Levelling Up
Stephanie Peacock Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are real pockets of poverty that we need to address in the south-west, particularly around Plymouth. The same is true in parts of the south, particularly in Portsmouth and Southampton. Although there is understandably a focus on the north and midlands, our broader focus is on moving prosperity and investment outside of London and the south-east, precisely to communities such as the one he serves so well.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
The Coalfields Regeneration Trust, based in Wombwell, is the only organisation dedicated to supporting former mining towns in the UK. Its vital work includes improving health outcomes, providing employment support and boosting skills for communities where levelling up is needed most. Will the Secretary of State agree to meet the trust to learn more about its work?
Budget Resolutions
Stephanie Peacock Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow my Select Committee colleague, the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton), even if we might disagree on our interpretation of the Budget.
Living standards are below where they were before the global financial crisis, spending on education is back to 2010 levels when Labour left office, and today a quarter of children in Barnsley are growing up in poverty. As we head into a difficult winter, with energy bills rising and inflation soaring, this Government have refused to take important steps to support working families, such as removing VAT from home energy bills. Instead, the measures in this Budget leave the vast majority of my constituents worse off, with taxes up, inflation up and universal credit cut. Yet this Government have found money to cut taxes for bankers, champagne and domestic flights. Those might be the Government’s priorities but they are not the priorities of people in Barnsley. We have had some of the worst cuts in the country. Barnsley Council alone has lost £150 million from its annual budget. Our local services have been devastated by austerity. The Government’s money for so-called levelling up will go nowhere near to compensating for these devastating cuts. No levelling up money will be invested in Barnsley despite two applications, both rejected. This Government cannot claim to be serious about levelling up for as long as they continue to ignore areas like mine.
Most of all, the Government cannot claim to be serious about levelling up while they continue to betray the “categorical” promise that the Prime Minister made to my constituents. During the general election, the Prime Minister pledged to end the theft of miners’ pensions, saying that
“we will make sure that all their cash is fully protected and returned, I have looked into it and we will ensure that’s done.”
The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, which has a Conservative majority, backed our campaign to end the miners’ pension rip-off. The Government should now implement the Committee’s recommendations, and the Budget was an opportunity to do just that. The average miner receives a pension of just £84 a week, with many on a lot less. Ending the theft of their pensions would not only be the morally right thing to do, but it would provide an immediate boost to miners’ pockets to deal with spiralling living costs and to spend in coalfield economies, but the Government are refusing to act, just as they have refused to act in this Budget.
As the cost of living spirals, all our communities needed a Budget with the right priorities, but, much like with the miners’ pension scheme, when our communities most needed a helping hand, they have instead found the Chancellor’s hand in their pocket.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Helen Whately)
It is a pleasure to close this debate. I thank the many right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken today for their speeches. The number who have spoken and the passion of their speeches demonstrates just how much we want levelling up, in this Chamber and in the constituencies that we represent.
Levelling up is the defining mission of this Government and it is a golden thread running through this Budget and this spending review. We believe that the place where a person grows up should never dictate their prospects, yet, as the Chancellor said last week, for too long, the location of people’s birth has determined too much of their future. Right now, communities throughout the country are held back by disparities in health, education and jobs.
Levelling up is about no longer accepting the consequences of a skewed economy, no longer accepting lower expectations, no longer accepting limited life chances, and no longer accepting that each new generation must choose between their family and their future, forced to travel to far-flung cities like modern-day Dick Whittingtons in search of opportunity. Levelling up is a new and optimistic future for the whole country—a future where a person’s hard work determines their success no matter whether they live in Burnley or Bromley. It is a future where there is a chance to succeed in your education, to follow your dreams and to achieve your ambitions wherever you live.
What does that mean in practice and how are we going to do it? First, we are investing in people across this country so that they have the skills they need to seize opportunities. We will start at birth and in childhood, with an extra £500 million investment, recognising the importance of the first 1,001 days of a child’s life, continuing through school and into adulthood with £3.8 billion extra spending on adult skills, welcomed I know by my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) among others.
We are investing in places and in the infrastructure that connects them. We are investing £130 billion in infrastructure, including £21 billion in roads and £46 billion in railways. I was delighted this afternoon to hear colleagues welcoming our investment in roads, rail, buses and broadband across the country. May I congratulate many of those who have secured investment in the first round of the £4.8 billion levelling-up fund, including my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton), for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon), for St Ives (Derek Thomas), and for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish). I should also mention my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) who not only argued for more of the pie, but who probably got the highest word count per minute achieved in this Chamber this afternoon—a position that was hotly contested.
Stephanie Peacock
A quarter of kids are growing up in poverty in Barnsley yet both of our applications for the levelling-up fund were rejected, Can the Minister tell us why that is? If this Government are so committed to levelling up, why is the Secretary of State for levelling up not in his place?
Helen Whately
I am sure that the hon. Lady well knows, having followed this debate and recent conversations about the Budget, that constituencies and Members on the Conservative Benches and on the Opposition Benches have received funding from the levelling-up fund, including Members of the Opposition Front Bench. I encourage the hon. Lady’s constituency to bid in future rounds of the levelling-up fund. So far—[Interruption.] If she would please listen to what I am saying rather than continuing to shout at me. She asked me a question and I am responding. It is important to her constituency that she listens. Her constituency is clearly seeking levelling-up funds. I would be delighted if it received them. It will have the opportunity to bid for further funding in future rounds, along with other Members and constituencies that have expressed an interest in doing so.
Across the UK, we are creating the conditions for businesses to invest and flourish, because businesses create jobs and drive the growth that will see people’s living standards going up. This was an argument that was made skilfully by my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) among others. Hence, we have a £1.4 billion global Britain investment fund and £1.6 billion additional funding for the British Business Bank’s regional funds.
As we pursue levelling up, we are empowering local leaders to shape and drive the transformation in their communities—local leaders who know best what their communities need. That was a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) among others and exemplified by the £5.7 billion five-year consolidated transport settlements for the eight city regions.
During today’s debate, I heard several colleagues make comments such as “Don’t forget about the south”, from my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith); “Don’t forget about London”, from my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond); and “Don’t forget Suffolk and Norfolk”, from my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous). I also heard, “There’s not enough money for the north.” I assure hon. Members across the House that levelling up will happen across the UK, in all regions and nations of the United Kingdom.
High Streets
Stephanie Peacock Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
I send my condolences, and those of the people whom I represent in Barnsley, to the family, friends and constituents of Sir David Amess. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Nokes. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) on securing this important debate.
Our high streets have had a difficult 18 months. As footfall recovers, we need to look more closely at how the impact has been distributed across the country. In Exeter, Aldershot and Reading, for example, at least two-thirds of neighbourhoods are likely to have been able to save through the pandemic. That is true for fewer than 25% of neighbourhoods in Hull, Blackpool and Barnsley, however. That will have a real impact on consumers’ ability to spend money in their local economy. In reality, the pandemic has hit poorer areas harder, and we need to consider how we address that.
The demise of our high streets did not begin with covid, but with a decade of austerity. Over the last 10 years, 10,000 shops, 6,000 pubs, 7,500 banks and more than 1,100 libraries have closed. That is felt particularly acutely in semi-rural areas such as the one I represent in Barnsley East. I represent a collection of towns and villages around the centre of Barnsley that do not benefit from a strong local transport network, so the closure of the local bank or library has a huge impact on the local community. We need to ensure that we reverse those figures and do not allow the continued demise of the high street.
In the last year alone 180,000 retail jobs have been lost, and 200,000 more are at risk this year. We need to look at bringing empty commercial properties back into use for new and existing businesses. We need to level the playing field between high-street and online businesses, because the tax system, which was mentioned earlier, is simply not equal. We need to promote entrepreneurship and innovation on our high streets so that they reflect the needs of our local communities.
The challenge faced by our high streets is a good example of why the concept of levelling up is needed. The problem is that we are yet to see the reality. Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council has seen some of the worst cuts in the country. The Government talk a good talk about the idea of levelling up poorer communities, but in reality, that is simply not happening. Earlier this year, the Chancellor’s constituency of Richmond (Yorks) was prioritised for funding over Barnsley, and even though Barnsley is more deserving according to every categorisation of need, it did not get funding. We need to make a change to ensure that levelling up is not a slogan, and that we improve our high streets.
Neil O'Brien
Despite being a Huddersfield boy, I cannot take further interventions, because we are pushed for time.
In Worcester, support from our future high streets fund is being used to renovate several iconic and beautiful buildings, including the local corn exchange, driving footfall and preserving the community’s heritage. My hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn and Haslingden (Sara Britcliffe) also talked about the good that such schemes are doing in her constituency. Those are the kind of transformative projects that hold the key to restoring local pride and laying the foundations for our long-term economic recovery. That is exactly what underpins our levelling-up fund, which will be available to local areas across the UK.
Neil O'Brien
I am afraid I cannot take further interventions as I am a bit pressed for time. I am so sorry.
We will invest £4.8 billion in the levelling-up fund to build the next generation of roads, bridges, railway stations and 5G networks to connect communities and businesses faster than ever before. However, significant though such interventions and all that spending are, I think we all agree that, no matter the scale of Government investment, money alone cannot solve all the problems that businesses on our high streets face.
That is one reason why my Department has recently published the “Build Back Better High Streets” strategy, which has a bold and imaginative vision for the future of our high streets—a future in which businesses and communities have the freedoms and flexibilities to innovate and adapt to a new post-covid world. The strategy forms a key part of the Prime Minister’s plan to level up. It will deliver visible changes to local areas and communities across England, transforming derelict buildings, supporting businesses, cleaning up our streets, improving the public realm and supporting a renewed sense of community pride for future and current generations.
To enable places to adapt and to reinvent their high streets, the strategy builds on some of the earlier planning changes that we have already made. We introduced the temporary permitted development right for moveable structures so that pubs and restaurants could move the indoors outdoors using marquees and canopies. I am sure hon. Members across the UK will have seen the effects of that. We have acted to make it easier to host market stalls, car boot sales and fairs for longer, without needing a planning application. We are consulting on making those changes in relation to marquees and markets permanent.
In 2020, we made a use classes order creating a new class E, which gives businesses the freedom to adapt and reinvent themselves. An office can easily become a café, a shop, health surgery or nursery without requiring planning permission. To support high streets to become places where people shop and spend their leisure time but also live, we have created a new permitted development right that allows the creation of much needed new homes in the hearts of our towns and cities. This right helps to repurpose vacant buildings, avoiding premises being left empty for long periods. Our further permitted development rights allow buildings to be extended upwards to create new homes and the demolition of vacant and redundant shops and offices so that they can be replaced with quality homes right in the hearts of our towns and cities.
I again thank the hon. Member for Lewisham East for her excellent speech and all the other Members who contributed to this excellent debate. The Government remain steadfast in our commitment to help our high streets adapt and thrive as they recover from the pandemic so that they can play their part in levelling up communities across the country. Indeed, my Department, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, has a fundamental role to play in delivering this agenda. I know that I speak not just for myself but for the whole of our ministerial team in saying that we are committed to working with Members from across the House to create the stronger, fairer, more united kingdom we all want to see as we emerge from the pandemic. We also want to work hand-in-hand with local authorities and businesses to make that vision a reality.
I have not had time to pick up on every point that hon. Members have made or all the excellent projects that they promoted during the debate, but I will be happy to do so offline afterwards. I hope that, together, we can ensure that our high streets remain the beating heart of our communities for generations to come.
Planning Decisions: Local Involvement
Stephanie Peacock Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg).
The planning system is already well rigged in developers’ favour. We put trust and faith in a democratic process that has been eroded in much of the country. In my constituency, there has been a significant amount of anger, upset and deep concern caused by the planning system, particularly with regard to a site that is being developed for myHermes. Although there were a number of consultations before land allocation, understandably the vast majority of people were not even aware that a potential allocation was taking place.
The Minister for Housing, the right hon. Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), said in response to my written question on this issue that
“previous studies suggest that only a small proportion of the public tend to engage in local plan consultations.”
We all know that people tend only to become aware and engage when an application is made and when a site notice appears, but this causes real upset when people do then engage and seek to share their views at the application stage, only to be told that the decision about the site has already been made. At best, it leaves people feeling ignored. At worst, it leads to a feeling of total disenfranchisement from local democracy. This is not the fault of our local councils; it is the process.
Stephanie Peacock
No, I am going to make some progress. However, the councils and the planning committees take the blame. Planning works best when it is a partnership. We need the right types of homes in the right places. Of course we need investment and new jobs, but just leaving delivery to the market will not deliver partnership and will fundamentally fail to meet people’s needs. With the brownfield remediation fund devastated by the Tories and a soft-touch approach to land banking and speculation, the inevitable consequences of this policy will be a further loss of valued green spaces without local voices being heard.
The reality is that the planning process is not a democratic one; it is a legal one. However, this situation is due to become far, far worse. With these changes, the Government will be ripping out the only democratic element of the planning process. The proposals are nothing short of a developers’ charter. As has been stated, since the Prime Minister became leader of the Conservative party, donations to the Tories from developers have increased by 400%. With these proposals, the Prime Minister is paying them back by selling out our communities. Some of those developers have even seen their individual planning applications personally approved by the Secretary of State against his own Department’s advice.
There is a reason why there is so much opposition to the proposals. Their introduction would be the greatest shift in power to big developers in the history of this country. We need a fundamentally new approach, not more market control. We need democratic control. The Government’s proposals will not deliver that. The developers and donors will be delighted, but it is our communities who will pay the price.
Carbon Monoxide: Safety, Testing and Awareness
Stephanie Peacock Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
I have called for this debate today following my question in this place in February, when I asked the Government what steps they were taking to protect people from carbon monoxide poisoning at a time when so many are staying indoors during lockdown, with their windows closed and their heating switched on—prime conditions for CO poisoning to occur. Couple this with the fact that symptoms can be similar to those of covid-19, and I believe today’s debate to raise awareness is relevant and necessary.
Carbon monoxide is a deadly killer. Each death from carbon monoxide poisoning is fully preventable, yet we are still seeing too many lives lost each year by this silent killer. Today, I want to consider the main risks of CO, what actions the Government should be taking, and how we can raise awareness and prevent further unnecessary deaths.
If one searches the NHS website for carbon monoxide poisoning symptoms, the list includes a tension-type headache, tiredness, confusion and nausea. It states that the symptoms of exposure to low levels of carbon monoxide poisoning can be similar to those of flu. It should also say that they are similar to many people’s reports of coronavirus symptoms, yet it does not. When the Government guidance is to stay at home if you have covid symptoms and that this is the most dangerous thing you could do if you have CO poisoning, it is important that awareness is raised to highlight the distinction between the two. May I therefore ask the minister to look at that issue?
Annual gas safety checks are not as common as they should be. It is often another expense that people simply cannot afford, especially in many households over the last year where they have seen a reduction or loss of vital earnings as a result of the pandemic. There is no smell or taste to carbon monoxide gas, so without a detector there is no way of knowing whether a home or workplace has a leak, and no way of knowing if the nausea and fatigue someone is feeling is an illness or an escape of deadly gas that has the ability to kill within minutes if levels are high.
Molly Maher formed CO-Gas Safety and spent the last 35 years of her life fighting for a change in the law after fumes from a faulty gas water heater in a Tenerife apartment killed her 26-year-old son, Gary, and paralysed her 21-year-old daughter, Sheree, while the two of them were on holiday together in 1985. Molly sadly passed away last year, but the campaigning CO-Gas Safety Society continues her work to raise awareness of the dangers of carbon monoxide. CO-Gas Safety strongly believes that more must be done to fully understand the scale of this issue, as well as strengthening the law to ensure that gas appliances are all tested regularly.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech on this really important issue. She highlights the education programme. Does she agree it is so important that we campaign? This is a silent killer that can affect anybody anywhere across the UK, so education is key.
Stephanie Peacock
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. That brings me on to my next point, which is highlighting how many people this issue affects across the UK. It is reported that as many as 4,000 people a year are diagnosed with low level carbon monoxide poisoning, with 200 people admitted to hospital with serious injuries and around 50 fatalities. It is virtually impossible to know how many people are affected, but a recent estimate predicts that it can affect between 3 million and 5 million people in the UK.
There are several reasons why we do not know exactly how many individuals have suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning. First, testing survivors is challenging and unreliable. Fresh air and oxygen quickly remove carbon monoxide from blood and breath, but may not dissipate it from bodily tissue which is what continues to damage a person. Secondly, the Health and Safety Executive, which is responsible for gas incidents, only investigates if there is a proven death from carbon monoxide, despite those levels staying the same until the body decomposes. This is an area that CO-Gas Safety and other campaigners have been working to change. There are around 3,500 unexplained deaths in the UK each year, yet none is automatically tested for CO despite it being a relatively straightforward procedure.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
I wonder what thought my hon. Friend has given to carbon monoxide alarms. In the same way that fire alarms detect smoke, does she think there should be an obligation on anyone who has a gas appliance to install carbon monoxide alarms, for instance where they have tenants?
Stephanie Peacock
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I will come on to make that point. We need to see an increase in carbon monoxide detectors.
I would like to share with the House the sad case, in 2003, of Paul Overton, who lost his beloved stepdaughter Katie, aged 11. Paul and his wife lived in rented accommodation with Katie and their two younger daughters. Katie was cremated, but her death was treated as suspicious by the police. Ten days after Katie’s death, the whole family nearly died from carbon monoxide poisoning. It was then that Paul suspected and called a pathologist to investigate further. Thankfully, some of her blood had been kept, which after testing was found to contain CO. This was later judged to be the cause of Katie’s death. Paul’s landlord was convicted of failure to undertake a gas safety check. It was also found that the boiler required a service after which it emitted almost no CO—it had not been serviced for years. Yet the law governing the landlord gas safety check does not make boiler service or flue gas tests mandatory. It is staggering that that straightforward change in the law has yet to be made. In 2011, Baroness Finlay, then co-chair of all-party parliamentary carbon monoxide group, recommended that all deceased bodies should be tested for CO poisoning, but no action followed.
Carbon monoxide alarms are essential for the detection of CO gases. According to the 2015 regulations, private landlords are required by law to ensure that a CO alarm is installed in any room containing a solid fuel-burning appliance, such as a coal fire or a wood-burning stove, and they must be checked at the start of each new tenancy. For homeowners, that responsibility falls to them. That is why is it essential that we highlight and raise awareness of this serious issue.
Many campaigns, such as CO-Gas Safety, led by its hard-working president, Stephanie Trotter, and the all-party parliamentary carbon monoxide group, and many survivors and victims’ families have lobbied the Government for decades to raise awareness and change the law, with very limited success. It is important to note that although current law requires carbon monoxide alarms to be fitted in rooms containing a solid fuel-burning appliance, the Government’s website states that
“as gas appliances can emit carbon monoxide, we would expect and encourage reputable landlords to ensure that working carbon monoxide alarms are installed in rooms with these.”
That is where the law is incredibly weak. We know that gas appliances can and sometimes do emit deadly carbon monoxide gases, but the Government choose just to “expect and encourage” landlords to install carbon monoxide alarms, instead of making that law. Such a law could save lives simply by ensuring that all rented properties are fitted with relatively inexpensive detectors and mandating that they are maintained regularly, instead of at the start of each tenancy, regardless of its length.
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an important speech. I note what she said about the Government already expecting reputable landlords to do what she outlines, so does she agree that mandating and requiring them to do it through the change in the law that she suggests would not be onerous?
Stephanie Peacock
I completely agree. I hope that the Minister has heard that important point. I know that there was a Government consultation on this issue, which closed in January, but no follow-up or findings have yet been announced.
I commend the all-party parliamentary carbon monoxide group, which has worked for many years on this issue. In November 2017, it published a report on carbon monoxide alarms. After a thorough analysis, it made three recommendations. First, it recommended that the Government should update the existing Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015 so that landlords are legally obliged to provide CO alarms in rooms of private rented properties that contain any fuel-burning appliance, not just solid fuel appliances. The second recommendation was that landlords should be given adequate notice of and provided with clear guidance on future changes to the regulations. The third recommendation was that in subsequent reviews and amendments of building regulations, the Government should widen the requirement to fit CO alarms to all properties, including public and social rented sector properties and owner-occupied properties.
Those asks are well within the power of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to fix. This is a safety issue and the Minister can direct Ofgem to make it mandatory for the gas emergency service to test appliances for CO and ensure that, by law, all residences are fitted with a CO alarm. Those are reasonable and simple asks, so will the Minister outline the Government’s position on them?
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
This is the best speech on carbon monoxide, its dangers and the practical ways of reducing those risks that I have heard. May I suggest to the Minister that he invite Stephanie Trotter, who has been doing this work for 25 years, and representatives of the all-party group to a meeting with him, advised by the HSE, along with the National Residential Landlords Association? If the good landlords are doing what they should, the bad ones need to be encouraged. The regulations do not require registered gas engineers to test every time they have the opportunity to do so. That should be a basic requirement. It is like testing tyres during an MOT.
Stephanie Peacock
The hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly important point and I hope that the Minister will respond accordingly.
The legislation is not tough enough, and
“we need to send out the message that we will not settle for anything less than the highest standards, which are needed to protect the most vulnerable people in our society.”—[Official Report, 23 February 1999; Vol. 326, c. 212.]
They are not my words, but those of the former Member for Houghton and Washington, East in a debate in this place on the same subject 22 years ago. It is not acceptable that, two decades later, we are still waiting for meaningful action. I hope that today the Government have finally listened and will act.
Paul Scully
Indeed, and the Father of the House is, in his usual wise way, right to highlight the fact that not only is this a silent killer, but that it does not take much to have a drastic effect. Clearly, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government will have heard his request to chivvy along that response and his request to meet, and I will make sure that the conversations that we can usefully have with Members of the House, and there are many, come through to the right Ministry so that they can have the best effect. I will reflect on that and return to it.
Raising awareness about the dangers of carbon monoxide and the actions to be taken to minimise the risk is absolutely key and that is why this debate is so important. The Government’s message is also very clear. We say to householders: use a properly trained, competent and gas safe-registered engineer to undertake work in your home and have all fuel appliances serviced on a regular basis. It is also good sense to have a carbon monoxide alarm fitted in your home as an additional precautionary measure. We say to landlords: ensure that you know the legal and moral obligations on you towards the safety of your tenants from the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. The hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) was absolutely right when she talked about the fact that we need to make sure that we are calling out disreputable landlords on that and that tenants need to clearly know their rights in this as well. And we say to those tenants: ensure that your landlord has undertaken the necessary steps to protect you from carbon monoxide.
The Government regularly review their messaging and information to ensure that it is clear and up to date. For example, there is a need to be vigilant in looking out for the signs of carbon monoxide poisoning at the moment during the coronavirus pandemic, as we have heard, because the symptoms of chronic CO poisoning may be confused with some of the signs commonly associated with flu-like illnesses such as covid-19. These include headaches, sickness, tiredness and shortage of breath. Similarly, one of the solutions for carbon monoxide poisoning, as the hon. Member for Barnsley East said, is fresh air, which is also shared with the covid-19 response.
Stephanie Peacock
Will the Minister respond to my point on the NHS website? Perhaps he could take it up with the Department of Health and Social Care, so that we can raise awareness of the similarities between these two illnesses.
Paul Scully
I will happily take that away and reflect on it with the Department of Health and Social Care.
We are all spending significantly longer periods at home at the moment, although it is less, thankfully, now that we are in stage 2 of the road map as we take further steps along it out of lockdown. None the less, it is hugely important that we address this. I am pleased to say that we are approaching the warmer summer months, when switching on the heating may not be so much of a consideration, but in the recent cold snap, many of us have been tempted to switch the heating back on for a few days and maybe have our windows closed to keep out the cold.
I am sure it is no coincidence that Gas Safety Week is in September and Carbon Monoxide Awareness Week is in November, when the heating comes back on and we do all we can to avoid chilly draughts, potentially reducing crucial ventilation. Indeed, Gas Safety Week celebrated its 10th anniversary last year, and Carbon Monoxide Awareness Week is coming of age this year. These provide a useful reminder and help to raise awareness at a key point in the year, giving a timely reminder to ensure that appliances are serviced and checked. That does not mean that there are not risks at other times of the year. The development of a fault in an appliance is not restricted to a certain week or month, and the risks of using certain products such as barbecues in poorly ventilated or covered areas may be more prevalent as we head into the summer.
I was struck by the experiences that we heard from the hon. Member for Barnsley East of people who have been personally affected by carbon monoxide through not just deaths but the long-term effects. Members have heard from their constituents about tragic events that have possibly even led to close calls, which are no less terrifying for those going through that terrible experience. There are actions that we should all take as individuals to reduce the risk of exposure to carbon monoxide. Raising awareness and spreading the word through initiatives such as Gas Safety Week and Carbon Monoxide Awareness Week is also an important element of ensuring the safety of the public from the invisible threat of carbon monoxide.
The Government continue to keep this issue under close review and take steps as appropriate to increase safety and protect the public, but this is a welcome and timely debate and a reminder to Government and to all of us that we must continue to work to reduce and eliminate these deaths and the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Question put and agreed to.
Towns Fund
Stephanie Peacock Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con) [R]
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Towns Fund.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate. The United Kingdom is full of hard-working, innovative, entrepreneurial people. We are the fifth-biggest economy in the world, and we are a liberal, free, open and successful economy. A great number of my constituents have good jobs based in London, but lots do not, and many have been left behind, in a rich country like ours, even in good times of growth. It is therefore time to invest in our towns and cities that do not or cannot benefit from London. That is why all Members should welcome promises to level up and unleash the economic potential of towns, cities and rural places across the country. That is why all Members should welcome the towns fund.
The fund will invest £3.6 billion into places like Peterborough, Blackpool, Barrow, Torquay, Darlington, Norwich and Warrington. It will more than pay for itself by stimulating economic growth with a focus on regeneration, improved transport, better broadband connectivity, skills and culture. The plan is to unleash the economic potential of 101 towns and cities across the UK. The towns fund has the potential to change lives.
I want to illustrate the benefits of the towns fund by informing the House about how it will benefit Peterborough. The bid for investment in Peterborough is one of the first seven successful bids as part of phase 1. We have already had £1 million for a shovel-ready local growth project to support 14 parks across the city, but it will deliver nearly £23 million of investment for my city overall. Many other cities and bids are looking to Peterborough to see how we were successful. Where Peterborough leads, other towns and cities follow.
I pay tribute to Matthew Bradbury of the Nene Park Trust, the chair of the towns fund bid, Andy Starnes of CityFibre, the vice-chair, and all those who served on the towns fund board. That board includes councillors and officers from Peterborough City Council and me. I also serve on the board, and that is what makes the towns fund different. It is different not only because this Government believe in the economic potential of these towns and cities, but because Members of this House have been invited to be personally involved in the projects and personally associated with their success or, indeed, failure. We are accountable to the electorate and can hold Ministers to account.
Together with my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara), who represents the southern part of Peterborough, we have lobbied for and supported the bid from day 1. I am sure that is true for many other Members. The funding will create a new library and a cultural hub on Bridge Street and a centre for lifelong learning, as well as feed into the new skills and the technical university that we are building, bringing highly paid jobs back to our city centre. It will give the impetus for the new developments of the station quarter and north Westgate. It will pump money into Lincoln Road, a vibrant high street in Peterborough that just needs focus, investment and, dare I say it, a little bit of love.
In the words of one local restaurant owner, Zillur Hussain, the fund is a fresh start for Peterborough that builds on our natural advantages, as we are only 40 minutes from London on the main road and rail arteries. We have a history of manufacturing, engineering, science and technology, and we have a wonderful, hard-working, skilful population. This fund is the shot in the arm that will unleash our potential.
The fund will benefit communities across the country and Members across this House. It should not be a partisan political issue. It is a shame that some Opposition Members have sought to make it political, instead of welcoming investment in their constituencies, and I hope that does not happen in this debate.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
Given that 60 of the 61 towns allocated funding were Conservative-held or Conservative target seats, surely it is the hon. Gentleman’s party that has made it party political.
Paul Bristow
As I understand it, 101 areas could benefit from that investment. If the Labour party had not ignored those towns and cities, perhaps it would still be representing them.
This fund has happened when the Government are tackling an unprecedented public health crisis. Covid-19 is the biggest challenge this country has faced since world war two. Some might have forgiven the Government if they had paused the initiative while they focused on the pandemic, but rather than doing that, they have powered ahead, giving hope and optimism to places such as Peterborough and helping communities to build back better as we overcome the pandemic.
This funding also includes the future high streets fund, which aims to renew town centres and high streets to make them more attractive places to visit, increasing footfall, driving growth and supporting local businesses. That is exactly what Lincoln Road, Westgate and other parts of Peterborough need. The pandemic has kept people away from the high street. People are eating takeaways and restaurant meals at home, and they are shopping online. My mobile phone boasts not just Deliveroo but, as a result of the pandemic and lockdown, Just Eat and Uber Eats. As convenient as that is, and as good as the hospitality in Peterborough has been at adapting, there is a real fear that hospitality and retail will suffer as we come out of the pandemic because people’s shopping and leisure habits have changed. That is why we need to think differently about town centres and high streets and make them a destination.
We need to create new, innovative high streets offering different things, such as pop-up shops, entertainment, interactive experiences, culture, leisure and mixed use including residential, as well as fun, safe and changing nightlife and hospitality. The towns fund is the catalyst for change, because private sector money and investment will follow, unlocking the potential of our towns and cities.
It is a message of hope, and it shows these communities that the Government and their local MPs have not forgotten them. Will the Minister remain committed to the plan? Will he confirm that there are chances for more towns and cities beyond the 101 already identified to submit bids for the future? Will he stress the importance of local MP engagement and ask all MPs from across the House to get on board with the towns fund and its potential to transform lives?
To conclude, I am all pumped up for Peterborough in 2021, ’22, ’23 and beyond. We have a new university coming, Fletton Quays and a new Government hub; the station quarter, a new cinema and Queensgate expansion is planned; and the Embankment will become an all-year-round destination—and now we have £23 million through the towns fund. We are making the decisions now that will guarantee our future health, wealth and happiness in the future. I am so excited that we are going to unleash our potential, but I am just as excited about this country’s potential, and as we level up and build back better from this pandemic, this is what the towns fund can deliver.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blyth Valley (Ian Levy) in this important debate. The Government have talked a good game about levelling up, but it is no more than a slogan for areas like Barnsley. The Labour party supports funding for our towns, but it is crucial that it is done transparently and fairly. Sixty out of the 61 areas that were allocated money by Ministers from the towns fund were in Conservative-held or Conservative target seats. By anyone’s standards, that is not a fair approach. Labour councils have shouldered the pain of cuts to local government over the last decade. Barnsley Council has had the biggest cuts in the country, and that has had a huge knock-on effect on local services, from adult social care to road maintenance and bus services.
A recent report by the Coalfields Regeneration Trust on the impact of coronavirus on older industrial Britain concluded that towns and communities like Barnsley were
“lagging behind before the crisis”
and will therefore find it harder to recover. That is why the Government need to invest in training and skills, rethink cuts to universal credit, which has provided a lifeline for many in my community, and make sure that young people are given access to education, whatever their postcode is.
The pandemic is not a great leveller. As I said in my first speech in this place,
“not all communities are equal”—[Official Report, 12 July 2017; Vol. 627, c. 347.]
and this crisis has further highlighted inequalities. The UK has had the worst recession of any major economy. The Government must now take a different approach: secure our jobs, support our high streets and strengthen our communities through investments that deliver for people in every area, not just those represented by Members on the Government Benches.
The Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government (Luke Hall)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) and the Backbench Business Committee on securing what has been an important and passionate debate. We have heard colleagues on both sides of the House speak with passion and enthusiasm about the communities they represent. I am hugely grateful to colleagues on both sides of the House for their contributions, and I will try to address as many of the points raised as possible.
This debate has given us a chance to celebrate the towns fund, which is a cornerstone of our levelling-up agenda. It is helping to reshape towns and cities into places where businesses and communities can thrive. In 2019, we announced that 101 places had been invited to develop proposals for a town deal. The objective of these deals is to drive the regeneration of towns to deliver long-term economic and productivity growth. It has been genuinely inspiring to see town deal boards, communities and representatives of individual places work with local government to do just that.
These towns are spread right across the country. Many are birthplaces of industry that have been centres of commerce for centuries. Others are bastions of the maritime economy across the coastline. They are all different, but the thing they have in common is that they have been left behind as investment has focused on big cities for too long. Town deals are reversing that trend. They are about providing investment and confidence at a crucial time for these communities. We are investing in new uses for often derelict and unloved spaces. We are creating new cultural and economic assets that will benefit communities for years to come, and we are connecting people through better infrastructure, both digital and physical, such as the new walking and cycling routes planned at Torquay and the creation of a new digi-tech factory in Norwich.
It is unsurprising and disappointing to see the Labour party today trot out the same tired old lines attacking this fund, which is investing so much in towns that were neglected for years under the last Labour Government. We heard Labour Members say again today that this fund has been targeted at Conservative-held areas. They are wrong. The majority of towns selected are in either Labour or Opposition-held local authority areas. Those councils have worked with us co-operatively, passionately trying to put together their bids, to deliver investment in their communities, but the Labour party in Westminster is determined to reject the support for those communities and attack these local regeneration projects in towns and cities that they neglected for years and years.
Stephanie Peacock
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, but I am afraid he is completely wrong. Sixty out of 61 towns selected by Ministers were in Conservative-held or Conservative target seats. Barnsley, which I represent, has had the biggest cuts in the country. How could we possibly not have been considered for the fund?
Luke Hall
I ask the hon. Lady to check the facts. The majority of these town deals are in Opposition-held council areas.
I was delighted to hear the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) open her speech by saying that no Labour MP will oppose more funding for local government, because she will have the opportunity shortly to vote for a local government finance settlement that will increase councils’ core spending power by 4.5%—a real-terms increase.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) asked about funding for Northern Ireland and how the Department for International Trade’s high potential opportunities programme is supporting investment across the UK. I can confirm that DIT announced in October the second round of successful bids, with 19 new projects selected, and it is currently working with Invest Northern Ireland to explore even more investment opportunities. I am sure that colleagues in the Department for International Trade will be happy to pick that up with him.
In the face of this relentless negativity from the Labour party, in October last year we announced the first seven towns to have gone through the assessment process and have their plans approved. Among them was Peterborough. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough worked closely with the town deal board and helped to develop the ambitious investment plan. I am delighted that it was offered £22.9 million in October. That funding will help to deliver a new enterprise hub to support entrepreneurs and inward investment. It will support healthy lifestyles by making it easier to walk and cycle, and it will further Peterborough’s ambitions for low-carbon living. I thank my hon. Friend and his town board for all their support and help in making this happen.
I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton) for his remarks this afternoon. It is in large part down to his hard work, alongside that of the town deal board, that Blackpool will receive £39.5 million. This substantial investment reflects the exceptional nature of Blackpool’s proposals and the national significance of what they are planning. We think investing in this iconic British seaside resort has benefits that will reach way beyond the boundaries of the town. The plans include making Blackpool’s famous illuminations even more impressive so that they can attract visitors right around the year and have a huge impact on tourism in the town.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) raised his ambitions for the Goole to Leeds rail link and asked whether we could retain some flexibility in delivering the fund to support places requesting revenue funding as part of the deal. I would say to him that the towns fund criteria are broadly drawn, and intentionally so, to ensure that we give towns as much flexibility as possible to determine their own priorities. It is right that the towns fund is principally about capital investments, but we recognise that in some towns there might be a particular need for an amount of revenue funding, perhaps to support the implementation of a capital project, so we absolutely agree with that.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) talked passionately about his town investment plan, which we received in late October last year. I can assure him that the assessment process is under way and my officials are looking at the details of the plan. I agree with him that it provides the opportunity for Harlow to determine its own future, and I will certainly join him in thanking the Harlow growth board, the chief executive of the council and all the officers who have worked on the bid.
Alongside town deals, we are also investing directly in the high streets that are at the heart of so many of our communities. Too many high streets have seen considerable decline in the past decades, and those challenges have been exacerbated over the last year by covid-19. That is why, on Boxing day, we announced the winners of our future high streets competition, committing up to £830 million to 72 places in England and giving a major boost to local high streets and the many jobs and livelihoods that depend on them.
That investment includes over £11 million for Blyth, which was raised in the debate by my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth Valley (Ian Levy). This will deliver important new cultural and educational facilities and bring vibrancy to the town centre. The investment also includes nearly £18 million for Worcester city centre, which will benefit from the renovation of the popular theatre and the Corn Exchange, and £25 million for Swindon to modernise its town centre. Some £107 million from the future high streets fund has also been allocated to support the regeneration of heritage high streets, and we are doing everything possible to help high streets to survive, adapt and thrive.
My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough also talked about the need to do more and go further, and he was right to do so, because there is of course more investment to come. At the spending review, we announced the levelling up fund, worth £4 billion, and that will bring infrastructure investment—
Bereavement
Stephanie Peacock Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Grahame Morris
As always, the right hon. Gentleman makes eminently sensible points born out of his experience with the all-party group. The three suggestions or demands that I have put forward are those that are identified by the three charities I mentioned earlier, but certainly personally I do agree with him on vaccination, funeral arrangements and so on.
I would like to ask the Minister to look at the issue of cross-governmental co-ordination and improved focus on these issues. I understand that the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries) is often identified as the Minister for bereavement. I am delighted that we have the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) as the Minister today, but we certainly need a clear ministerial lead on bereavement to ensure there is proper co-ordination on the issues raised by the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) and others. Otherwise, bereaved families will continue to slip through the net and be passed from pillar to post, which is distressing and frustrating.
A bereavement standard would benefit business and the bereaved by providing a clear, concise and consistent process to close accounts when a loved one dies. A bereavement standard would establish, first, an agreed timeframe for companies to respond to bereavement enquiries and settle outstanding customer balances. Members will be aware that the existing arrangements, the Tell Us Once service to which the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) referred, applies only to the public sector, and not to private companies, utilities and banks. Secondly, a bereavement standard would establish a dedicated bereavement customer care direct email channel for each company to handle such cases and avoid customers waiting on calls. Thirdly, it would establish the standardisation of paperwork needed to close an account, with a view to accepting—this is a really important point in the age we live in—digital documents wherever possible.
I anticipate that the Minister will, in his reply, refer to the excellent bereavement standard that already exists in the public sector. The Tell Us Once service is working well, ensuring that bereaved people do not have to go through the trauma of telling every single Government Department that they have lost a loved one, but we need exactly the same in the private sector to cover banks, utilities, insurance companies and more: a standard process across all organisations and companies, with specifically trained staff dealing with bereavement and an agreed timescale to close accounts and resolve issues. There is nothing more distressing than when such inquiries drag on for months and months.
At one of the most challenging times in life, I hope we all agree—this is a cross-party issue; I am not seeking to make a party political point here—that families should not have to spend hours going back and forth with companies, waiting months to close an account. Research from Settld and Cruse Bereavement Care shows that the vast majority of bereaved people described the administration processes as time-consuming and stressful. A quarter found it traumatic, especially having to phone so many individual companies and repeat time and again, “My husband/wife/father/mother has died.”
The single most important action the Government can take to support families would be to introduce a digital death certificate. This would enable families to close accounts quickly, initiate probate and engage specialist services such as Settld to deal with the administration following a death. When asked to introduce digital death certificates, in a written response, a Home Office Minister responded:
“There is currently no provision in law to issue a death certificate other than in a paper format.”
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
I am incredibly grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and congratulate him on his powerful speech. Will he join me in calling on the Government to issue clear guidance for families who have lost a loved one who suffered from industrial diseases, such as the many miners that he and I represent, to ensure that those families receive the compensation that they are entitled to?
Grahame Morris
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I am tempted to go off at a tangent, because it is an issue that I feel terribly passionate about, particularly given the age of many miners and their widows, who have to deal with the complications with utility companies and so on, which will not accept digital death certificates. There are complexities when the cause of death is an industrial disease such as pneumoconiosis and the complications of it. It is a very important point, and the Government could do something about it by issuing guidance to assist those families.
There is currently no provision to issue a digital death certificate. As I said, when asked, the Minister said it was not possible to issue a certificate except in a paper format. However, time and again, when concerns have been voiced about digital exclusion, we have been told that there is a policy of “digital by default”—indeed, the Government have estimated that by moving services to digital channels, they could achieve savings of up to £1.8 billion a year. Digital by default should not only deliver savings to the Government, but should help better serve the people we represent.
The Minister is, I hope, aware of the widespread support for the bereavement standard. A YouGov poll showed that 80% of the British public agree with all three of the proposed bereavement standard elements. Indeed, an early-day motion tabled by yours truly, No. 818, “Supporting grieving families through a bereavement standard”, has been signed by 53 Members of Parliament from eight political parties, including, I think, the hon. Members present today, and almost 92,000 have signed the petition by Settld, Cruse Bereavement Care and Sue Ryder. So, potentially, through the Petitions Committee we might have an opportunity for a longer debate if the Minister cannot be persuaded of the arguments tonight.
Fundamentally, this is a debate about care and compassion. Bereavement is a life experience that, sadly, will affect each and every one of us at some time. Coping with the loss of a loved one requires time and space to grieve. Some companies, to be fair, show immense care and compassion to employees at such times, but not all companies do.
Bereavement and death are the ultimate equalisers; both will come to us all. The pandemic, the scale of the loss, a nation in mourning should focus all of our minds and give us the strength to act. We have an opportunity to create a caring and compassionate system—one that can assist bereaved families at the most difficult time that they will experience in life. So, Minister, I ask for a positive response and a promise of progress on the three issues raised today—the bereavement standard, digital death certificates and statutory bereavement leave.
Planning for the Future
Stephanie Peacock Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to be called in today’s debate, Sir Charles, yet again discussing “Planning for the Future”. I am surprised we are still here after the debate in the Chamber a few weeks ago, when there was deep concern across the House about the proposals, since the language painted a very different picture from the reality of what they would bring.
I want to focus on York, my constituency, and the real challenges we are facing with the whole planning system that will be exacerbated by “Planning for the Future”. The Government talk about giving back control and local people having a say, but when it comes to “Planning for the Future”, there is virtually no meaningful involvement. There may be consultation but certainly no involvement in the depth of planning decisions about their local environment.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
Public engagement seems to be higher for individual planning applications than broader planning consultations. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be more democratic to encourage and facilitate public engagement at every stage and at every level, and that these changes will lead to more decisions being made behind closed doors and make things worse, not better?
Rachael Maskell
I absolutely do agree with my hon. Friend, not least when infill housing development proposals come forward and there is actually very little accountability. That is why it is so important that local people have a say about their community—they know it best.
The reality is that whoever holds the cheque book holds the power in planning, and it is set to get worse under the proposed changes. I want to set out the problem that we are facing in York Central, in what would be a renewable area, and why the current system and “Planning for the Future” will fail York for generations.
Some 80% of housing need is for family housing, and I do not know a family that does not want a house with a garden, yet the planning for York Central will mean that 80% of housing is unaffordable one or two-bedroom flats—nothing that our constituency needs, despite over £155 million of public money being poured into the scheme—built on 45 hectares of public land. Already, under the current system, the housing is for investors, not residents.
That is nothing short of immoral when people are living in damp, overcrowded, poor-quality private rented sector houses. I was just looking at the figures: in York we have lost 45 socially rented homes, and that situation is getting worse with right to buy. We have a real housing crisis here, and this paper does not match our needs. These people have nowhere to go in York: if they cannot move out, which is the only option, they are left in this housing crisis; if they do move out, our local economy suffers, because we do not have the skills mix that our city needs.
York Central is adjacent to the rail station, which is one of the best-connected locations in the country; it is the mid-point between Edinburgh and London, a destination for HS2, if that is still going ahead—although today that looks uncertain—and at the intersection with the trans-Pennine route. If I look across to places such as Crewe or Curzon Street in Birmingham, the opportunity for creating jobs on these sites has been realised, and economic investment has been prioritised. However, York Central will provide just 6,500 jobs because the majority of the site is being handed over to housing.
The way the partnership has been set out means that Network Rail, Homes England and the National Railway Museum own the site and control the decisions. These bodies are not based in York. The Lib Dem-Green council, bizarrely, extracted itself from any decision making on the site. We now have the largest brownfield site in Europe, in the northern powerhouse, having its future determined by three national organisations with no interest in the future of the city.
The National Railway Museum rightly wants to see an upgrade to the museum by 2025 to celebrate 200 years of the railway, but Homes England has the power and money, and is certainly not putting forward the proposals our city needs. Homes England has a responsibility not only for developing housing, but for the economic future of our city, yet it has no understanding of our current economic situation. It is talking about putting low-wage, low-skill jobs on the site, when we need high-value jobs. We have a great opportunity with the bioscience industry, the digital creative sector and rail jobs for the future, and we know that there is investment interest. However, those things will be locked out of the site because of this imbalance, with Homes England holding the cards.
What we want to do is truly build back better by ensuring that we have good-quality jobs and the homes that people need in our city for the wider economy. “Planning for the Future” fails to address the situation. We must first address local need and then local opportunities to drive development. “Planning for the Future” further takes away powers of local scrutiny and will mean that those with the power, money and opportunity end up recreating our cities in a way that meets their short-term financial interests and undermines the long-term economic health of our city.
When it comes to the incredible city of York, it will result in future generations not having the good-quality jobs that I want them to have. Families will not have the housing they need, our local economy will be completely skewed, we will not have the skills we need and we will be overrun by speculative investors. Surely that is not what the Minister wants, and yet that will be the outcome of “Planning for the Future”.
Covid-19: Funding for Local Authorities
Stephanie Peacock Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
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This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I begin by thanking and paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) for securing this important debate.
Day in, day out, our local authorities are on the frontline fighting the virus and providing essential services that we all rely on, from bin collections, street cleaning and libraries to children’s services, social care and homelessness support. I pay tribute to all council workers, especially those at Barnsley Council. During the pandemic, we have relied on them to rapidly reorient themselves in a way we could never have envisaged: being on the frontline of the fight against the pandemic as well as supporting their businesses and residents, all while continuing their everyday essential work.
For that, they were promised “whatever it takes”; they should do whatever was needed, and the Government would ensure that they were not left out of pocket. Sadly, the rhetoric has not been matched by reality, certainly not in Barnsley. Our council has done an exceptional job of supporting residents, but that has come at an expected cost at the end of March of £50 million, including around £34 million in support for the most vulnerable and social care and relief to support businesses. The council also estimates around £16 million of lost income from council tax, business rates and fees. The Government income compensation scheme is expected to provide only £2 million to cover that, with that shortfall leaving the council with a loss of £15 million. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimated the figure nationally at £1.1 billion, and that was before the second national lockdown.
Of course, this follows a decade of austerity in which Barnsley received the biggest cut in Government support of any council in the country. My constituency cannot afford to be left behind by this Government for another decade.
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
Because everyone has been so good in sticking to the time limit, we can increase it to three minutes and 30 seconds.
Unpaid Work Experience (Prohibition) (No. 2) Bill
Stephanie Peacock ExcerptsFriday 11th September 2020
(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I remember that the first time I had a Back-Bench Bill, it took three and a half years for the Government to adopt the measures that I wanted, to ban smoking in cars with children present, but we got there in the end, and I hope that we will get there much sooner with this Bill. The world in which we now live has changed significantly since this Bill was first postponed from 27 March last year. We have lived through difficult times in the past few months. Everybody had to change their way of life to ensure that we took on covid-19 and protected the most vulnerable from this deadly coronavirus. That has highlighted just how fragile and complex many of our systems and procedures are. I was personally inundated with inquiries from all corners of my constituency of Stockton North, from small business owners to zero-hours contract workers, from furloughed workers to those who have recently been made unemployed. It has been tough navigating this, and I commend everyone involved in the effort to respond to covid-19.
Enhancing workplace rights and how we value work now could not be more important. Young people in particular have faced difficulties and problems that they should not have had to face. On top of the world feeling upside down, the experiences of the young person during the coronavirus crisis have been significant: prevented from seeing their friends and family for months on end; half a school year missed, which is a huge part of their development; and fewer job and training opportunities due to the challenges that covid-19 is giving employers and providers.
Research conducted by the Sutton Trust found that almost half of current undergraduates believe that the pandemic has had a negative effect on their chances of finding a job. The pandemic has also led to 61% of employers offering work experience placements having to cancel those at short notice. Unfortunately, that is likely to push some people into undertaking unpaid work to try to get ahead and getting into debt before they receive their first wage.
This is not how we should envisage young people getting on to the employment ladder, yet 39% of graduate employers say that they expect to hire fewer graduates or none at all in the next 12 months. What a dire job market young people are entering into right now. This is even more reason why we should remove the ability for employers to exploit eager and desperate young people who feel that they have to work for free in order to secure a properly paid job.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing forward this incredibly important Bill. Is it not simply the case that many middle-class families, or those with money, can afford for their kids to do unpaid work experience? It is completely unfair when we consider that many families across Barnsley and across the UK just do not have that opportunity. If the Government are serious about their levelling-up agenda, they should support his Bill today.
Paul Scully
Indeed, we do work on both enforcement and awareness, but it is right that we continue to look at how much more we can do, including in making sure that employees and workers themselves are aware of what they are entitled to. Each year, as we address and set the minimum wage, we always have a campaign about that. It is important that we contact, yes, employers to remind them of their legal duties, but also workers to make sure they are aware of their own rights. That is absolutely key.
Stephanie Peacock
Since 2013, it had been Government policy to name employers who break the national minimum wage law. The naming scheme was suspended by the Government last year. Can the Minister tell the House whether that is back up and running, and if it is not, when it will be?