £1 per meal. At a time when budgets were not under pressure, Hull’s Liberal Democrats decided to scrap the progressive measure for what I can only consider ideological reasons.
Following on from the undoubted success of Hull’s Eat Well Do Well scheme, two events followed. First, I remember sitting on the Front Bench 10 years ago as an Education Minister in the last Labour Government, and one of the things I was responsible for was helping to set up the free school meals pilots in Durham, Newham and Wolverhampton to get further evidence of the link between nutrition and educational attainment through free school meals. To this day, Newham still provides free school meals.
Dame Diana Johnson
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I pay tribute to her work on social justice and the idea that people ought to have opportunities in their lives and that children should get the support they need in those early years.
A second point came out of the Hull scheme. When the Liberal Democrats got back into power nationally, after a very long time, as part of the coalition Government, they, learning from the experience in Hull—ironically—pushed through free school meals for the earliest years in primary schools, so we now have that from five or seven. When Labour returned to power on the council in 2011, we managed to reduce the price of a school meal to 50p—down from the £1 as set by the Liberal Democrats. That was thanks to an agreement from both the schools and the council.
I see this as a modern-day social contract. The subsidy of 80p per meal was provided by the council: 50p from the public health grant, and 30p from Hull City Council’s general fund resources. The council has been subsidising the school meals of children aged between seven and 11, and I do not think that any other local authority has been doing that very specific job. Again, Councillor Inglis was instrumental in making both the educational and public health cases for reducing the cost of school meals. The cost has remained at 50p, well below the rates of surrounding local authorities, for some years. Although the Eat Well Do Well scheme has ended, Hull has achieved a low-cost school meal and a partnership between our city’s schools and the council for so long, and in the face of national austerity that resulted in massive and unfair cuts in the council’s funding.
I understand that the threshold for free school meals has not risen for 14 years from a family income of about £17,000, so many more working poor families will not be eligible. The scheme that Hull City Council entered into with its academies was of particular benefit to them.
That brings me to why I initiated this debate, and to what has happened over the last 12 months. In January 2019 the price of a school meal in Hull, which had been 50p, doubled to £1 after academy heads decided to reduce their schools’ contributions to the subsidy funding agreement. I understand that that was agreed at a meeting of the Hull Association of Primary Head Teachers. I appreciate that school budgets have been under enormous pressure, and that difficult decisions have to be made. According to a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, schools and colleges in England have suffered the biggest fall in funding since the 1970s, and the funding shortfall for Kingston upon Hull in 2020 is £12.5 million. Nevertheless, Hull City Council, which was also under financial pressure, continued its subsidy at the same rate. But in January 2020—this month—the Hull Association of Primary Head Teachers again reduced the money for school meals, so the price has gone up to £1.50 per meal, and plans are being made for it to increase to the full cost of £2.30 later this year.
What has actually happened, however, is not a uniform increase. There is now a postcode lottery in Hull, and the charge depends on which school a child attends. Oldfield Primary School has stuck to 50p, and it is great that it has managed to do so. The co-operative learning trust, with seven primary schools, has not raised its price from £1, but many other schools now charge £1.50. Councillor Peter Clark, the current holder of the education portfolio, said that he did not support the price increases, but the council has no formal powers to affect the decisions that academies make. However, I think that there is a socialist moral case, and a one nation case, for this policy. The art of politics is at least trying to influence events on behalf of the communities that elect us. It is also unclear what has been agreed about continuing to pay a subsidy to schools that then go on to charge the full cost of a meal, and do not use that subsidy for its intended purpose.
This is extremely disappointing, as Hull’s strong reputation for supporting healthy, low-priced school meals cannot simply be abandoned. For me, politics is about standing up when something is not right, rolling up my sleeves and fighting to challenge it. I strongly believe that the benefits of access to low-cost, nutritious food to children in Hull cannot be overstated. These price hikes will mean that those “just managing” working families will be under even more financial pressure, and children may miss out on good nutritious food that helps them to succeed at school and grow up as healthily as possible.
I know that there are many in Hull City Council, and in the academy trusts, who want to do what is in the best interests of children and families in Hull, but who are constrained from doing so. With the academies, the problem seems to be that, owing to a silo-like structure, they can focus only on short-term targets, with too little reference to the needs of the wider community. As a result, academy schools that were meant to innovate are undoing the gains of past innovation in school food, in which respect Hull has of course been leading the way.
There are a number of issues that I would like to raise with the Minister directly. First, local authorities are under a duty to improve the health of their local population, as set out in the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Despite the huge change in the educational landscape, councils are also required to be champions of educational excellence for all children and young people. But how can these two requirements work when there is no accountability flowing from the academies in Hull to the council and the wider community? Is there a place for a review of this relationship?
Secondly, there appears to be no clear requirement or mechanism for co-operation. From a public health perspective, the council has a clear role in dealing with the consequences of health inequalities and mortality, so what does the Minister have to say about the role of education establishments and institutions in co-operating on these public health requirements? Thirdly, there are no formal provisions for a local authority to challenge public decisions from schools on issues such as school meal prices. Accountability is limited to Ofsted, the regional schools commissioner and the Department for Education, and seems to relate only to poor performance. How does this help when all parties want to work positively together to improve health and educational attainment? Should there be an enhanced scrutiny role for the council, for example? In Hull, I do not think that the scrutiny committee looked at what was happening around the arrangements with school food, because it said that it had no powers to do anything about it.
Mrs Hodgson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. She has been very generous, although she could go on until 7 o’clock if she wanted to detain the House for that long. She mentioned public health, and that reminded me of the pilots, which she also mentioned, in Newham, Wolverhampton and Durham. The funding for those pilots came from the then Education Secretary and the then Health Secretary, the former Members for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle and for Normanton. They got together and jointly funded the pilots from Education and Health for the very reason that it should not have been only Education that paid for them, because there were going to be huge health benefits as well. My hon. Friend is making a point about local government, but does she agree that this could equally be something for the Department of Health to look at under the public health budget?
Dame Diana Johnson
Yes, absolutely. What I have been trying to say in my speech is that there is a link between education and public health, and that at the moment it is clear that they are completely separate. I am trying to bring them together to work collaboratively. I am also grateful for being reminded that, because the previous business went down early, we have until 7 o’clock to debate this issue. I notice that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is in his place, and I know that he usually intervenes in Adjournment debates, so I would be happy to give way to him as well.
Michelle Donelan
I am more than happy to meet the hon. Member, or any other Member, to discuss this subject or any other within my brief, because these are important topics and there is a lot of mileage in what has been brought up today.
I was going to say that it is reasonable that we empower our local academies to make these decisions. It is also absolutely right that we are targeting our support at the families most in need. I have heard the pleas from those opposite and from my own side questioning the current eligibility criteria, to make sure that we are reaching those who are genuinely the most in need. Our Government have committed to review this once the roll-out of universal credit is finished, and I will ensure that I personally examine the eligibility criteria.
On wider funding, the Government have recognised the pressures that schools have faced and we have listened to teachers. That is why we have recently announced the biggest funding boost for schools in a decade, which will give every school the money it needs for its children. This includes levelling up all primary schools to receive a minimum of £4,000 from 2021-22, so the biggest increases are going to the schools that genuinely most need it.
Mrs Hodgson
I am chair of the all-party group on school food, as I know the Minister is aware. The thing campaigners raise with me all the time is that £2.30 is the amount given per free school meal by the Government. Not only is there the eligibility issue, but campaigners say that this amount should be more in the region of £2.73, in order to meet the real costs. This is part of the school funding thing, but the funding that schools are given towards that meal needs to be uprated. Will she also look at that?
Oral Answers to Questions
Sharon Hodgson Excerpts(7 years, 1 month ago)
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Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)
The UK has an extensive and internationally enviable free ATM network. We know that many people still use cash day to day, and we have committed to safeguarding cash for those who need it. I am delighted that UK Finance and LINK are leading industry efforts to protect free cash access. That culminated in UK Finance launching the Community Access to Cash initiative just yesterday.
Mrs Hodgson
The Minister says that, but news that NoteMachine is to convert 3,000 of its 7,000 free-to-use cash machines to pay-to-use machines is of great concern to my constituents. According to Which?, we have lost 15% of our free-to-use ATMs over the past year alone. The previous Labour Government formed an agreement with ATM operators and the Treasury to plug gaps in financially deprived areas where people had to pay to access their cash, so what are this Government going to do to prevent people being charged just for trying to access their own money?
John Glen
Use of cash has reduced significantly faster than expected over the past 10 years. I am meeting UK Finance and LINK tomorrow to ensure that their mechanism is good for the current situation. The new initiative to which I referred in my previous response will give communities up and down the country the opportunity to engage with UK Finance on better and new solutions.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sharon Hodgson Excerpts(7 years, 4 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
Our priority has been getting young people into work. In 2010 we inherited a youth unemployment rate of 20%; we have almost halved that. The priority for this Government will be ensuring young people get a great education; more young people are in good or outstanding schools than when we came into power in 2010, and we want them to get apprenticeships and get into work and get on in life.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)
Having run a capital project myself, I am keenly aware of the importance of good cash flow; I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. HMRC receives more than 2 million VAT repayment forms a year, and in 2017, the latest year for which figures are available, over 90% of them were paid within five days of receipt. A supplement is paid if it takes more than 30 days before payment is made, and HMRC also has a free dedicated charities help desk designed to help organisations with their tax inquiries.
Mrs Hodgson
4Louis is a charity set up in Sunderland in the memory of Louis, who was stillborn in 2009. It fundraised and built the Louis bereavement suite at Sunderland Royal hospital at a cost of £75,000, some £12,500 of which was paid in VAT. Another suite is planned at Durham at a cost of £100,000 and £20,000 of that is VAT. These huge amounts of VAT could be used by the charity to build another bereavement suite. What advice can the Minister give to it specifically on how it can attempt to get this VAT back?
Jesse Norman
The hon. Lady will understand that a range of schemes is available for some parts of the charitable sector. We recognise the concern that the hon. Lady is expressing; I cannot deal with individual cases, but obviously if she wants to write to me on the wider issue I will be happy to take it up with HMRC.