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Oral Answers to Questions
(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)
This Government provide more than £5 billion of pension credit. In August 2021, there were 1,864 people receiving pension credit in the Kettering constituency. That accounts for approximately 10% of those in receipt of the state pension in the Kettering constituency in broad terms.
Mr Hollobone
Pension credit is largely unclaimed across the country; there could be 4,500 people in north Northamptonshire who are eligible but not claiming. Those who do claim it get extra help with council tax, heating bills, dental treatment and TV licences. Would the Minister be kind enough to join me in Kettering at an older persons fair that I am organising in the summer so that we can encourage the take-up of pension credit in the Kettering constituency?
Guy Opperman
Rumours had reached me of the Kettering older persons fair, which I believe is taking place on Friday 1 July. All roads lead to Kettering on that occasion. I would be honoured and privileged to attend to support my hon. Friend, who is a doughty champion of his constituency, and all the good charities, such as Age UK and Citizens Advice, that are working hard to get those numbers up, which is what we all want to do.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
The Minister could have a busy summer ahead. Take-up of pension credit remains low: an estimated 850,000 pensioner households across the country are not receiving the help that they are entitled to. The Department could feasibly work out who those households are and simply make them an award of pension credit. Given the scale of the current cost of living crisis, will the Department commit to an ambitious target for increasing the take-up of pension credit across the country and to a much more ambitious campaign to promote it?
Guy Opperman
I hate to disagree with the Chair of the Select Committee but he is wrong. As he knows, because he did this job in 2007-08, the Department does not know the exact numbers of a means-tested benefit that was set up by Gordon Brown specifically for circumstances where there is not the capability of saying exactly who can apply. The right hon. Gentleman is also wrong, however, that the stats are going up, not down, because they are up on the main income element.
Guy Opperman
The right hon. Gentleman is shaking his head, but he is wrong: they have gone up from 70% to 73%.
Huge efforts are also being made by the Department in the form of the work with the BBC and the utility companies, the pension credit taskforce, and all the letters that were written only this morning. I wrote to the right hon. Gentleman’s local paper and to that of the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), to set out what we are doing to try to get people to take up pension credit and why we want everybody to do so.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)
This year, we will spend more than £129 billion on the state pension and benefits for pensioners in Great Britain, including, as I said, £5 billion on pension credit for the vulnerable. Pensioners can also benefit from wider Government support with energy costs on top of the warm home discount, the winter fuel payment and cold weather support.
Scott Benton
I thank the Secretary of State for visiting Blackpool last week and for opening our brand-new, Government-funded youth hub, which will help young people to find work. Many pensioners will be extremely concerned about the recent increases in the cost of living. Alongside the measures that the Minister mentioned, what steps is he taking to ensure that those eligible for pension credit and the expanded warm home discount are able to apply and do so?
Guy Opperman
I know that the Secretary of State loved her trip to Blackpool and I congratulate my hon. Friend on his jobs fair, which I gather was a great success. He is a great champion for Blackpool and for the elderly residents in his community, and he is a big improvement on his predecessor. I am delighted to say that I wrote to the Blackpool Gazette this morning to set out in more detail how we are trying to get more people to take up pension credit, and it is definitely the case that we are doing that.
Mr Speaker
Order. I do not think it is becoming of anybody to condemn a Member of Parliament who has not been here for a long, long time. I do not really want to get into that, so we should think about what we say in future.
Chris Elmore
The Minister will know that, in my constituency, 88% of people will see their energy bills go up next week, more than 50% of whom are over the age of 64. What more will the Department do to ensure that older people in my constituency get more support with their energy bills? Simply ignoring the issue, or giving pensioners a loan to pay back, penalises people who do not have enough money to survive—it is heating or eating under this Tory Government.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
Has the Minister written to the local paper?
Guy Opperman
I have—I have written to all local papers in the country.
The bottom line is that there is a £200 discount on energy bills from this autumn for domestic electricity customers in Great Britain. There is also the £150 non-repayable council tax rebate and the £144 million of discretionary funding for local authorities to support households who need support but are not eligible for the council tax rebate.
Mr Dhesi
We know that the Government have already abandoned their promises on keeping the pensions triple lock and free TV licences for the over-75s. Now, before the soaring inflation and the soaring energy bills have even kicked in, thanks to the Government’s policies, almost a fifth of all pensioners in the UK are living in poverty. One million households are missing out on pension credits and thousands of pensioners, including in my Slough constituency, are bothered by delays, underpayments and other issues. When will the Government finally get a grip and resolve these problems?
Guy Opperman
With respect, there are 200,000 fewer pensioners in absolute poverty, both before and after housing costs, than in 2009-10. [Interruption.] With respect, the statistics are correct. The hon. Gentleman will recall, as a Labour Member of Parliament, that when the Government changed in 2010, the state pension was barely £100; the new state pension will be over £185 this coming year. It has risen by £2,300 in cash terms over the last eight years.
Jonathan Gullis
Claiming pension credit is a passport to a variety of other benefits for elderly residents in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, so could my hon. Friend advise local people what support becomes available to them if they submit a valid claim for pension credit?
Guy Opperman
I have. Literally hundreds of pounds a month can become available in the form of support for housing, council tax, the TV licence for the over-75s, NHS dental, warm home discounts and many other things—as I am setting out in my hon. Friend’s local paper. I am delighted to say that in so many different ways we are making the case that pension credit and the support is out there for our local residents.
Henry Smith
What success has my hon. Friend had in ensuring there is greater take-up of pension credit in the Crawley constituency, and will he consider joining me at the older persons fair that I am planning to hold later this year?
Guy Opperman
Again, all roads lead to Crawley, and quite right too. I would be delighted to attend my hon. Friend’s older persons fair in the summer or the autumn. It is definitely the case that there is a larger take-up of pension credits on an ongoing basis, and that is something we want to see going forward.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
Pensioners who have worked hard and paid in all their lives face an absolutely enormous increase in the cost of living. Food prices are up, the cost of heating is going up and the cost of living as a whole is going up. This huge increase in inflation was clear before the invasion of Ukraine and it is crystal clear now, yet so far the Government have only come up with a buy-now-pay-later scheme for heating bills, so I would like to ask the Minister: just when will the Government start listening to pensioners and when exactly will they show even a shred of understanding of the dreadful situation facing our pensioners at this time?
Guy Opperman
The hon. Member will be aware that we raised state pension by 2.5% this year, when we did not need to do so, and it is going up by 3.1% in April, on top of which there is the support from the Chancellor with the £9 billion scheme set out only a few weeks ago. He will also be aware that huge efforts are being made to ensure there is take-up of the support benefits, which definitely assist. There is over £5 billion of them, but we want much more to be taken up.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
Despite what the Minister says, the Government’s last-published figures show that there are 200,000 more pensioners in poverty compared with 2018-19, and it is going to get worse. Next month, pensioners will face an increase in their heating bills of over £800 a year compared with this time last year, and at the same time, due to breaking their triple lock promise, the Government will have taken £500 a year out of the pockets of pensioners. It is shameful. Does he agree that Wednesday represents the one opportunity the Chancellor has to reverse the breaking of the triple lock and to do something to help pensioners?
Guy Opperman
I wish the hon. Gentleman a swift recovery from the trip or fall that caused his injury.
It is definitely the case that pensioner poverty is declining. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman’s statistic is manifestly wrong on that: pensioner poverty is down in relation to 2009-10. Of course, there are conversations with the Chancellor, but it is absolutely the case that state pension has increased year on year on year, and we have never paid a higher state pension than we presently do.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)
We have introduced Department for Work and Pensions Train and Progress to address our claimants’ skills needs. Working across Government, we have been able to extend the length of time during which universal credit claimants can undertake full-time training, including skills boot camps in England, to up to 16 weeks. I am also pleased about the role that kickstart has played in helping more than 152,000 young people to gain vital new skills and work experience to help them in their future careers.
Stephen Metcalfe
Ensuring that people have relevant skills is essential to helping them stay in work throughout their working lives. What opportunities are available to my constituents through jobcentres to access training to ensure they can apply for a wider range of opportunities in south Essex?
Mims Davies
I thank my hon. Friend for the chance to highlight our jobcentre teams in Basildon and east Thurrock, who are working closely with partners to provide a wide range of support for local jobseekers, including with South Essex College, which has delivered a sector-based work academy programme—SWAP—for candidates to help them prepare to go into new roles in healthcare, logistics and administrative jobs with Essex Police.
Sir David Evennett
I welcome the work being done by the Government in this important area, which is appreciated in my constituency. Will my hon. Friend update the House on the SWAP and how it is helping people upskill and change careers?
Mims Davies
This is a very successful programme, helping jobseekers, including in my right hon. Friend’s constituency, get an opportunity to develop the key new skills that employers are looking for, including through training and work experience, and a guaranteed job interview in that new sector. I am delighted to be able to say that we have surpassed our delivery goal, with over 146,000 SWAPs having been started since April 2020.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
We know we are at record levels of in-work poverty, with more than 8 million people in that category, so why are three out of four people who were in low-paid work in 2010 still in low-paid work now?
Mims Davies
The hon. Lady makes an important point about progressing; there is a focus on that at DWP and I hope the Select Committee she serves on will have a look at it, because we have just mentioned two areas where this is working for people and filling vacancies that need to be filled. We will be filling half a million new jobs by the summer through our Way to Work campaign; that will help people progress, and I hope the hon. Lady will welcome it.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
The Minister has just accepted the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) that far too many people in this country are stuck in low-paid work. Last month the Secretary of State told me that she was the block to the Government’s response to the report on in-work progression, and last week the Minister told me it would be coming soon. It looks like nothing is happening, so may I give the Minister one last chance: when will the Government respond to the report they commissioned last year on in-work progression?
Mims Davies
I thank the hon. Lady for giving me one last chance at the Dispatch Box—that sounded rather ominous. In-work progression is absolutely vital; from April we will, as was just mentioned, have more work coaches supporting people who have got stuck, as some people have—there might be things going on in their lives which mean they need more skills or confidence. The Secretary of State and I are working on this response and will be bringing it forward very shortly.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
Yes, I have.
Stuart C. McDonald
I thank the Secretary of State for that illuminating answer. Jack Monroe was right that this cost of living crisis could be fatal for some, and that is not a term to be used lightly. Has the Secretary of State urged the Chancellor to reverse the £20 universal credit cut and rule it out to legacy claimants, or has she asked to replicate the Scottish Government’s £20 per week child payment? Where is her comprehensive plan to stop our constituents suffering—and by “plan” I do not mean more loans?
Dr Coffey
There is a cross-Government effort to tackle the cost of living; that has been ongoing for some time, and was most recently revealed by the Chancellor’s announcement on council tax rebates, but also—[Interruption.] Council tax rebate is not a loan; the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) is misinformed. There is also a phasing of energy bills. [Interruption.] I am afraid the hon. Lady is yet again wrong in her assertion about the council tax rebate. However, moving on, the Chancellor really listened when he moved to make sure that the taper rate was reduced to 55% in the autumn Budget; that is ongoing, and it recognises the principle of universal credit that people will be better off working than not working. It is already delivering that, and I welcome the fact that the Chancellor did that.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
One thing that would help single-parent families with the cost of living is receiving child maintenance. In fact, research by York University has found that securing child maintenance payments would lift 60% of children living in single-parent households that currently are not receiving them out of poverty. We have made good progress, but I think we can do more, for example by using home curfew to penalise non-payers. What plans does the Department have to move forward with home curfew?
Dr Coffey
I agree with my hon. Friend that we should be doing and want to do more on child maintenance. There are a number of reasons why sometimes parents are not so keen on that process. However, that specific power was created in primary legislation, and it is my intention later this year to bring the curfew order into effect. I will be working carefully across Government to make sure that we get the appropriate consultation and clearance for regulations.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
The Government speak about their plan for jobs. I think many of us were quite shocked that a plan for jobs meant butchering back-office jobs in the Secretary of State’s own Department; I suspect that she might want to reflect on that. Given that her right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is a multimillionaire who has no idea what it is like to get by on poverty, as many of my constituents and those on these Opposition Benches do, has she suggested that he should follow the Scottish Government’s approach of uprating benefits by 6% with a fixed budget? Is that something she is planning to ask him to do on Wednesday, or is it going to be more of the same from her Department—no action?
Dr Coffey
The House has just recently voted through the uprating order, recognising the traditional way in which the inflation index is used. We will continue to strive to get more people working than ever before. We have seen that certainly on payrolls. I am conscious that the surveys on self-employment may differ in that regard. That is why we will keep working in different ways to try to make sure that we try to lift as many people out of poverty as we can, and we will do that the best way we know: through our work coaches.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (David Rutley)
We know that moving into work—particularly full-time work—is the best way to tackle poverty. We are taking decisive action to make work pay, giving nearly 2 million families an extra £1,000 a year through our changes to the universal credit taper rate and work allowances.
Sir Edward Leigh
I represent Gainsborough South West ward, the 24th most deprived in the country. I wonder whether the Minister would like to come to Gainsborough and discuss with me how we can have pilot schemes, perhaps in the 100 most deprived wards in the country, to really tackle the problem of deprivation with a cross-Government approach that would improve universal credit and tax credits to get people into work and keep them in work, help businesses create jobs in those wards and, above all, help with housing. Is that not a good idea?
David Rutley
It is always a good idea to meet my right hon. Friend, and I will look forward to that. He is absolutely right: the best way to assist people is to help them gain the skills they need to move into work and to progress in work. In Gainsborough, the local jobcentre has worked in partnership with the local council, training providers and the owners of a local business park to recruit staff for a new hospitality venue called the Caldero Lounge through a sector-based work academy programme to help get unemployed people back into work, and there is another SWAP already in train in his constituency. I look forward to meeting him.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Back in the real world, we have seen food bank use rocket over the last 12 years—the Trussell Trust alone distributed 2.5 million emergency food parcels in 2020-21, compared with 40,000 in 2010—and it is set to balloon further as the cost of living soars. That is not tackling poverty through the benefits policy. What does the Minister think went wrong with the welfare state under the Conservatives?
David Rutley
With a record 1.3 million vacancies in the UK, our top priority needs to be to get people into work. We have the household support fund to help people who have vulnerabilities in their lives. That has played a very important role, with £500 million.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
The new report from the centre-right Centre for Social Justice is about the latest scourge to hit the desperate and the destitute: illegal money lending. Over a million people have been driven into the arms of illegal money lenders. The report—by the Centre for Social Justice, not the Labour party—states:
“We can expect this to get worse. The emergent cost-of-living crisis casts a looming shadow of financial anxiety.”
It adds that
“pressures on household budgets, low financial resilience and increasingly limited credit options”
are creating “a perfect storm”, driving people “towards exploitation”. Given soaring inflation and falling real living standards, does the Minister expect that there will be more or fewer people in destitution this year?
David Rutley
We work hard to ensure that people receive the money they need and we also work hard to ensure people get into work. As far as people needing debt management advice, we can do that through our jobcentres. The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), also does a huge amount of work in this area to provide the right sort of advice on money and pensions.
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)
My hon. Friend will know that in February, 9,846 people were claiming universal credit in Darlington. Does he agree that the decision to increase the living wage, extend the work allowance and reduce the taper rate will massively improve the income of people on universal credit?
David Rutley
Absolutely. We want to make sure that work pays, and my hon. Friend has highlighted that fantastically.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)
We are committed to seeing 1 million more disabled people in work by 2027. A wide range of initiatives are available to support disabled people to stay in work or move into work, including contracted employment support, Access to Work, Disability Confident, and initiatives in partnership with the health system.
Martin Docherty-Hughes
I am sure the Minister would agree that an important part of preventing the disability employment gap from widening further is the provision of assistive technology for disabled claimants who are applying for jobs. Can the Minister advise the House on whether every jobcentre is equipped with assistive technology for disabled claimants and whether that is supported by appropriate staff training—and if not, why not?
Mims Davies
We have 900 disability employment advisers who individually work with claimants to help them to progress. One of the most positive outcomes of the kickstart scheme has been the number of people with neurodiversity or disabilities getting a first start into work because they worked directly with their work coaches to understand what support they needed to get into work. There is also, of course, the Access to Work programme.
Marion Fellows
This Thursday, the all-party parliamentary group for multiple sclerosis is launching a report on the support that people with MS receive to get into and remain in employment, and to leave employment. According to the report, people with MS are not receiving enough support from their employers to remain in work. On average, 80% of people with a diagnosis have to retire within 15 years of receiving that bad news. Will the Department commit to improving Access to Work by reducing waiting times, ending the payment cap altogether, and helping employees to better support their disabled employees to thrive and remain in work?
Mims Davies
I thank the hon. Lady for raising a really important point about employers being able to understand and work with their employees as their health needs change. Employers stepping forward to do more to retain quality staff is absolutely right. She will be pleased to know that we are adapting Access to Work to support hybrid working. We have introduced a new flexible offer, and we are also piloting an adjustment passport to help to smooth transitions into employment. Perhaps we need to look at that in terms of those leaving or having to change their employment. I am sure the Minister for disabled people, the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), who is unwell today, will be keen to hear from the hon. Lady.
Anna Firth
Many people who live with disabilities struggle to enter the workplace as they often lack the soft skills and the confidence needed. In my constituency of Southend West, we have a wonderful charity called the Phabulous Café, which provides a training centre for young people with disabilities, learning difficulties and mental health issues to help them gain those essential soft skills. What support do the Government give such charities to help people with disabilities live their lives to the full?
Mims Davies
The Phabulous Café is exactly what its name says. I welcome my hon. Friend to her place, as this is my first time responding to her. Support for small charities exists in the form of the work with the Regional Stakeholder Network, which provides charities with a platform to influence policies that directly impact the lives of disabled people. Through the RSN, support is provided for small charities by helping them to navigate the often difficult process of accessing public sector grants and contracts. I am keen to see the Phabulous Café in action soon.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (David Rutley)
To support people to become financially resilient by moving into work and progressing in employment, eligible UC claimants can claim back up to 85% of their registered childcare costs each month regardless of the number of hours they work, compared with 70% in tax credits.
Florence Eshalomi
Today is national Single Parents’ Day, a day on which I remember my late mum and everything she did to raise me and my sisters. Many single parents in Vauxhall struggling on universal credit find it impossible to pay up front for childcare, because universal credit pays them in arrears. How can the Minister justify forcing universal credit claimants to pay money that they simply do not have for childcare while parents receiving tax-free childcare receive that funding immediately?
David Rutley
The hon. Member makes an important point, and I also pay respect to her mum and to single parents across the UK on today of all days. I thoroughly recommend that her constituents go to the jobcentre and see the work coaches, because a flexible support fund is available that can help to take care of up-front payments for childcare. I would gladly talk to her about that afterwards if she needs further direction.
John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)
The Government have made significant progress in implementing those recommendations, improving the working conditions for agency workers and more harshly penalising employers who treat their workers badly. I will continue to work with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to make sure that we fulfil our commitment to ensuring that everyone, no matter what their background, has the opportunity to start, stay and progress in work.
John Penrose
Ministers from both Departments originally promised to implement the full set of the Taylor review recommendations back in 2018, but four years later, we still have gaps and missing dates for legislation. The conditions faced by many lower-skilled and insecure workers create huge barriers to opportunity, career progression and social mobility. Is it not past time for us to smash these glass ceilings as a key part of levelling up?
Mims Davies
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this matter, and I am sure that BEIS Ministers will have heard him loudly as well. It is absolutely right that we have boosted the secondary legislation, which boosts the rights of workers by quadrupling the available aggravated breach penalty used in employment tribunals, but it is right too that he and I work with my colleagues to make sure that employers—and the experience at work—are better, because they need to be.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (David Rutley)
We take all fraud very seriously and have a wide range of measures in place, supported by £613 million of additional funding. Our integrated risk and intelligence service co-ordinates the detection of, and response to, fraud risks from identity fraud, including threats from organised criminals. We will continue to do all that we can to track down fraudsters.
Dr Evans
I am grateful for the Minister’s answer. I was contacted by my constituent, Dr Ralph Mitchell, after he was contacted by a debt collection agency on behalf of the DWP for a £1,500 outstanding debt. He has never taken UC or made any form of claim before. He rang the Department and, after many phone calls, was unable to have the debt removed. He was told that he was a victim of identity theft. It took the involvement of my office and myself to get that resolved. What are we doing to prevent identity theft, and what is the Department doing to make sure that the communications with those who fall victim to it are sorted out as swiftly as possible?
David Rutley
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support for his constituent. Verification of identity remains a critical requirement for all DWP benefits, and we are recruiting an additional 2,000 trained specialists to identify and stop scammers. We work hard to make sure that victims of identity fraud are not penalised and that universal credit benefits staff have access to information and intelligence from other sources prior to the payment, which allows them to make a real-time risk assessment on a case. Anyone who contacts us about a notification regarding a debt for a claim that they believe they never made will have their case referred to our stolen ID team, and we will endeavour to contact them within 48 hours.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (David Rutley)
The Secretary of State is legally required to conduct an annual review of benefit rates to determine whether they have retained their value in relation to the general level of prices. We have used the same approach since April 1987 of uprating benefits based on the increase in the relevant inflation index, the consumer prices index, in the 12 months to the previous September. We will spend over £59 billion this year, 2021-22, on benefits to support disabled people and people with health conditions.
Wera Hobhouse
One of my Bath constituents, who is disabled, has been told by his energy supplier that his bill will go up by £130 in April. He is on legacy benefits; he is not eligible for a top-up. He does not know how to cope. According to the charity Scope, he is not alone: disabled people are more than twice as likely to have a cold house and more than three times as likely not to be able to afford food. Thousands of disabled people are losing trust in the system. To improve trust and transparency in the DWP, will the Minister commit to automatically providing audio recordings of assessments, unless a claimant opts out, and to providing all claimants with a copy of the assessor’s report by default?
David Rutley
We take seriously the points that the hon. Member makes. Each interaction is key. We want to make sure that people get the support that they need, and we can achieve that through vehicles such as the household support fund, but I will take away her specific point and write back to her with a full response.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
Disability benefits are being cut in real terms. Charities such as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Scope, Leonard Cheshire and the MS Society have been pressing the Government to do more to ensure that disabled people are not pressured into using food banks, not washing their clothes or leaving the heating off in order to prioritise keeping life-saving medical equipment running. Let me just repeat that, Mr Speaker: in order to prioritise keeping life-saving medical equipment running. What extra support are Ministers pushing the Chancellor to deliver in Wednesday’s spring statement to help disabled people to survive this cost of living crisis?
David Rutley
As the hon. Member heard over the weekend, the Chancellor said that where he can, he will support and provide assistance to people. There is a track record of that through the pandemic and in response to rising energy prices, with his three-part plan.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)
I thank my hon. Friend for the opportunity to talk about our really positive Way to Work campaign bringing jobseekers and employers together in our jobcentres and filling vacancies much more quickly. In South Yorkshire, employers in the jobcentre are interviewing candidates, who are often being offered new roles the very same day. I know that my hon. Friend had a very successful jobs fair on Friday.
Alexander Stafford
The most recent claimant count in Rother Valley shows that about 2,000 people are looking for work. That is why, as the Minister says, I hosted the first ever Rother Valley jobs fair, which was attended by hundreds of jobseekers and by 30 organisations advertising several thousand good jobs—and they were very local jobs. Will my hon. Friend tell me how her Way to Work campaign will help my constituents to find jobs? Will she talk about the tools she is using to ensure that people are ready to work and can start jobs as quickly as possible?
Mims Davies
Across Rotherham, our jobcentre teams are really helping to employ people and get those vacancies filled. I have been in jobcentres where people have quite often been unemployed for a very long time; the experience of being offered a job, there and then, changes their lives. We are working locally and nationally with employers on local recruitment days, jobs fairs and sector-based work academies, all as part of the commitment to get half a million claimants into work by the end of June.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
The Government are providing support worth over £21 billion across this financial year and the next to help families with the cost of living. Through the Department for Work and Pensions, that includes cutting the universal credit taper rate and increasing work allowances.
Richard Burgon
Most benefits and the state pension will rise by just 3% in April, but inflation could be over 8%, so that is a real-terms cut of 5% for people who are already having to choose between eating and heating. Given that, how on earth does the Secretary of State think it acceptable to target the incomes of the poorest in our society like this? Will she commit today to action so that nobody’s benefits are cut during the deepest cost of living crisis in decades?
Dr Coffey
The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley), has set out the inflation index that has been used consistently since 1987 in consideration of the inflation rate. I am very conscious that the House voted for the uprating order recently—apart from the hon. Gentleman, along with a handful of others. If his vote had been successful, benefits would not have risen at all.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)
The Government are wholly committed to alleviating levels of pensioner poverty. State pensions are at record levels, pension credit take-up is increasing, and we are taking a number of other steps to provide assistance. On the day of the launch of the spring booster, I should also stress the need for all pensioners, residents of care homes, and those like me and, I think, you, Mr Speaker, who are immunocompromised to get that booster jab. It is vital for everyone’s welfare.
Christine Jardine
According to a recent report from Independent Age, 40% of pensioners will spend one year in poverty during any nine-year period, and with the situation set to be exacerbated by spiralling inflation and the Government’s removal of the triple lock, pensioners will now be £270 worse off every year. Does the Secretary of State agree with my party that we should double, and extend eligibility for, the winter fuel allowance?
Guy Opperman
The hon. Lady will be aware that the state pension rose by 2.5% last year, in circumstances in which prices were not so rising, and that it will rise by 3.1% this April. Money is also being provided in the form of the cold weather payment, the winter fuel allowance and many other kinds of support, including the £9 billion package announced by the Chancellor and administered by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (David Rutley)
We are committed to tackling barriers to work for everybody, especially those in supported housing. Through our Plan for Jobs, we are targeting tailored support at people of all ages to help them to prepare for, get into and progress in work.
Kerry McCarthy
I welcomed the announcement made by the Minister for Housing, the right hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), towards the end of last week about regulation of supported housing—that is a very good move—but at present there are people in supported housing where there is an exemption from the housing benefit limit, so they could be paying hundreds of pounds a week in rent. My local DWP branch tells me that that is a real deterrent for them to come off housing benefit or universal credit and get into work. What is the Minister doing to address the problem?
Guy Opperman
The income taper in housing benefit ensures that claimants will always be financially better off working than not being in work. We believe that maintaining housing benefit in these cases has allowed claimants to continue to receive more tailored financial support for their housing costs than would currently be available through universal credit.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
Our Homes for Ukraine scheme was formally opened for applications on Friday, with more than 150,000 Britons registering their interest. Ukrainian evacuees coming to this country are able to access DWP benefits, support and services from day one, and jobcentres will be helping people to find and move into employment, with assistance from an assigned work coach. Extra support will be available through our flexible support fund. We are also ensuring that the household benefit entitlements of those who have stepped up to sponsor a Ukrainian individual or family will not be affected as a result. As the public open their hearts and homes, we are ensuring that the right support is available to provide security, stability and safety in their hour of need.
Andrew Jones
The excellent team at my local Jobcentre Plus have briefed my office that they have placed 163 young people in Harrogate in work through the Government’s kickstart programme. Will the Secretary of State ensure that the new Way to Work scheme builds on that, especially in sectors where we are seeing workforce shortages, such as social care?
Dr Coffey
My hon. Friend is right to praise the young people in his constituency who have started their careers thanks to kickstart. Way to Work will build on our success in bringing employers and claimants together in jobcentres so that we can try to fill local vacancies, and will ensure that when candidates do not succeed in getting job interviews, they receive the feedback much more quickly. We will continue to try to directly address the barriers to entering roles in social care through job fairs and informed campaigns.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
Families and retirees are facing rising energy bills so unaffordable, tax rises so punishing, real-terms cuts in the basic state pension so deep, and cuts in universal credit and disability benefits so severe that money-saving expert Martin Lewis has said that people will either starve or freeze. Secretary of State, Mr Lewis is correct, is he not?
Dr Coffey
We still have the household support fund, which is available for people to apply to, to get extra support from their local council. I encourage people who are struggling right now to make that approach to their council as quickly as possible.
Jonathan Ashworth
People are struggling right now, and the Secretary of State is about to cut benefits to the tune of £500 for 9 million households. That is a choice that she has made. She has also made a choice by breaking her promise on the triple lock and cutting the basic state pension in real terms by £388 this year, according to The Daily Telegraph. Her justification for that was that the increase in earnings was at 8%. The Bank of England estimates that inflation will hit 8%. Can she rule out breaking the triple lock again this year?
Dr Coffey
I said the Opposition; the SNP might be the second Opposition party. The Labour Opposition did support the Bill until it came back from the Lords. There was a lot of support at the time, recognising the statistical anomaly.
Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)
I thank my hon. Friend for that question, which I think will interest the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) as well. From April this year, our new DWP in-work progression offer will support working universal credit claimants to progress and increase their earnings. It will include better support to upskill and retrain, and low-paid workers are eligible for training funded by the Department for Education via skills boot camps in digital engineering and the green sectors.
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)
Dr Coffey
The hon. Lady raises an important point. All parents automatically go into the direct payment process. I am working with my noble Friend Baroness Stedman-Scott, the Minister who has direct responsibility for this portfolio, to see what more we can do to accelerate reform if people are clearly not being compliant and not paying. Meanwhile, our financial investigations unit will investigate where people are hiding money and, if necessary, take them to court to ensure that the money gets paid.
Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind)
Mr Speaker
I think the Minister might struggle to answer that question, but if she wants to try, please do so.
Mims Davies
I am going to try, Mr Speaker.
That may be a devolved issue, but I would point out that many employers in Wales have been putting on transportation to bring workers in. That has been happening particularly in Ynys Môn—in Anglesey—to support production there. Working with the jobcentre to put on suitable transport makes a difference in getting people into work too.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)
The factual matter is that the state pension has increased by in excess of 5% over the past two years. There is also £5 billion-worth of pension credit—I encourage the hon. Gentleman to get his vulnerable constituents to apply for that—and the Chancellor’s £9.1 billion package for energy bills. I also encourage the hon. Gentleman to get his constituents to apply to the local authority fund.
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
Mims Davies
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue. There are currently over 1.2 million vacancies. On jobs and vacancies, Opposition Members do not appear to understand that people are better off in work than they are on benefits. Let us get to the point: there are key sectors in this country that need people. To tackle this challenge, we at the Department for Work and Pensions are stepping up, with Way to Work bringing people into our jobcentres and helping claimants to change their lives.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
While the Secretary of State was enjoying our warm Lancashire hospitality in Blackpool this weekend, just a few miles up the coast in Fleetwood, my constituent Patricia was emailing me as her MP. She is a disabled pensioner and says:
“The state pension does not keep up with rises in cost of living or inflation…Fuel costs are crippling, as I don’t move and feel the cold but we have to be careful with the heating. I need carers but their costs rise faster than the annual increase.”
What does the Secretary of State have to say to my constituent?
Guy Opperman
I urge the hon. Lady’s constituent to contact her local authority to see whether there is local authority access to funds. As of April, there will be £9.1 billion of energy support from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities fund. There is also pension credit and efforts are being made on a whole host of levels. I have listed three clear examples of access to cash for individuals such as her constituent.
Dehenna Davison (Bishop Auckland) (Con)
Following last week’s announcement of changes to the DWP estate, 55 of my constituents are directly affected by the closure of the Bishop Auckland back-office function. Joanne Illingworth, who has worked for the DWP for 36 years, has written to me because she is really concerned that moving her job would not be compatible with balancing her work life and caring responsibilities. To give Joanne and others reassurance, can the Minister confirm that individuals will be given specifically tailored support to find a new role that is suitable for them in their current circumstances, and, if not, that, as an absolute last resort, exit packages will be made available?
Mims Davies
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue. I spoke to her about her constituents just before the weekend. It is absolutely right that our Department is committed to supporting customers, families, the economy, claimants and our staff. Some 65% of our buildings are of very poor quality; they are small and do not allow for opportunities for progression. Thirty-six years is a really decent innings. We will be working directly, one to one, with our staff, using hybrid working practices to retain as many people as we can and give them a better quality working experience.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
For many people with disabilities, switching off essential equipment to reduce energy costs is not an option. Extra power is needed to run equipment on which they absolutely rely—to power ventilators, to charge electric wheelchairs or to run a stairlift. When I asked the Prime Minister about this recently, he said that the Government would be looking at ways to abate these costs, so what are the Government doing to support people with disabilities who now face unmanageable energy bills?
Dr Coffey
Throughout questions my hon. Friends have been setting out the different types of support available for energy bills. I am conscious of what the hon. Lady refers to, and all I can say is that we will continue to look at opportunities to help people, but I encourage her constituents to access support via the local council’s household support fund.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
Last week was a nervous moment as we read the news that Stockton’s DWP offices are closing and that 380 staff would be relocated. It is now being reported that those jobs could simply be moved down the road to Middlesbrough. Will the Minister assure me that the Department is looking to keep as many of those jobs as possible in Teesside and that it is working with local leaders to see if there is any suitable usable space in the area so that Teesside does not lose any of those jobs?
Mims Davies
That gives me a chance to provide clarification for my hon. Friend, as it is important for his constituents and others who may be affected. This move is about turning opportunities into larger hubs, with more progression, and a chance for better career opportunities. With people working about two days a week in the new vicinity, which may be around 10 miles away, they will have opportunities to stay local and spend local; it will be hybrid working and able to support people’s needs in terms of caring and other responsibilities, such as doing the school run, which they might not be able to do now. I ask his constituents to lean into the engagement and I hope that they will find that the next stage is promising for them.
Mr Speaker
The Minister should be answering the questions through the Chair.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
A recent report by Rethink Mental Illness has highlighted that the Department for Work and Pensions is not carrying out investigations of claimants who have suffered significant or serious harm, including a mental health crisis, self-harm and even attempted suicide. We are talking about the cost of living crisis and we know what that is going to drive people to, so will the Department instigate independent reviews of people who have suffered in the claims process so that they can make it more humane and supportive?
Dr Coffey
The hon. Lady raises an important point. I am confident that my Department and officials will undertake their duties carefully and considerately. I am conscious that there will be times when things go wrong and that sometimes the Department will be brought into local investigations, usually by social services. It is important that we respond to that, as well as to the ongoing lessons that we learn from broader themes that we investigate through the Serious Case Panel.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
I thank the Minister for the phone call last week about the DWP closure and the potential for more than 200 job losses in Stoke-on-Trent—she rightly understands the concern of local residents. Although it is totally irresponsible of the Public and Commercial Services Union to brief before local employees were spoken to, it is vital that we make sure we retain these types of jobs in Stoke-on-Trent, where we know that the average salary is below the weekly average of the rest of the UK and that unemployment is higher than the UK average. What can she do to keep as many of those jobs in the city and work with the local authority to find a new hub within Stoke-on-Trent?
Mims Davies
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue. I will address this to you equally and fully, Mr Speaker. It is vital that we ensure that our staff our consulted and listened to. We have more than 920 buildings, which can house 168,000 people—we currently have 92,000 people. Some of them are poor-quality buildings, without progression opportunities, and we have not been able to embrace hybrid working. Let me remind the House that this is about back-office function and retaining staff, giving them a better quality of workplace and embracing hybrid working, and about people staying local when they can.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
As a result of my Food Insecurity Bill, the family resources survey now reports on food insecurity. The survey found that one of the key reasons, even pre-pandemic, that people could not afford to eat was that benefits were grossly inadequate. Does the Secretary of State think that the pitiful 3.1% increase in benefits, when inflation will peak at 8%, is going to make people more or less able to afford to eat?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (David Rutley)
The uprating was in line with inflation in the way that it has been calculated since 1987, but additional support is available, through the three-part plan that the Chancellor set out to tackle energy costs and through the household support fund.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
Blackpool South has one of the highest unemployment rates in the entire nation, but there are more than 1,000 job vacancies in the local area. Despite that, many local businesses tell me that they struggle to recruit, as often they have few applicants for local roles and some of those who attend job interviews often do everything they can not to get the job. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that those who are able to work do not continue to refuse reasonable offers of employment?
Dr Coffey
I was in my hon. Friend’s constituency on Thursday night and Friday morning, and was at the jobs fair held at the Pleasure Beach, which was a great success, as has already been referred to. It is important that we continue to have that relationship with claimants through the intensive work search regime. They are expected to look for work and take work that is available that they are capable of doing. We will continue not only to enforce that regime but to bring employers and claimants together to try to make sure that those interviews are successful and we get people into work, because that will always be the best way of getting out of poverty.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
The Minister referred earlier to the modest reported percentage increase in take-up of pension credit. Does he recognise that that increase is a consequence of the removal of mixed-age pensioner couples from eligibility for pension credit, rather than of any actual increase in take-up? Is it not high time that the Department set an ambitious take-up target and published an action plan to deliver it?
Guy Opperman
With great respect to the right hon. Gentleman, with whom I have repeatedly debated this matter, we already have an action plan. We are already engaging with all the key organisations, whether that is the energy companies, television companies or media in the normal way. I respectfully say to him that pension credit take-up is increasing. It is up by 3%, which is definitely not for the reason he asserts, and we continue to make the case for pension credit to the wider population. We want not just individuals to claim; we want carers or people on behalf of their mum or dad to put in a claim.
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)
Almost £4 million of pension credit remains unclaimed in Darlington. What advice can Ministers give to my constituents and others to encourage them to take it up?
Guy Opperman
I sincerely hope that my hon. Friend’s local paper contains a letter from me this week explaining exactly why upwards of £3,000 is available to vulnerable pensioners—serious money that is as yet unclaimed. We are keen that my hon. Friend’s constituents and others claim pension credit, because it is an important source of money for the most vulnerable. We already spend £5 billion on it, and we want to spend more, but people must claim.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
Countless pensioners across my constituency have been forced to make the heartbreaking choice between heating and eating. They were told all their lives that if they worked hard enough then, when their time came to retire, we would take care of them. However, it is evident from those contacting me that that is no longer the case.
As the Secretary of State and the Pensions Minister have already outlined, the Government provide a range of benefits to older people in a whole host of areas, including housing, NHS dental treatment and transport costs. Those things can go a long way to helping with the cost of living crisis, but many such benefits go unclaimed each year. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that older people are aware of and able to access the benefits for which they are eligible?
Dr Coffey
My hon. Friend the Pensions Minister has already set out the huge number of ways that we are trying to increase awareness. I think it is accurate to say, from internal management information, that we have seen a 30% increase in people applying, so we are encouraging take-up. The lowest proportion of pensioners taking up such things are those with an income above the basic state pension who are still entitled to savings credit, and we need to work harder on that. Just getting a few pennies from the state can unlock hundreds of pounds for their costs.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
With the DWP urging benefits claimants to apply for various top-up funds to help with the mounting cost of living crisis, what steps is the Secretary of State taking to increase awareness of the warm home discount scheme and to maximise take-up in my constituency?
Dr Coffey
Mr Speaker, having got through all the questions in record time today, you are keeping us beyond 3.30 pm, which is very generous of you—[Laughter.] Perhaps we are being rewarded for our efficacy.
The hon. Lady has been working with my hon. Friend the Pensions Minister on a Bill that will hopefully succeed in the upper House, and she will know that we are working through several avenues to try to increase take-up. The warm home discount will be going up later this year, and we estimate that the number of people who will qualify for the increase in the discount will go up by a third.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
I am very grateful, Mr Speaker. Although the Secretary of State might be used to dishing out sanctions to people in our constituencies, I gently suggest that it is inappropriate for her to try to do that to you in the Chair.
Dr Coffey
No one is sanctioning anybody here today. I was just pointing out how efficient this ministerial team is, which reflects the effective work that we do on the behalf of claimants across the country. I do like the hon. Gentleman’s shoes, and I am sure others would claim that title as well.
Mr Speaker
Before we come to the urgent question, I remind Members that they should be careful not to identify the child at the centre of this case. That includes being cautious about mentioning information that might help others to establish their identity. I call Bell Ribeiro-Addy.
Metropolitan Police: Strip-search of Schoolgirl
(2 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)
(Urgent Question) To ask the Secretary of State to make a statement on the recent report concerning the Metropolitan police’s handling of the strip-search of Child Q.
The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
The City and Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership report into the strip-search of a 15-year-old schoolgirl while at school by police officers in 2020 is both troubling and deeply concerning. This experience will have been traumatic for the child involved; the impact on her welfare should not be underestimated.
The Government and the public rightly expect the highest standards from our police officers. The ability of the police to perform their core functions is dependent on their capacity to secure and maintain public confidence and support for their actions. While the Metropolitan police have apologised for their actions and recognised that this incident should never have happened, the force’s culture has again come under scrutiny.
Members of the public must be treated fairly and without prejudice, no matter their race, age or background. Strip-search is one of the most intrusive powers available to the police. The law is very clear that the use of police powers to search must be fair, respectful and without unlawful discrimination. Any use of strip-search should be carried out in accordance with the law and with full regard to the welfare and dignity of the individual being searched, particularly if that individual is a child. If police judge it operationally necessary to strip-search a child, they must do so in the presence of the child’s appropriate adult.
It is the role of the independent police watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct, to investigate serious matters involving the police, and the IOPC says it has been investigating the actions of the Metropolitan police in this case. We must let the IOPC conclude its work. We will of course expect any findings to be acted on swiftly, but it is vital that we do not prejudge the IOPC’s investigations or prejudice due process, so it would be wrong of me to make any further comment on the case in question at this time.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy
They walked into her place of safety at the request of people who were meant to keep her safe, stripped her naked while she was on her period and forced her to remove her sanitary towel, spread her legs, part her buttock cheeks and cough, to look for drugs they never found. We should remember that this comes on top of a string of incidents, from the abuse and strip-search of Dr Duff, the rapist and murderer Wayne Couzens, the vile racism and misogyny uncovered in Charing Cross police station, the brutal handling of the vigil in Clapham Common, and the record low confidence in policing, particularly by minority communities, who are evidenced as being over-policed as citizens and under-policed as victims.
Does the Minister understand that there is no apology that could atone for the perverse racist degradation of this child? Does the Minister accept that this is not an isolated incident—that between 2016 and 2021 the Met carried out over 9,000 strip-searches on children, some younger than 12, and that over 33% of all strip-searches were carried out on black people, despite only 13% of Londoners being black? Given that this happened in a school, what discussions has his Department had with the Department for Education on this serious breach of safeguarding and the questionable presence of police officers in our schools? Will he finally accept that the Met police have an issue with institutional racism and misogyny and take steps to ensure that any new commissioner is committed to rooting it out?
The Minister may be aware that during the statement on the commission on race and ethnic disparities last week, the Minister for Equalities said:
“We have systems in place to ensure that when things go wrong we can right them. What we cannot do is stop any bad thing happening to anyone in the country at any time.”—[Official Report, 17 March 2022; Vol. 710, c. 1075.]
I have to ask: what on earth are this Government here for? I simply do not accept that. Finally, in the words of Child Q herself:
“I need to know that the people who have done this to me can’t do it to anyone else ever again”.
Can the Minister assure Child Q and our constituents of that?
Kit Malthouse
As I said earlier, we await the outcome of the investigation, and we will learn whatever lessons need to be learnt from it. While my hon. Friend the Minister for Equalities said that we cannot prevent all bad things from happening, we can try. What is clear from this case is that the complaint mechanism and the safeguarding practices involved did surface the issue and bring it to light, and have allowed us to examine this appalling—[Interruption.] Hold on. They have allowed us to examine this appalling incident in more detail and to try to learn the lessons, so that as—I assume from what she said—Child Q hopes, we are able to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future.
Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)
I have huge admiration for my right hon. Friend, and I know that he takes these things very seriously, but can he understand the revulsion felt by women to hear that a girl has been strip-searched at her school—and had to remove her sanitary towel—by the very people whom we trust to look after us? What action will he take to make it clear that there needs to be cultural change in the Metropolitan police so that no serving constable could ever think that that was an appropriate course of action?
Kit Malthouse
The revulsion is not confined to women. There are many men, including me, who obviously find it a distressing incident to contemplate. I very often find it helpful in these circumstances to put one of my own relatives in a similar situation to bring home the impact. I am not at all denying the fact that it was distressing and appalling and that it should not have happened, as the Metropolitan police have said themselves.
The hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) referred to a number of incidents that have prompted concerns about the culture in the Met, and she, I hope, will be pleased to know that I had a meeting last week with Dame Louise Casey who has obviously been detailed by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to look at the culture across the whole of the Metropolitan police. Her work will dovetail neatly with the work of the Angiolini review, which is looking, in its first stage, at the circumstances surrounding the employment of Wayne Couzens. Following that, stage 2 will look more widely at culture and policing. There is no doubt that there is work to be done here, and we are determined to do that work.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
The Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review published last week, compiled by the extremely highly regarded Jim Gamble, into the case of Child Q was deeply disturbing. The details of the strip-search of a black schoolgirl by the Metropolitan police at a Hackney secondary school in 2020 have horrified us all in a society where we police by consent.
The review concluded that the search was unjustified and that racism was likely to have been a factor. We have heard the details from my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), and I think that everyone will agree that this strip-search should not have happened, that everyone will want to say sorry to Child Q, and that something went terribly wrong. What is so shocking is that the existing guidance and training was so insufficient—so broad, perhaps—and so vague that it did not prevent the strip-search of a child who supposedly smelled of cannabis from happening in this way. I have read the College of Policing guidance and the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 on strip-searches, and they are not clear enough. Is the Minister already working on new guidance?
Given that the Met and Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services say that the smell of cannabis is not good grounds for a normal stop and search of an adult, will the Minister confirm that the circumstances described in this review should never have happened and that the new guidance will be clear on this point?
Given the serious harm that has occurred in this case, does the Minister agree that we must understand the scale of this issue? Will he therefore commit to publishing the full data on the use of strip-searches of children in our police forces across England and Wales by the end of the week?
The little data that we do have makes very difficult reading. A freedom of information request on strip-searches in the Met over the past five years shows that 33% of all strip-searches were of black people, while black people make up only 11% of the population of Londoners. There are other issues that we will come to when the Independent Office for Police Conduct has passed its report to the Met, the Met has taken any action and the report is finally published. Those issues include: how this case was first referred to social services; why Child Q and her family had to wait so long for answers; and what the role of education policy, guidance and safeguarding is in this. We know that this could be months or years away, so the key point is that there are significant faults that this case has brought to light, in terms of data, guidance and training, which this Government can choose to tackle now if they have the political will to do so.
Kit Malthouse
We obviously take this matter extremely seriously. The hon. Lady is right that the report made recommendations to the Government, not least on strengthening and revising code C of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. We will have to consider our response to that in the light of this report, taking into account the outcomes of the IOPC review. We need to understand whether we have a specific problem or a systemic one. The report indicates that we may have systemic problems, and if we do then obviously we will seek to address them. We also need to work out from the IOPC report whether the same is true; if so, of course we will act.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Does the Minister appreciate how angry people up and down the country are about this incident, particularly people in Hackney? We had a very big demonstration outside Hackney town hall—it was a completely peaceful one, but people were just consumed with unhappiness and anger and fear. It is not just parents of colour; all parents are thinking, “This could have been my daughter.” Is the Minister aware of how traumatised that young woman still is by the incident, and is he aware that it took the police two full years to apologise? What is he going to do? He is telling us about inquiries, but what is he going to do so that at the very least, the instructions and guidelines to the police are much clearer than they currently appear to be?
Kit Malthouse
Of course I understand the anger and concern across the country, and I share it. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), it could have been any one of our relatives. As the right hon. Lady knows, I spent a long time in London government and I understand the impact that these events can have on trust between the police and London’s various communities. It is extremely important that people feel confident that, when such appalling incidents happen, action is taken to try to prevent them in the future. I am trying to stress to the House that, while we have the report of the safeguarding board, we want to ensure that we also have the IOPC report so that we can see the full picture in the round and act accordingly to reassure her constituents and many other Londoners.
It is worth saying, however, that it would be helpful to me if London Members such as the right hon. Lady recognised that the Mayor of London has a role to play in this, as the primary accountability body for the Metropolitan Police, and that the Government and the Mayor must work together to solve these problems with the police.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I am sorry, but I feel as if we have woken the Minister from an afternoon nap to come in and make this statement. There is a distinct lack of urgency in his approach. It is quite clear that there are areas where the Government can act now. Why is he not coming to this House to explain to us exactly what he is going to do, rather than taking this “wait and see” attitude?
Kit Malthouse
As I have already said, there is a process under way through the IOPC. That process will, I hope, conclude shortly and the IOPC will bring us the evidence of the report. It is an independent organisation—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) is barracking me from a seated position, but I do not think she is participating in the urgent question. The point is that the IOPC is an independent organisation, and she will know that it would be completely incorrect for me to put any kind of pressure on its investigation. That process must complete. When it does, we will have the full picture and, if we are required to act, have no doubt that we will act swiftly.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
Last week I raised the issue of Child Q with the Minister for Equalities, the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch). I told her of my disgust that a child experienced being stripped of her clothes and searched at school by police officers while she was menstruating. It is beyond belief that she was pulled out of an exam and then expected to be fit and well enough to return to that exam. I am outraged by that, as are other hon. Members of this House. I am pleased that the Minister has said he is disgusted and appalled, but does he agree that the officers and teachers involved should be sacked and charged for their misconduct and that, as a matter of safeguarding, they should never be allowed to work with children again?
Kit Malthouse
Those are conclusions, I am afraid, for the IOPC. Much as I know the House would love me to do so, I cannot circumvent that quasi-judicial process. The IOPC is independent for a reason; the office of constable is dealt with in a different way from other matters of employment. Once it concludes, we will be able to draw conclusions ourselves.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Like many people across London and this country, I am utterly appalled and disgusted by this case, not least as the mother of a young daughter. I cannot begin to conceive of what that young woman went through and how furious her family must be. I am not sure I could be held responsible for my actions if I were her mother, to be honest. The Minister has talked about the IOPC review and there have been calls for guidance to be reviewed. In the meantime, has he spoken to every single police chief in the country and asked for a guarantee that no other child will be subjected to such mistreatment in future?
Kit Malthouse
Obviously I have not spoken to every other police chief in the country, since the report came out just a few days ago. As I say, we will eagerly await the IOPC report to establish whether we have a specific problem or a systemic problem. The initial reports of the local child safeguarding practice review are telling us that we may have a systemic problem. If we do, then we will act on it accordingly. Please believe me when I say that the impact of this on any family would be profound. Some of us have children too. Those children may, in time, be subject to something like this, and I hope we are able to prevent that from happening.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
I think we all recognise that the Minister is waiting for the IOPC report. However, he says that this could have happened to any child and that he thinks of his own relatives. The brutal, difficult truth that many of my constituents have raised with me over the weekend is that it is not likely to have happened to any of his relatives or our relatives—it is young black girls who have read this story and are horrified by it, and who need us to recognise explicitly the disproportionality in how the police work with them.
I hope the Minister can help to answer the question that my constituents have been asking, because they have looked at the data, especially on families of colour in my community, and they can see that strip-searching of children is not a one-off. So will he, ahead of the IOPC report, publish the data about the numbers of strip-searches that have taken place, by borough command unit and by ethnicity, and confirm that if it ever comes to this exceptional circumstance—I think we would all agree that it should be exceptional that a child should be strip-searched, not a matter of course—a parent or carer will always be present? He could do that today. He could start recovering the trust that has been so lost. He could start by being honest that communities of colour in London are looking at and questioning the police. The data is the first point in getting this right. Will he publish—yes or no?
Kit Malthouse
If a strip-search is deemed necessary to be undertaken on a child, then an appropriate adult, whether a parent or otherwise, has to be present. [Interruption.] Indeed, they were not in this case, and the question we have to ask ourselves is why—what went wrong? Why did the officers do what they did? Why did they decide to have two present? What were they doing? We will know that from the IOPC report. Once we have that, as I say, we will have the full picture and we will be able to look at it accordingly.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
In 2019, Cressida Dick said that police officers should be
“embedded in the DNA of schools”,
and we have seen how that massively failed Child Q in this disgusting case. How far has the search for Cressida Dick’s replacement gone? We have heard that she is clinging on, haggling over her settlement. The Minister blamed Sadiq Khan. Could there be additional safeguards for Parliament in this process? The Met’s workload is of national significance; it is not just a normal police force. Could we have an urgent review of the boundaries of cops in schools?
Kit Malthouse
I did not blame the Mayor of London—I just pointed out that he has as much influence, if not more, over the Metropolitan police than we do. I was the deputy Mayor for policing. If this had happened under me, I would have taken responsibility for it and tried to sort it out myself. I am just saying that the Government and City Hall will have a duty to work together on this issue.
As for police officers’ involvement in schools, it is, I am afraid, a source of great sadness that it is necessary for police officers to be involved in and around schools, but we have found over the years that such is the problem with youth violence and youth crime, particularly in the capital, that creating a good relationship with young people through the police’s involvement in schools is critical to success, and where it works, it can be of enormous benefit to their safety.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
I start by saying that it is incredibly disappointing that the Home Secretary could not be here to respond to this urgent question on an urgent matter.
The police tell us that if we have nothing to hide, we have nothing to fear, but everybody should fear the degrading and traumatising treatment that Child Q suffered when she was strip-searched by the Metropolitan police. More than four children a day are subject to that treatment by the Met, and black people are strip-searched at six times the rate of white people. How does the Minister expect to build trust and confidence in a force that is rife with institutional racism and misogyny when it victimises black children on a daily basis? If his Government’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities does not admit the existence of institutional and structural racism, how on earth can we put any trust in the Government?
Kit Malthouse
I refute the hon. Lady’s claim that the Metropolitan police victimises young black people on a daily basis. I have spent many hours with it over the years watching men and women of all types and races in uniform doing their best to save young people’s lives. Although I am often challenged about the disproportionality of things such as stop and search, in two and a bit years of doing this job, I have never been challenged in this Chamber on the disproportionality of victimhood and the sadly far too great number of young black people who die on the streets of London. As I said, we need to understand from each of these instances whether we have a systemic or a specific problem. I understand the House’s impatience, but we will know once the IOPC concludes.
Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
We have all been horrified by this case. We need assurances that it cannot happen again and we need urgent action from the Minister to address the issue. He says that he is waiting for the IOPC. As he knows, the national safeguarding panel is a ministerially appointed body. Will he stop ducking his responsibilities and urgently publish the data on how many children have been strip-searched over the years, breaking it down by gender, race, age and location of the search, including whether it happened at school? The safeguarding review also demonstrated that there were elements of racism involved, so can he urgently look into that issue, because it needs to be taken seriously?
Kit Malthouse
As I said, we do take the issue extremely seriously. The matter of strip-search in particular, and the disparity in strip-search, has been of concern for some time. That is why we have an initiative on in Norfolk and Suffolk police where we have a strip-search scrutiny panel to look at the disparity there. Similarly, in Thames Valley police, we have put agencies together to examine police custody and strip-search disparities there. There is work under way—the hon. Lady should be reassured by that—but we will know more once the reports have concluded.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
It is more than two decades since the Macpherson inquiry found institutional racism in the Metropolitan police. We now look at the figures on stop and search and we hear the awful story of this young girl and the way she was treated. Does the Minister accept that something has to happen now to give any confidence to the black community in London that its sons and daughters will not be treated in that way on the streets, and that the police will not behave with a racist attitude towards them and will not point to a young black person and see a potential criminal rather than a young person walking around the streets of our city? The confidence is not there, and that is made worse by the report, by the delay in an apology for this poor young woman and by the abominable way that she was treated.
Kit Malthouse
In my view, the vast majority of interactions between the Metropolitan police and members of the black community go well and are of benefit. There are, however, many—too many—that do not, and that is an area of work that requires constant attention. As the right hon. Gentleman will know, the Metropolitan police is subject to the Casey review of its culture at the moment. It is working hard, again, as part of the police uplift to change the look and feel of the workforce, with ambitious targets to recruit people of different genders and different ethnicities into the force so that it better reflects the people of London and can better serve them as a result.
On a national level, the National Police Chiefs’ Council is similarly in the process of developing a race action plan to do the same and to deal with some of these issues. This area has been a challenge for policing in London—certainly throughout the right hon. Gentleman’s political career, as it has throughout mine—and it is one that requires constant attention from all of us, driven both by the thematic problems we see, but also by some of these specific incidents. Where we do have these specific incidents, it is incumbent on us to make sure we have the knowledge and the detail, so that we can make the right decisions to make a big difference for London’s communities.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
Mr Speaker:
“I can’t go a single day without wanting to scream, shout…or just give up.”
That is child Q, and I say to child Q and every other little black girl, “You matter.” In eight years’ time, when my daughter is 15 years old, I hope this issue is not still happening, but I am worried that it will be. The local safeguarding practice review found that child Q’s mother was not contacted, and she only found out when her child took a taxi home. Once at home, child Q’s mother had to take her to the GP who made a referral for psychological help due to her child’s level of distress. The Minister has outlined that he is waiting for the IOPC report, but does he agree with me that there are clear safeguarding issues in the treatment of child Q and the lack of parental engagement, and that he can take steps today to help address this and give confidence to little girls not just across London, but up and down the country?
Kit Malthouse
I completely agree with the hon. Lady that there are implications for safeguarding, and I know but will reassure myself that my ministerial colleagues at the Department for Education are taking it as seriously as we are. As I say, from a policing point of view we have to wait for the IOPC to come to a conclusion, but on the overall safeguarding, the panel obviously did its work, the review has produced a report and I will make sure that Ministers at the appropriate Department are taking action as well.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
The bad apple defence or the isolated incident excuse will no longer wash. Our constituents are no longer able to trust the police, including constituents such as Teresa Akpeki, whose brother was the victim of a hit-and-run accident. The police, when they attended the body—this was an NHS worker collecting samples—did not reach into his pocket to find his ID card, but phoned the Home Office to find out whether he was an illegal immigrant, because he was black. The Minister now needs to launch an inquiry into the way in which the Metropolitan police is dealing with ethnic communities, and if he fails to do that, the confidence of our communities in the police up and down this country is going to be rock bottom.
Kit Malthouse
As I outlined earlier, there are already two inquiries into the culture of the Metropolitan police in all its aspects—by Dame Louise Casey, who I know will do a thorough job, and following that, part 2 of the Angiolini review—but I would ask the hon. Gentleman to take care. There are 30,000-odd police officers in the Metropolitan police, the vast majority of whom are doing an extraordinary job and doing amazing things on a daily basis to keep us all safe from harm, and they deserve our thanks for doing that. They will be as outraged as we are at this event, and we need to learn the lessons on their behalf as well as on behalf of the Londoners we serve.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
The disgraceful, abhorrent, sickening strip-search of child Q took place two years ago, yet the Minister stands at the Dispatch Box today and speaks about the processes around the investigation as if this is a system working as it should. It is not. The constant delay in the outcomes of such investigations is a part of the structural denial of justice to complainants against the Metropolitan police. Can the Minister tell the House when he first became aware of the case of child Q and what action he took immediately to safeguard children in London, and does he have no concern at all about the time it takes complaints such as this to conclude and be resolved?
Kit Malthouse
Of course we are concerned about the time it takes for complaints to be dealt with, which is why we changed the IOPC regulations at the end of 2019 to compel speedy investigations. It is the case now that if any investigation is going to take longer than 12 months, the IOPC must write to the appropriate authority—me or, for example, the Mayor of London—to explain why. The director general of the IOPC has done an outstanding job in driving the workload down and bringing more investigations in under 12 months, but there is obviously still a lot more work to do.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
This is a deeply disturbing case both in terms of what happened and the fact that racism was clearly a factor, but may I ask the Minister how it came to light? According to the independent safeguarding report, Hackney Council only became aware of the incident when the family approached a GP; given that this happened two years ago, why is it not automatically the case that when a child is strip-searched social services are notified and a safeguarding review is triggered?
Kit Malthouse
That is one of the questions the investigations will answer. It is my understanding that this issue was referred to the IOPC by the Metropolitan police from a policing point of view, but I agree that it would be of interest to know why it took so long to appear through the local safeguarding structure and I undertake to find out for the hon. Gentleman.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
This appalling act of institutionalised degradation was committed against a black child and the report highlights the racism inherent in the adultification of black children. Does the Minister understand that seeing black children as adults is, just like seeing black men as more likely to be criminal or seeing black women as more likely to be troublesome, part of institutionalised, systemic anti-black racism and his inability to say what he is going to do about it says that he is prepared to continue to tolerate it. Does he also understand that we can never have trust in our policing services with a Minister who is unable to say anything?
Kit Malthouse
I think that is grossly unfair when the hon. Lady knows that I am bound by due process not to comment on an ongoing investigation by the IOPC. When that investigation is concluded we will have plenty to say, fear not. I have spent lots of time dealing with crime and social policy issues in the capital so I am sensitised to the issues the hon. Lady raises; I do recognise them and have done, I like to think, quite a lot of work on them in the past.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
The shocking, scandalous strip-search of child Q is so demeaning; how could those Met police officers and the school have thought that such a horrible action could be even remotely acceptable? This could have happened to any one of our children—or could it? I ask that because the statistics tell a very different story, and indeed the safeguarding review revealed that racism could well have been an influencing factor in the decisions taken. Given that, what is the Minister doing to urgently take action on this?
Kit Malthouse
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answers I gave earlier, and we will know these things when the IOPC concludes, which I hope it will shortly.
Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)
In the past three years Metropolitan police officers have been jailed for posing for selfies next to the bodies of black murdered sisters, a serving officer has been found guilty of Sarah Everard’s horrific murder, racist, sexist and homophobic messages between officers have been dismissed as “banter” internally only to have been described as “shocking” by the independent watchdog, and now we learn that Met officers strip-searched a 15-year-old black child at her school, inflicting trauma that will last for years to come. This is obviously not about blaming every single officer, but will the Minister accept that this is not just a few bad apples but reveals a deeper problem of institutional racism and misogyny at the Me? Will the Minister finally answer, rather than just leave, a question that has been asked three times: when did he find out about the case of child Q?
Kit Malthouse
We obviously accept that there is an issue to be addressed, which is why we commissioned the Angiolini review and why we are supporting Dame Louise Casey.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)
The Minister started by saying this incident was very troubling and concerning, but I would have to say it goes well beyond troubling and concerning: it was dehumanising a young black girl, who was strip-searched by Met police officers. What is the Minister going to do about the state sanctioning abuse of black children, who are treated like adults in our schools?
Kit Malthouse
I understand the hon. Lady’s anger at this incident; I really do. It is a dreadful incident, and I would much rather not be standing here having to answer these kinds of questions, because I would rather these incidents did not occur in the first place. I will say to her what I have said to everybody else: we will know more when the IOPC concludes. While I understand the House’s impatience and anger, the police officers concerned have a right to due process and we have a duty to wait for the report so that we can see properly the evidence of what happened and then take action accordingly.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) for bringing the urgent question forward. This serious incident has undoubtedly sent shockwaves to every parent and grandparent in this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Does the Minister not agree that there must be safeguarding in place to protect the child as well as the police officers? If we do not robustly enforce protections to the very highest standards, the hardest questions must be answered by those in the highest positions within the police as, ultimately, the buck stops with them.
Kit Malthouse
I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. He is quite right that we should expect and work for the highest possible standards. This young person, Child Q, has been through a dreadful, traumatic episode, which I am sure will live with her, sadly, for many years. We need to do our best to make sure that these kinds of incidents do not reoccur, and that is the best we can do. The hon. Gentleman has my undertaking that as soon as we have the full picture, that is exactly what we will do.
Points of Order
(2 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your advice, on behalf of the Sikh community, to ascertain how, after months of waiting, they can elicit a response from the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary.
In a speech in November, the Home Secretary made inflammatory and incendiary remarks about the Sikh community. So incensed was the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, the mini Sikh Parliament based in Amritsar in the Punjab in India, that it wrote seeking an immediate apology from the Home Secretary. Subsequently, well over 200 British Sikh organisations wrote to the Prime Minister demanding that the Home Secretary be sacked for those incendiary remarks. However, they have not heard a dickie bird from either the Prime Minister or the Home Secretary. Mr Speaker, given your august and esteemed office, what power can you bring to bear to ensure that the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary issue a statement forthwith?
Mr Speaker
The first and easiest answer would be to say that it is not a matter for the Chair. What I would say is that I am very conscious about language that is used, and I always say that I want tolerant language, not inflammatory language. I would also say that replies need to be chased. The hon. Member has certainly put the point on the record, and I would like to believe that it has been heard and that somebody should be knocking out a reply as we speak. If not, I know the hon. Member will not leave it at this, and there are other avenues for him to pursue.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is further to the point of order by my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) in relation to the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens). I have informed the hon. Member that I will be making this point of order right now.
Can you advise me, Mr Speaker, whether it is orderly for a Member to ask a question—in this case an urgent question—on behalf of an organisation that that Member himself is involved in and in which he has a direct or indirect interest? The Public and Commercial Services Union has given £60,000 to an all-party parliamentary group that the hon. Member for Glasgow South West chairs.
Mr Speaker
There are two things. First, if the hon. Member was in the Chamber at the time—I am not sure whether he was—he would have noticed that the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) did make a declaration of interest. [Interruption.] So you were here to see that.
Mr Speaker
Okay. Well, really, why should we be raising it in this way? I would also say that it is a matter for the Registrar. If a Member thinks there is something wrong, I think that would be the way to pursue it, rather than via the Chair.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I receive emails on a weekly basis from people in my constituency who have been waiting dangerously long periods for ambulances. Over the weekend, a 90-year-old lady, having collapsed, lay for hours in the road with a suspected broken hip waiting for the ambulance to arrive. That corresponds with the fourth critical incident declared by the local hospital trust this year. It is clear that this is becoming an emergency.
Are you aware, Mr Speaker, of any intention by the Government to make a statement on this urgent matter? If not, could you please advise me how I can bring it to the Floor of the House for discussion before the situation worsens?
Mr Speaker
The last part of the hon. Member’s question has been answered, as she has raised her feelings, and those of her constituents, about the ambulance service for all to understand. I can assure her that I have been given no notice of a statement. I am sure she will continue to pursue the issue, by putting her name in for an Adjournment debate or another way forward. There are other avenues she can be advised on.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. To clarify, could the issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) raised about the propriety of questions be looked at, hypothetically, by the Standards Committee? Should that be the case, would you direct me on the best way?
Mr Speaker
That is not a matter for the Chair—we certainly do not deal with hypothetical questions and I do not think that is the way forward. If Members want to pursue the matter, they should pursue it through the right avenues. It would also be helpful if hon. Members gave me notice of points of order. Then we would be able to be more helpful. Trying to catch the Chair out is not a brilliant idea either.
Opposition Day
P&O Ferries and Employment Rights
(2 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
19:30 - The House divided: - Ayes: 211 / Noes: 0 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House condemns the decision of P&O Ferries to fire 800 staff without notice and demands their immediate reinstatement; notes that DP World, the owner of P&O Ferries, received millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money during the coronavirus pandemic; calls on the Government to suspend the contracts and licences of DP World and remove them from the Government’s Transport Advisory Group; and further calls on the Government to bring forward a Bill urgently to outlaw fire and rehire and strengthen workers’ rights.
I know the whole House agrees that the action taken by P&O Ferries was a national scandal: 800 British workers sacked with no notice. Today, we learnt that they have been replaced with people earning just £1.80 an hour. This was nothing short of a betrayal of the workers who protected this country’s supply chain during the pandemic. The personal cost to those workers has been profound—some of them have joined us in the Gallery today—and it is with those workers that we should begin.
On Friday, like many colleagues, I stood side-by-side with sacked crew in Dover. There, I spoke to a married couple who had both been employees of P&O Ferries for 14 years. They loved their jobs. They spoke movingly about how P&O felt like a family:
“It sounds clichéd,”
she said,
“but it really was - we lived together, ate together, worked in a small space together. It was our life and we gave it our all.”
The reward for that loyalty? A summary dismissal via a pre-recorded video. Years of dedication ended with them being marched off the ships they lived and worked on by private security guards. They have a four-year-old child that they no longer know how they will feed and clothe. They told me with tears in their eyes that they felt they had been treated like criminals.
This was not a grim Dickensian depiction belonging to another era; this was the United Kingdom in the 21st century. It is nothing short of a scandal that this Dubai-owned company, which received millions in taxpayers’ money during the pandemic, can tear up the rights of British workers, all while its profits soared by 52% last year. That cannot and must not stand. We cannot allow British workers and this country to be taken for a ride.
The truth, however, is that P&O Ferries and DP World did it precisely because they thought they could get away with it. They knew they could exploit the UK’s shamefully weak employment law. They knew the investments the Government have with them would be prized more highly than the livelihoods of 800 people. And they knew that when they did what they did, the Government would not stand in their way. The impotent response so far from Ministers shows that they were right to think that, because, I am afraid to say, when a loyal British workforce was threatened, Ministers completely failed to act.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
We stand in solidarity with the sacked P&O workers, but if one company can divest itself of its responsibility to its entire workforce and get away with it, the worry is that this will be the first domino of many. That is why we should not just show our solidarity with the P&O workers but demand justice for them and get this dreadful decision overturned.
Louise Haigh
My hon. Friend is absolutely right; that is exactly why the motion calls not only for the reinstatement of workers, but for Ministers to take action to outlaw this practice for good.
What is important is that we now know that the Government had the opportunity to stop this before it happened. They knew before the workers what P&O had planned. I can inform the House that I have come into possession of a memo that was circulated to the Transport Secretary, his private office and, we are told, 10 Downing Street. For the benefit of Members, I am happy to lodge it in the House of Commons Library.
This memo was no vague outline; it was the game plan of P&O. I can reveal to the House that it not only makes it clear that the Government were made aware that 800 seafarers were to be sacked, but explicitly endorses the thuggish fire and rehire tactics that P&O had clearly discussed with the Department ahead of Thursday. There is nothing in this memo at all that expresses any concern, any opposition or raises any alarm about the sacking of 800 loyal British workers. This is the clearest proof that the Government’s first instinct was to do absolutely nothing. There is no use Government Members wringing their hands now; it is here in black and white, and I will happily lodge it in the Library, Mr Speaker, for the benefit of Opposition Members when they are considering how to vote tonight.
Mr Speaker
Order. In fairness, that would benefit all Members—if documents are being referred to, all hon. Members need to be able to see them.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
We all stand behind the P&O workers, because it is them today and it will be other workers tomorrow if we do not act. When, for so long, the Tories have stood against regulation that protects workers’ rights, and when they have pushed against the door of fire and rehire and kept it open, they cannot come here wringing their hands and say, “This is a terrible thing.” They have created the environment that has allowed these unscrupulous employers to walk through that door and attack those workers in that way.
Louise Haigh
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Successive Tory Governments have created the conditions that allow unscrupulous employers, such as P&O, to exploit that context. It is clear that the Secretary of State has serious questions to answer.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
If there is documentation available showing that the Government had prior knowledge of this, it is important that we all have sight of it. What is the date on the document and how long before the event did the Government actually know about it?
Louise Haigh
The text of the memo will be placed in the House of Commons Library. It is reported that this was received on Wednesday night and the memo was sent overnight into Thursday morning.
The Secretary of State needs to answer these questions: when exactly did he see this crucial memo and what was his response? Did anyone in No. 10 acknowledge it? Did they advise on any alternative course of action? Did he or his Ministers seek immediate advice from either the Solicitor General or the Attorney General as to the legality of P&O’s action? Why did he make contact with the boss of P&O only hours after the plan was publicly announced, despite the advance notice that he was given? Given that DP World has been publicly voicing concerns about the sustainability of P&O ferries for at least a year, will he publish all correspondence with it over that period? At what point did he or his Ministers first become aware that this may be a course of action that P&O was willing to take?
Either the Government were bewilderingly incompetent or they were complicit. Either way, there was a window of opportunity to protect the livelihoods of 800 British workers from an illegal act by a rogue employer, and the Government did nothing. For all the outrage that has since flowed from Ministers, the proof is before our eyes. What have Cabinet Ministers actually managed to do? They have written a strongly worded letter to the wrong person and have signposted workers to the jobcentre. The central calculation by DP World that this Government would not lift a finger to stop it has so far been proven right.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
It is not only about the appalling way in which workers are being treated now, but about the future of the whole industry. There were 18 apprentices—the only apprentices being trained on British ratings—sacked among the 800 workers. That decision will have an impact not only today, but for the future of our maritime industry: if it is allowed to stand, we will not have people trained for future generations.
Louise Haigh
I thank my hon. Friend; I know that her colleagues in Hull who are in the Chamber today have campaigned long and hard for the maritime industry in this country. She is absolutely right that this is an assault not just on those workers, but on the entire industry in this country.
Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
The maritime industry, which exists in Liverpool as well as Hull, is precious and we have to fight for its future. The company paid out £270 million in dividends before taking this action. Does my hon. Friend think that the Government must now do all they can to end any association with the freeports and other contracts that P&O has, until it puts this monstrous injustice right?
Louise Haigh
I absolutely agree. The Government have significant leverage, both over P&O and over DP World, and they must use it. I will come on to the detail of that point shortly.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The hon. Lady is being very generous with her time and is making a compelling case. The Secretary of State for Transport suggested that the review of contracts by the Government would include DP World as well as P&O Ferries, but yesterday the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy appeared to roll back from that. Does the hon. Lady agree that it is critical that DP World be held to account as much as P&O Ferries? It has to be part of that review.
Louise Haigh
I absolutely agree. DP World, the parent company, must be held accountable for the actions of P&O—
Mr Speaker
Order. Will the hon. Gentleman let the hon. Lady answer one point before she takes the next, please?
Louise Haigh
As I was saying, I completely agree that DP World needs to be fully responsible for the actions of P&O Ferries. The Government exercise considerable leverage over both companies.
Mr Sheerman
I am sorry, Mr Speaker; I had anticipated that my hon. Friend was going to finish her point. She is making an excellent speech. Does she share my concern that when 800 British workers have been sacked in this savage way, there are 10 Members present on the Conservative Back Benches? What would make Conservative Members angry and make them turn up to support British business and British people?
Louise Haigh
As my hon. Friend points out, it is a shame that for all the anger and the outrage expressed over the past few days, so few Conservative Members have turned up to participate in today’s debate. But it is not too late: even at this late hour, the Government must hold P&O to account and stand up for the workforce being undermined by overseas billionaires. If an exploitative employer can escape without any consequences for this egregious action, that will give the green light to bad bosses around the world who think they can do the same. As one worker said to me on Friday: “If it can happen to us highly skilled workers in a unionised industry, it can happen to literally anyone.”
The Government must start by immediately commencing criminal action against P&O Ferries for its flagrant breach of employment law. That should mean unlimited fines not only for the company, but for the directors and managers of any that were complicit. It is in the gift of the Business Secretary, under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, to begin that action. He must do it now, and if he will not, he must explain to the public why he will not act to protect British workers.
Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)
My great-grandfather and my grandfather served in the British Merchant Navy and were never treated in the appalling and disrespectful way in which this company has treated these people. This is not about where people come from or where they work in the industry. All people who work in the industry should be given trade union rights, should be able to work properly and should be treated as human beings.
Louise Haigh
Absolutely—and the sad fact is that these people had a collective bargaining agreement and recognition of their union, but DP World chose to trample over that in full violation of our domestic law.
The Government must take a serious look at their very long-standing relationship with DP World. This is a company that has contracts with the British Government worth billions of pounds, but is apparently confident that it can act with impunity when it comes to respecting our employment rights. The Government must suspend all the licences and contracts that they hold with DP World to maximise pressure and force it to reverse course. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the Government are reviewing all their contracts with both P&O Ferries and DP World? Yesterday, when questioned by the BBC, the Chancellor conspicuously chose to distinguish between those companies and portray them as two different entities. Ministers have spent the last few days condemning P&O’s actions; today they have a chance to prove that they mean it.
As has been said, however, this must be set within a context. That any business feels that it can get away with this behaviour in Britain today is a scandal. It is a damning indictment of weak employment laws and the broken promises to protect workers’ rights.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, and has rightly drawn attention to the Government’s failure to act consistently. We have, of course, already had a debate on fire and rehire on the Floor of the House, on the occasion when my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) presented a Bill to ban the practice. Not only did the Government object; they opposed the closure motion that would have allowed the Bill to progress to Report. Conservative Members shake their heads, but they have done nothing about this. Moreover, last Friday, when I supported my hon. Friend when his Bill was read out in the Chamber, they objected again. The Government are all talk and no action, and that is the real problem.
Louise Haigh
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. At every available opportunity, Conservative Members have voted against potential legislation to outlaw fire and rehire.
People throughout the country will be asking how it is possible that workers can be bussed in to instantly replace those in secure jobs. Is it not the case that P&O has exploited the immigration loopholes in exactly the same way as it has exploited loopholes in the minimum wage legislation for years, while the Government have sat back and allowed it to happen? This is the exact opposite of the promises made to the British people to safeguard their living standards, employment prospects and job security. In what world is this “taking back control”?
For far too long, Ministers have sat on their hands and chosen to side with bad bosses by failing to strengthen workers’ rights. This must be a line in the sand. If Ministers mean what they say, they will bring forward an emergency employment Bill tomorrow. They will outlaw fire and rehire without delay and strengthen workers’ employment rights, and they will demand that these loyal P&O workers be reinstated. Let there be no more excuses. Tonight, the Conservatives must back Labour’s motion, and send the clear message that no workforce can ever again be attacked in this way.
We are an island nation. British seafaring has been and is the envy of the world, and a sense of fair play and decency runs deep in this country: it is part of who we are. The action on Thursday was a straightforward assault on that tradition and on our values, so deeply entwined with our identity and synonymous with our global reputation. Britain deserves better. Tonight, Tory Members have the chance to join Labour and vote to stand up for British workers. They have the chance to stand up for that tradition, and stand up for the people of this country. They have the chance to ensure that this can never happen again. Tonight, they must decide which side they are on—the side of loyal workers in Britain, or that of the billionaires who are riding roughshod over our rights. I commend our motion to the House.
The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)
I thank the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) for bringing this debate forward. It is important that this should be fully discussed, although we have already had an urgent statement on the subject. The way in which those 800 loyal and experienced workers were treated by P&O Ferries last week was shameful and utterly unacceptable, after two years during which maritime staff faced significant demands and worked tirelessly to keep the country open and supplied us with vital goods, without which this country would not have been able to function. In my view—I am sure it is the view of the whole House—this is about having respect for employees, about employers having the common decency to engage with their workforce, particularly when times are tough, and about having standards that we would expect every single company in this country and every single employer to uphold.
Of course we understand the financial pressures that many businesses are facing right now. Regrettably, redundancies are sometimes inescapable, but there is no excuse for what we saw last Thursday. There was no consultation with the workforce and no consultation with the unions. To answer the hon. Lady’s question, the first I heard about it was at 8.30 in the evening, not through the memo, which I did not see, but instead through communication with my private office to indicate that P&O would be making redundancies the next day. The House may or may not be aware that, in 2020 during coronavirus and again in 2021, redundancies took place at P&O. In 2020, the numbers were larger than those we saw last Thursday. However, the company consulted properly about those redundancies, and they were made voluntary. So it was on that understanding that I had a conversation with the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) the next morning, in which he provided some on-the-ground information. Then, as colleagues will recall, I was standing at this Dispatch Box when I was passed a note about redundancies taking place. It was with considerable concern that I saw that the company was deploying those redundancies via a pre-recorded Zoom call, as the hon. Lady has said.
Clive Efford
The Secretary of State said that he did not know of P&O’s plans until 8.30 in the evening, but the shadow Secretary of State has indicated that the Government were aware of P&O’s plans before their public announcement. Can he confirm that that is the case, when that was, who had access to that information and what action they took on it?
Grant Shapps
My understanding is that a very small number of officials were contacted by P&O management during the late afternoon. They then wrote up a read-out of that, which is, I think, the note that has been widely circulated. As I have mentioned, my concern was not really sparked until I was at the Dispatch Box, when I started to hear about the way that it was being carried out, because in 2020 and 2021 voluntary redundancies had taken place in the way that we would expect. It was deeply concerning to see the footage of staff being forcibly removed from ferries, underlining the cynical approach and confrontational nature of the operation, which was not at all what we had seen in those previous two rounds. It is astounding that a company with a long and proud maritime past, whose vessels bear names such as the Pride of Kent and the Spirit of Britain, will in future have almost no British crew on board, but it is no more astounding than the manner in which the crew were left marooned last week.
Emma Hardy
Am I correct in understanding that the Secretary of State was made aware of the P&O workers being sacked and made the assumption that it would be done in the correct manner, without checking whether it would be done in accordance with trade union and employment legislation? We have heard the famous saying that if we assume something, it tends to make an “ass” out of “u” and “me”. It seems that in this case we have made an ass out of all those P&O workers who are now stuck without their jobs because the Secretary of State assumed that everything would be fine without doing his job and checking it.
Grant Shapps
I really want to avoid the temptation to try to turn this into a political knockabout—[Interruption.] It is not. It is about 800 people’s jobs. When the previous two rounds of redundancy took place—I think I am right in saying that neither the hon. Lady nor any other Member of this House, perhaps bar one, approached me about them—the company quite properly consulted the workers and the unions and carried them out in a voluntary fashion. The expectation, therefore, was, quite properly, that that was what would happen again on this occasion. We are also talking about a commercially sensitive decision, which limits what a Minister can immediately say and do. But there is no excuse—and this is the point—for the way in which it was carried out. For some employees, for a four-decade seafaring career to be brought to an abrupt video end is just plain insulting.
Since the news emerged, I have spoken to one of the sacked employees, who has given years of service to P&O. He told me about the chaotic way in which the situation unfurled for him on Thursday morning. He said that after a decade of service, workers were brutally informed via a pre-recorded Zoom message, and that, despite the fact that some staff have now been offered redundancy packages, nothing can change the way in which these workers were let down. They found out, as the rest of the world was finding out, via a Zoom message, which was linked to some of those individuals’ homes.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
I am very pleased that my right hon. Friend has had the opportunity to speak to some of the employees. Has he managed to glean the level of the financial compensation for redundancy? Will the package be the standard minimum or will it be different?
Grant Shapps
My understanding—again, the House will have a strong view on this—is that they are being offered two and a half weeks’ pay, rather than one week’s pay for every year’s service, as well as three months’ redundancy pay and then another three months’ redundancy pay for the fact that it is happening very early. In other words, it is six months’ redundancy pay and two and a half weeks’ pay. However—and this is the catch—it is on the condition that they sign a non-disclosure agreement. Again, this goes to the heart of the problem, which is the company working in a way that tries to keep employees quiet and then pay them off in return.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
You have been on your feet for eight minutes. Tell us what you are doing.
Grant Shapps
I hope the right hon. Lady recognises that I have taken a great number of interventions. I would be able to tell her what we are doing but only if she did not want me to take her colleagues’ interventions, which I want to hear.
Andrew Gwynne
The Secretary of State seems to be saying that it is absolutely unacceptable—indeed, outrageous—that the Spirit of Britain will be staffed by a non-British workforce because employees have not been sacked in an appropriate manner, but that, were the Spirit of Britain to be staffed by a non-British workforce because employees had been sacked through the appropriate channels, that would be okay. That is not taking back control. It is weak.
Grant Shapps
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. That is the point I was making. To have a ship called Spirit of Britain, Pride of Kent or any other name that attaches it to this country when it does not have British workers would be completely wrong, and I will be calling on P&O to change the name of the ships. It would be completely inappropriate. I think that was his point. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. It is getting very difficult to hear. I know that feelings are running very high, but it is important that we hear what the Secretary of State is saying.
Grant Shapps
I directly answered the hon. Gentleman’s question, but that seems to have brought derision, so I think I will make some progress to let the House, the country and those seafarers know what we are doing about this.
On Friday, I communicated my anger to the chief executive of P&O Ferries. I also urged him to engage with the seafarers and trade unions, and offered my support in organising those discussions. It is not too late for those discussions to take place to salvage the situation, so I implore him to do so. The maritime Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts), also spoke to the chief executive on Thursday and expressed in no uncertain terms our deep disappointment before coming to this House and explaining the Government’s position.
Grant Shapps
I want to make a little progress. We made it abundantly clear that the reputation of P&O Ferries has been badly hit by this episode, not just within government, but, more importantly, with the public. Many believe that they have seen this company’s true colours. Clearly, it has been handled disastrously by the company, which is why we have asked the Insolvency Service to look at the notification requirements and consider whether further action is appropriate, especially if, as we are concerned, the relevant notice periods were not given and the relevant consultation did not take place. I can inform the House that that would be a matter for criminal prosecution and unlimited fines.
We are reviewing, as a matter of urgency, all Government contracts with P&O Ferries and with DP World. Where possible, we are looking to use other providers if there are any contracts where the UK Government are involved—I believe, at this point, that such contracts have been historical in nature, rather than current. We are considering further steps that we can take to remove P&O Ferries’ influence from the British maritime sector, including positions on key advisory boards, because, again, I do not want to see that company, given the way the management have behaved, advising on the way the British maritime sector is shaped and rolls out.
Several hon. Members rose—
Grant Shapps
Again, I wish to make a little progress, so let me turn to the critical issue of fire and rehire. It is only a rehire to a very limited degree here, from what I can see—it is more like just fire. I have already asked ACAS, or, rather, my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary has, to produce additional information and guidance to employees, and—[Interruption.] And wait for it: if we need to go further, this is something we will consider doing. I have spoken to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to ensure that those who have lost their jobs are supported with relevant help and a rapid response taskforce. Since Thursday, I have received many messages from blue-chip employers anxious to snap up the newly redundant workforce, and I have arranged to put them in touch. I pay tribute to those who have come forward, and with unemployment at 3.9% I very much hope that those excellent individuals will be snapped up very quickly indeed.
Mr Carmichael
I hope that we are going to hear soon about the safety implications of this issue. P&O Ferries has obligations under the international safety management code, which requires each vessel to have a safety management system. That is then audited by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, which produces a document of compliance. It is difficult to see how, with 100% crew changes in the way we have heard, P&O can possibly now be in compliance with those obligations. Will the Secretary of State look at the possibility of suspending the documents of compliance until he is satisfied that P&O is in compliance with them?
Grant Shapps
I will, but I will come back to the right hon. Gentleman’s precise points in a moment in my speech. Seafarers’ rights and wellbeing are a matter I take extremely seriously. Indeed, the House may recall that during the pandemic I ordered the MCA to board vessels forcibly to ensure that conditions were appropriate where I believed that there may have been maritime workers who were being exploited, as indeed they were being. So I take this matter incredibly seriously. Maritime employees have not in this country, and indeed throughout much of the world, received some of the same benefits and protections that exist otherwise for workers. That simply is not good enough and it is a practice we have been seeking to end.
Grant Shapps
In 12 years we have done an awful lot, and I am just about to tell the hon. Lady about it. As I was saying, that is why in our maritime 2050 strategy, which she may not have read, this Government committed to a social framework for UK seafarers that will promote working, pay and social conditions, levelling the playing field with—[Interruption.] Let me explain to hon. Members who have not read the strategy that it is called the 2050 strategy but it takes place now. I do not want them to be confused by the name of the strategy. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. We really cannot have Members making it impossible to hear what is being said.
Grant Shapps
The right hon. Lady says I am “so annoying” but—[Hon. Members: “Division!”] [Laughter.] I see that the Opposition have the advantage right now. I am trying to explain that the maritime 2050 document is not about something happening in 2050; it is happening right now, and its purpose is to level up conditions between those working onshore and those working on ships. Seafarers, regardless of nationality, who normally work in our territorial waters are now, thanks to this Government, fully protected by our national minimum wage.
Colleagues should be aware that the UK operates under international laws as treaty members, meaning that UK law does not apply in all circumstances—an issue which may in part be in play in this case. A further consideration is that we understand that some seafarers were employed under Jersey law, which has further complicated the legal picture. Such complications allow employers to take advantage in the way that we have seen with P&O Ferries, which is why we will do all we can to ensure that domestic law is applied in full everywhere around the country.
Sammy Wilson
The boats on the route from Larne to Cairnryan never deviate, travelling daily from one British port to another British port. Do minimum wage laws apply on that route?
Grant Shapps
The laws apply in UK territorial waters, so I believe that they do. I will contact the right hon. Gentleman with the detail.
Despite the current disruption to P&O services, I can confirm that at present no major issues are reported on ferry routes to and from this country. I discussed supply-chain issues with my French counterpart this weekend, and both Government and industry have been working flat out to put alternative arrangements in place to ensure that the supply chain continues.
I place on the record my thanks to Stena for stepping up over the weekend at our request, laying on extra services from Scotland to Northern Ireland. We are monitoring the situation at other ports served by P&O, such as Dover, Liverpool and Cairnryan. I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that Stena will be putting on additional services from Scotland to Northern Ireland from tomorrow, which will be of particular interest to retailers including ASDA and M&S.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way; I can perhaps help him and the House. National minimum wage legislation does now apply on UK-to-UK routes, but only since June 2020 when Opposition Members continually lobbied Ministers to ensure that it did.
Grant Shapps
I absolutely respect the hon. Gentleman’s knowledge and expertise, and I thank him publicly for ensuring that I was receiving information as he saw it break on the ground through his constituency contacts. As he says, it is the case that we introduced that legislation, and I am delighted that it was backed by all sides.
We will ensure that resilience plans are deployed on the supply-chain issue—
Grant Shapps
I want to make a little progress. Those plans will mean that passengers and freight traffic will be as little affected as possible.
While I welcome P&O’s plan to resume ferry operations this week, to the point of the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), the safety of shipping remains a top priority. Staff must be experienced and trained to uphold the highest possible standards, as his intervention suggested. I have now instructed the Maritime and Coastguard Agency to inspect all P&O Ferries vessels prior to their re-entering service, including the operational drills to ensure that the proposed new crews are safe and properly trained. If they are not, these ships will not sail. I expect many customers—passengers and freight—will quite frankly vote with their feet and, where possible, choose another operator. On that subject, for the purpose of fairness, I point out that P&O Cruises, although it shares the P&O name, is nothing to do with P&O Ferries and should not be tarnished with the same brush.
Dame Angela Eagle
Why does the Secretary of State seem pleased that P&O is to recommence its routes when, as we have heard, some of the crew will be on as little as £1.80 an hour?
Grant Shapps
I do not have details of how the ships will be recrewed. The hon. Lady will be aware that we are still putting maximum pressure on the company to sit down around the table with the workers and unions to make sure that this is not where this sad story ends. Ultimately, to provide the supply chain, which Northern Ireland Members have been raising, it is important that we have the resilience needed to ensure that goods flow, but that cannot be done using crews who are not properly trained to do the job to the highest standards.
I implore P&O Ferries to reconsider its decision. It is not too late to acknowledge its mistakes. I hope that the reaction to that now infamous video—in the House, the media and across the country—tells the company that this approach is quite simply unacceptable.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Grant Shapps
I just want to complete my speech. Others wish to speak, not least Members on the hon. Lady’s side of the House.
I say to P&O, “Please, repair some of the damage done last week by fully engaging in a true dialogue with seafarers and trade unions.” Otherwise, we are committed to re-evaluating our relationship with P&O Ferries and will review our contracts with it and with DP World as a matter of urgency. We will do everything we can to help the workers, where possible by finding them new jobs, and we will make sure we send a powerful message to every other employer in this country that such disgraceful treatment of workers will never be tolerated.
Stella Creasy
The Secretary of State said earlier that he was going to ensure that P&O Ferries would no longer advise on transport issues in his Department. Right now, DP World has press promoting its role advising the Government on trade matters. Has he picked up the phone to his colleagues in the Department for International Trade to make sure that DP World is summarily sacked from that role? I am sure he could make a video to let the rest of the world know if that was the case.
Grant Shapps
I can confirm that that applies to all Government activity involving DP World and its ownership structure. I can also confirm that I am writing today to DP World—the ultimate owners—to express the outrage felt across the entire House.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Before I call the Scottish National party spokesperson, I wish to inform the House—[Interruption.] Mr Kane! I wish to inform the House that I will impose a seven-minute time limit to start with. I suspect that that will come down quite quickly, so if colleagues take less than seven minutes, more Members will be able to speak. I call Gavin Newlands.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
We in the SNP welcome this debate secured by the Labour party, not least because, as the shadow Secretary of State says, there is unanimity on how deplorable P&O’s actions are, but how many times do we have to come to the House to debate the actions of a business before the Government take any action? P&O’s actions have sickened nearly everyone in the country and achieved a rare feat by uniting the Institute of Directors, the TUC, the CBI and the RMT in condemning what happened last week. When even the directors of DP World cannot stomach their company’s actions, with one non-executive director resigning, saying that he
“cannot support the way P&O Ferries has carried out this restructuring”,
it shows just how low the company has sunk. But it is okay, because it might rename some ships!
One small example of P&O’s complete lack of self-awareness came in an email to the remaining 2,200 staff. The P&O chief executive officer said that it was natural for them to be uncomfortable with the media coverage of its actions—not uncomfortable, angry, and deeply anxious about P&O’s crass and inhumane treatment of 800 of their now former colleagues, but with the media coverage. That is institutional arrogance writ large.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
My Garthamlock constituent Mark Stewart has gone from being a cadet to a chief officer on these vessels. Indeed, he, as a professional seafarer, has experience of working on vessels that are more than 20 years old. May I say to the Government, through my hon. Friend, that my constituent is not worried about the media coverage of P&O. What he is worried about is the idea of people being paid less than £2 an hour to do a job that is very reliant on safety—the very expertise that he has. It would be good if the Government could take that into account and come forward with a much more stringent and robust approach to P&O ferries, which has acted disgracefully.
Gavin Newlands
My hon. Friend is not often wrong, and he is right again on this. Sadly, I am not entirely sure that those on the Government Front Bench were listening to the message that he wanted to pass on. Nevertheless, I hope that they will look in Hansard and consider what was said.
I understand that the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy wrote to P&O last week asking for further information on its actions with a view to investigating possible breaches of criminal law. I do welcome that, but that investigation must happen as quickly as possible. I fear that shredders and mail servers here and overseas will be allowed to work overtime if delays are introduced. Those involved in this enterprise must be held to account for their actions and for the pain and misery that they have inflicted on P&O staff in this country. I would welcome more detail on the scope and the proposed timescale of that BEIS investigation in the Minister’s summing up.
We have been here before. Those seemingly tough words must be followed with tough action. The Government will not be forgiven if they allow this action to stand unfettered and unpunished. The fact that Ministers and officials knew of P&O’s plans and did not act beforehand to stop it or to minimise disruption is a damning indictment. It was claimed that only a limited number of officials knew about this, but further developments show—and, indeed, the Secretary of State has said this—that the Secretary of State was made aware of it at 8 pm the night before. This is an absolute abrogation of responsibility by the Government.
If P&O wants to squirm out of its obligations under UK employment law by claiming that it is not covered, let it repay every penny that it took from taxpayers, including the ones that it is trying to sack. It took that money while claiming to serve these islands. P&O has pocketed millions from the public purse—over £10 million in furlough payments, and £4.4 million in freight subsidy payments in the early stages of the pandemic. By sacking via Zoom the very same workers whom Government funds supported, P&O is laughing in the Government’s face.
Andy McDonald
Does the hon. Member agree that time is of the essence, and that the object of the exercise is to get those 800 workers reinstated? Does he get any reassurance from the Secretary of State, or does he share my complete lack of reassurance, that anything will be done to coerce P&O to do the right thing and reinstate those workers?
Gavin Newlands
I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. I have always been a glass half full type of guy, but, sadly, I have to completely agree with his interpretation of the situation. I do not see the urgency that is required to deal with this situation. If P&O thinks that it has the right to bring its weight to abuse its staff, the Government should be looking at what weight they can bring against its owners. Why should DP World be allowed within a mile of the London freeport project? It has shown itself to be a company without morals and without a care about regulation or legislation. Why should it be involved in one of the UK Government’s flagship projects? If the aim of freeports is to provide less regulation within each zone, we can have zero faith that even a minimal rulebook will be followed by DP World or any of its companies.
Until the despicable actions of last week are rectified, DP World should not be allowed anywhere near any Government projects or funding. Today we have found out more about how much P&O value its staff—this time, its new staff. Evidence has emerged, as has been mentioned, that those being used to bust workers at P&O may be paid just £1.81 an hour. P&O’s plan is to exploit the maritime employment regulations and give the bare minimum to the staff that it recruits. This means paying the International Labour Organisation minimums of £16.27 a day for an able seaman, or just £3.54 an hour for a cook. That is the reality of what P&O is trying to pull off here. It is plumbing the depths of wage slavery so that it can save a few quid.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
My hon. Friend will have heard the Minister say that because some of this was commercially confidential, he was limited in what he could do or say the night before. When we hear stories about “balaclava-clad security guards” dragging people off ships, surely commercial confidentiality goes out of the window?
Gavin Newlands
Absolutely. I thank my right hon. Friend for that point, which speaks once again of how this Tory Government care more about the businesses than the employees. That is at the heart of this particular issue. The truth is—[Interruption.] We are being barracked from the Government Front Bench, but actions speak louder than words.
The truth of the matter is that this is a race to the bottom, pure and simple, with overseas workers on starvation wages and workers here tossed on the scrapheap for having the temerity to expect a decent salary. It is about exploiting the global south for cheap labour, with people shipped thousands of miles from their homes, with virtually no employment rights, and used as pawns by the likes of P&O in their attempts to break UK-based staff.
Over recent years, we have seen how P&O and other shipping companies have made mass use of ILO contracts to pay their staff the bare minimum. I have mentioned able seafarers, but cabin stewards on North sea routes receive £2 an hour and cooks less than £5. It is a scandal that, having driven wages so low across the maritime sector, P&O is now using that as an excuse for its victimisation of loyal, hard-working staff.
Back some quarter of a century ago, when I started my first ever part-time job at a certain well-known fast food restaurant at Glasgow airport, I was paid £2.70 an hour. That was thought of as a low wage even at that time, and it was, but here we are in 2022 and people are asked to move across the world and break their backs for pennies. Since the staff operate from UK ports but work for companies or on boats registered in other countries, they are exempt from the minimum wage legislation that governs the rest of us. That is a disgrace, and something that the Government and international partners must resolve as soon as possible.
It is shameful that this country allows such poverty wages and employment conditions—close to indentured labour—on boats that ply its waters day in, day out. That race to the bottom has meant the loss of hundreds of jobs at P&O and the continued exploitation of hundreds of other people.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Many of my constituents have been in touch to express their concerns. Is he also worried about the precedent this sets? City of Glasgow College in my constituency provides excellent maritime education, but what is the point of people’s going into that education if they can be undercut by wages from around the world?
Gavin Newlands
I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. The college will be looking on in horror at the current story, as numbers applying for courses perhaps plummet.
This is modern-day slavery on the high seas and in our ports. It must end. I would like to hear the Minister state that he will take a lead on trying to secure the required changes in international maritime law when he speaks from the Dispatch Box. The role of the agencies involved, Clyde Marine Recruitment, Columbia Shipmanagement and International Ferry Management, must also be called out. They have provided support to this action without telling any of the proposed replacement crew what was happening—in fact, as I heard on BBC Radio Scotland the other day from a Paisley merchant seaman, actively lying to the replacement agency staff.
A former worker who had been working on a P&O vessel just three weeks prior and who had asked for opportunities on non-P&O vessels was told that this was a brand-new vessel that required to be crewed. Agency staff were told nothing while they were holed up in an East Kilbride hotel for three days; in fact, they set up a WhatsApp group called “Mystery Ship”. He and several others walked away when it became clear what was happening. They viewed going on to that ship as tantamount to crossing a picket line.
For the past two years I have worked to end the practice of fire and rehire, with colleagues from across the House. We said to the Government at the start of this problem that if they did not act when British Airways made fire and rehire threats to 30,000 people, more would follow. The Government did nothing. Then British Gas, Weetabix, Marshalls and even Tesco made similar threats. The Government response? A change to the guidance. The actions of P&O go beyond fire and rehire, however; they are a supercharged version, complete with balaclava-clad human resources and handcuff-trained personnel to enforce P&O’s interpretation of employment rights.
We have been forced to hear from the Government Benches for the past six years how Brexit is about taking back control. I ask the Government in all seriousness what control they think they have taken back. Anti-union, human rights-busting oligarchs in Dubai are approving plans to hire private security contractors with handcuffs and balaclavas to physically remove employees from their place of work, so what control have the Government taken back? What improvements have we seen in workers’ rights since the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) said in 2019:
“In the Queen’s Speech on Thursday there will be a specific law which will safeguard workers’ rights.”?
There was no sign of that Bill in that speech.
Craig Mackinlay
That is very kind. The hon. Gentleman is quite right to talk about fire and rehire. Is he going to discuss the issue of Ferguson Marine, with no hire at all? The contracts for the vessels that could have been used for ferries in Scotland are not even being done locally—they are going to Poland, Romania or Turkey.
Gavin Newlands
I am delighted that I gave way to the hon. Member, but I am going to move on because that has nothing to do with the current debate.
David Linden
Throughout the Brexit campaign we heard the Government talk about the importance of taking back control of our borders, our waters and our laws. Which part of the P&O debacle does my hon. Friend think shows that we are taking back control of our borders, our waters and our laws?
Gavin Newlands
The answer is absolutely none of it. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State wants us to move on because he does not want to hear the truth of the matter. We have not taken back any control whatsoever. [Interruption.] Perhaps he could calm down a little.
After my attempts to introduce two Bills to ban fire and rehire that were blocked by the Government, the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) took up the issue. His Bill was talked out by Conservative Members rather than their having to vote, on the record, against a measure that would improve the lives of thousands of their constituents. Time after time Ministers have stood at the Dispatch Box and, in answer to questions from me and others, have told us that legislation is not needed. Indeed, the very last words spoken from the Dispatch Box during the debate on the hon. Member for Brent North’s Bill were:
“we will act and we do not need primary legislation to do so”.—[Official Report, 22 October 2021; Vol. 701, c. 1116.]
Where does that position lie now after this past week? How many companies need to treat their staff like dirt before this Government will act? The Government could bring forward their own Bill this week and have the support of Opposition Members in giving UK workers the same rights as their colleagues across much of Europe. We will be happy to support any measure that stops the duplicitous behaviour of companies like P&O. If the UK Government are unwilling to act, they should allow that power to better our employment legislation to be given to Scotland, with the Scottish Government already committed to banning fire and rehire.
The actions of P&O are shameful, but the blunt fact is that if it thought the UK Government actually took workers’ rights seriously, it would not have dared do what it did. It knows that a Government who waste three years doing nothing after pledging a workers’ rights Bill are not going to seriously tackle DP World and P&O. It knows that a Government who have consistently stuck their fingers in their ears over fire and rehire, and pleaded for employers to be nice, are not serious about protecting staff against bullying management and owners. It knows that unless and until the UK Government get serious about workers’ rights, and understand that they protect not just workers but businesses that play fair, it can do pretty much as it pleases. It is time the Government showed that they are actually interested in levelling up the playing field for workers against companies that have no scruples or basic humanity whatsoever.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
Last Thursday, I spoke in this place and asked the Government to do everything within their power and influence, including tabling emergency legislation if necessary, to ensure that this appalling employment transaction cannot be completed. I agree with Opposition Members—time is of the essence now. The gloves are off. It is very important that we take immediate steps. With that in mind, I have a whole series of questions to put to those on the Front Bench about what we can do within the scope of the redundancy procedure, wages, safety measures, Government commercial bargaining power, and our intent under the maritime 2050 strategy.
A lot has already been said about the redundancy procedure, but the most important point for me is that under section 193 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, employers who want to make more than 100 people redundant have a duty to notify the Business Secretary of their plans before giving notice to the workers, and they are also required to do so at least 45 days before the dismissals. A failure to comply, as the Transport Secretary said, is a criminal liability. I have read the Business Secretary’s letter. He has given the company until 5 pm tomorrow—Tuesday 22 March—to respond before deciding whether to make a formal complaint to the prosecuting authorities. If he does not get that comfort by 5 pm tomorrow, will the Government immediately and formally issue criminal procedures, which, as the Transport Secretary said, carry an unlimited fine?
My second point is about wages, because the RMT reports that the new crew will be paid £1.80 an hour. I understand that because P&O trades internationally and its ships are not registered in the UK, it is not subject to UK employment law and the requirement to pay the minimum wage. The International Transport Workers’ Federation and the International Labour Organisation’s minimum recommended pay rate for an ordinary seaman is $1.99 an hour. It cannot be right that people who work between the UK and France, where the minimum wages are just short of £9, are being paid only £1.90—approximately 20% of what they should be paid.
My question is whether we are bound by the ITF and ILO rates of that type or whether we can impose our own minimum wage on routes that are clearly serving a domestic market and being crewed by those living here. As has already been asked, is there a difference between domestic routes, such as between Scotland and Northern Ireland, where the minimum wage should apply, and European routes? If we cannot intervene on the ITF and ILO rate, should we make it a legal requirement that routes of the type operated by P&O Ferries must be operated by ships registered in the UK if, in those circumstances, it would be more straightforward to ensure that the employment law and minimum wage rights were as in the UK? If we do not act, we risk other maritime companies following suit to compete in a race to the bottom. We must structure a way out to ensure that employees are paid the minimum wage.
My third point is about safety, which my friend the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) mentioned, and which seems to be the biggest area where we could surely intervene through our agencies. There must be a question as to how using staff being paid £1.80 an hour can meet our strict maritime safety requirements. Employers must ensure that their ships have enough properly trained and certificated officers so that ships can operate safely at all times.
Under the Merchant Shipping (Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping) Regulations 2015, according to the merchant shipping notice on those regulations, P&O Ferries must:
“Identify the skills and experience required to perform those functions”.
On the face of it, it has just identified the people with those skills and made them redundant. In making that assessment, the following must be considered:
“Hours of work or rest; Safety management; Certification of seafarers; Training of seafarers”.
Paragraph 8.5 of the merchant shipping notice relates to all passenger and roll-on roll-off ships. It expressly says:
“The need to handle large numbers of passengers unfamiliar with the marine environment must be taken into account in determining manning levels.”
Paragraph 11 states that if there are any changes in circumstances, companies will need to apply to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency
“for approval of a new Safe Manning Document under the 2015 Regulations…Ship owners must also inform the MCA of any change in circumstances which are relevant to a Safe Manning Document. The MCA will then review the document’s continuing validity or approve fresh proposals from the owner or operator.”
I heard the Secretary of State on that point, but I will chuck these questions into Hansard.
Will the Government confirm whether a notification of change has been submitted to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency? If so, how will the agency treat the change of seafarer workforce? If a notification of change has not been submitted, will the agency demand one and spell out the sailing sanctions should one not be forthcoming? Will one of those sanctions be that P&O Ferries cannot sail again until the agency has approved? I ask him to ensure that the agency goes in with its usual tough standards to ensure that every single nit-picking area is looked at in that regard. I am sure that we will get some action.
My fourth point is about Government commercial bargaining. P&O Ferries is an entity that has claimed millions in furlough payments. We have been here before with British Airways and we know that money cannot be claimed back, but there is an ethical point here on which the Government must stand. If the Government have legal and commercial powers at their disposal, they must use them immediately and indicate that contracts will be terminated unless P&O reverses its decision. Will they commit to so doing or, if they feel legally stymied, can they publish a legal summary and put it in the House of Commons Library to explain why they cannot act from a legal perspective?
My final point is about maritime 2050, on which, by coincidence, the Transport Committee has launched an inquiry. Its key objectives are to grow our skills base and inspire young people to join maritime. P&O Ferries’ decision will contribute to neither of those key aims. The maritime 2050 document states:
“Historically, the UK has grown much of its own talent and has kept a nucleus of highly trained and highly respected personnel, giving the UK a leading edge in its maritime work both at sea and at home.”
P&O’s decision goes completely against the Government’s desire for maritime 2050. For all those reasons, we need to fight fire with fire. P&O Ferries has disgraced itself, its workforce and this place with what it has done. It is time for us to respond and ensure that it reverses the decision.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
Madam Deputy Speaker, you have known me a very long time, and you know, as others do, that I often get very angry about the policies of this Government. I get angry about injustice, I get angry about inequality and I get angry about the rich and the powerful deliberately stifling the reasonable aspirations of people—and the majority of people—in my constituency of east Hull. However, in the nearly 12 years since I was elected, which is 4,336 days, I have never ever been so angry about a single act of brutal contempt for decent working people as I was on Thursday last week, when loyal workers were sacked by a pre-recorded Zoom call, with replacement crews and balaclava-wearing, handcuff-trained and Taser-trained private security waiting on the quayside.
This thuggery against workers must be an ultimate new low, but this day has been coming for a long time. I have spent years—years—telling anyone prepared to listen to me about the unscrupulous employers using loopholes and ambiguities in maritime law to get away with gross exploitation. If this was happening to any workers in any business on the mainland, it would not just be illegal; it would be the most grotesque act of illegality in industrial relations most any lawyer or indeed most any employment tribunal judge had ever seen.
Imagine any of the big employers notifying its staff that they had been sacked with immediate effect, only to be replaced with exploited eastern European, Filipino, Portuguese or Indian agency workers paid less than two quid—less than two quid—an hour, but that is what happened. That is what happened here, and it is a scandal that the national minimum wage legislation does not apply to seafarers on international routes, despite me, members of the Labour party and Opposition Members begging successive maritime Ministers to sort it out. It is a disgrace that this Government have allowed this practice to carry on unchallenged.
For how they have stood up to the onslaught on the terms and conditions of their members, we should all pay tribute to the RMT union and Nautilus International. Since Thursday, they have been tirelessly defending the workers, and I want specifically to thank Gary Jackson, the RMT’s regional organiser, for the unflinching support for the crew on the Pride of Hull, and the ship’s captain, Eugene Favier, for his efforts. Captain Favier is a very modest man, and he said he was only doing what was right when he instructed—ordered—his crew to lift the gangway. These trade unions do this work year round, day in and day out, and the general secretaries, Mick Lynch of the RMT and Mark Dickinson of Nautilus, are here in the Chamber for this debate. I thank Mr Speaker’s Office for kindly for facilitating other trade union members being in the Gallery here today watching the debate.
The Government have continually refused to listen to me and the unions, and refused to close the loopholes. Now, 800 families are suffering the consequences. By kowtowing to unscrupulous bosses and refusing to back the Bill that would have outlawed fire and rehire, this Government have allowed these predatory capitalists—pariah companies like P&O and its parent company DP World—to exploit cheap foreign labour at the expense of British maritime professionals. Kids in east Hull grow up in the shadow of ships in ports but are shut out of rewarding and prosperous careers at sea. In 2020, a further blow was dealt to their aspirations when P&O axed the Hull-Zeebrugge route at the cost of many more seafarer jobs.
You can see that this is deeply personal to me, Madam Deputy Speaker, as my late dad Ken was a proud trade unionist. He was a full-time official for the National Union of Seamen, predecessor to the RMT, from 1971 until his retirement as national secretary in 2000. He fought for years, along with other trade unionists, to achieve the decent terms and conditions enjoyed by British crews in Hull and across the country until Thursday last week.
The British seafarers sailing out of Hull worked long and demanding hours at sea but got proper rest breaks and were paid rates that they could live on. They had work stints of two weeks on and two weeks off.
Emma Hardy
My hon. Friend is making an incredible speech, and I want to state that Hull is of course united on this issue. The leader and deputy leader of the council were at the demonstration, as of course were the people of Hull West and Hessle.
Karl Turner
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. and she is right: Labour councillors from Hull attended that rally and were incredibly supportive.
The work stints of two weeks on and two weeks off allowed seafarers proper rest times for safety at sea. Steward jobs are not just pulling pints behind the bar; they require skill and experience, and safety and survival training.
Once upon a time British seafarers were treated with respect. In my office in Parliament there is a painting of the MV Norland, predecessor ship to the Pride of Hull. It was presented to my dad and my predecessor Lord Prescott by Captain Don Ellerby CBE. When she sailed to the Falklands we were all proud of her: proud of her crew, fighting for Queen and country, supplying our Navy and the military personnel. The painting illustrates the vessel as she was under fire at sea. In those days the owners of P&O, and then North Sea Ferries, were also proud of British ratings and British officers.
Emma Hardy
Yes, just to say again that my hon. Friend is making a wonderful speech.
Karl Turner
Of course, I am bound to agree.
I am not going to spare my anger and wrath at this Government today for enabling this industrial vandalism. We now know that Ministers were told in advance, and we know that officials thought it acceptable to sack 800 men and women with immediate effect, ignoring any liability in law that might apply. It is absolutely despicable, and it is the fault of the Prime Minister and his Government. The ideology of the small state, a leave it to the market, full speed ahead, devil take the hindmost Thatcherite philosophy that allows, defends and incentivises this shocking corporate arrogance and this most malicious act of violence on workers’ rights is their absolute shame.
I spoke with the Secretary of State on Thursday and I think he was angry, but the Government can do something about it now. They should support this motion, or they should expect the electorate to sack them at the next election. Unlike our British seafarers sacked last week, they are on good and proper notice: do something now—close the loophole. It is possible; it takes a few minutes in a statutory instrument—get on with it.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I am sure colleagues will understand that I am going to have to reduce the time limit after the next speaker. We will start by reducing it to five minutes after Natalie Elphicke.
Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
P&O’s mass sacking of ferry workers and their proposed replacement with agency contractors is a body blow to our Dover and east Kent community, where the majority of these job losses have occurred. It is devastating news for the P&O workers affected, as well as their families. Be in no doubt that this is shameful corporate behaviour by P&O Ferries and its owner DP World, and DP World must be held accountable for it. It is an insult to the decades of loyalty and hard work shown by the Dover workforce.
If P&O’s reported behaviour with the mass sackings was not bad enough, a female P&O worker who is a constituent of mine was thrown off her vessel in Rotterdam. P&O said that she and others had a ticket through Eurotunnel, but P&O had not booked the tickets, and they were stranded on a coach in Calais. Eventually, they returned home by DFDS ferries. I take this opportunity to thank the ferry operator DFDS, which has stepped in and helped passengers and others deserted by P&O over the last few days. This latest development puts further strain on DFDS, and I would welcome a meeting with DFDS and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to see how the businesses operating with good practices can be better supported on the Dover-Calais route.
This announcement was a U-turn on solemn assurances given to me and the RMT union over the last two years. DP World should rethink its behaviour and reverse its decision. In recent days, I have spoken with many Ministers and pressed for the Government to do all in their power to bring pressure to bear on DP World to do so. In response, No. 10 has roundly condemned the sackings, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is considering action on possible breaches of the law, and Transport Ministers are reviewing all Government dealings with DP World and P&O Ferries. I hope that DP World will take heed and reverse its decision. This is not so-called fire and rehire; it is simply bad business behaviour, and we should all be united behind stopping it.
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that in telephone conversations we had with the chief executive of P&O, it became clear that he was acutely embarrassed by having to tell us what he told us, and that this came straight from the top in Dubai, not from P&O?
Mrs Elphicke
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. It is clear that this decision was authorised and made by DP World, and it is right that DP World should be held to account for the decision and its impact on east Kent and UK trade as a whole. The decision is a violation of the principle that businesses should treat their employees fairly and with respect, and it cannot be tolerated. It is right that the Government have taken a firm position to condemn what DP World and P&O Ferries have done. However, like colleagues, I press the Government to go further over the coming days.
If P&O Ferries does not change its mind, it is also vital that the impacted workers are properly supported. I am grateful to the Work and Pensions Secretary and the Employment Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), who have listened to my calls for immediate action and a rapid response team to support the workers impacted in our community. In addition, I am working closely with the leadership of Dover District Council and Kent County Council to do everything to see that the maximum possible support is provided. I am grateful to local businesses that have already come forward with job offers and practical support.
Karl Turner
Does the hon. Lady not think we ought to be saying to the Government, “Make sure these people are reinstated immediately”? Never mind talking about sending them to the jobcentre to sign on; get them back into the jobs. They are their jobs—give them back!
Mrs Elphicke
I have said that several times.
The appalling mishandling and mistreatment of P&O workers also threatens to cause problems on Kent roads and wider harm to the UK economy. I have been working with Kent police and the Kent Resilience Forum to see that such disruption is kept to a minimum. I am clear that DP World should be held to account if there are any further problems on our roads or with our trade.
In addition, the council leaders and I have today written urgently to the Chancellor to ask him to ensure that road resilience is addressed, and in particular that the Dover access road on the A2 upgrade is progressed. We have also asked the Chancellor to look again at our proposed east Kent extended enterprise area, from Discovery Park and Manston airport through to the port of Dover. Ours is an area of great opportunities, and it is vital that we get support from the Government to make the most of all of them.
Let me say again that what DP World and P&O Ferries have done is a complete disgrace. They should reverse their decision and reinstate the workers. Their behaviour breaks the social contract between employers and employees. They have been rightly condemned across the board in both business and political worlds. The right thing to do, I say again, would be for DP World to immediately reverse its decision and reinstate the workers.
Finally, I would like to take a moment to address the dangers of militant unionism. I worked closely with the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers on the previous restructure of P&O. I have always found the union to be firm and constructive in the workers’ interests, as am I. In light of our close working in the interests of my constituents, I was invited by RMT leaders to join a march in support of Dover’s P&O workers on Friday, which I did along with the Conservative leader of Dover District Council and Conservative councillors, because we are united in getting those jobs back and doing right by the P&O workers affected. However, I found myself surrounded, bullied and abused by hard left militants. It was clear that they were unelected bully boys seeking to drown out the voice of democratically elected representatives—me, as the representative for Dover. It is the hallmark of the bad old days of the 1970s and 1980s, and we must guard against that returning.
I will not be intimidated while serving my community by odious hard left militants who thrive on division, nor will I be deflected from serving my community and my duty to represent the ferry workers. That is why we must all call out the behaviour of hard left militants. It is not just me. The same hard left extremists also seek to bully the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield), a Labour MP. Bullying and physical intimidation is wrong whoever it is done to and we should call it out. That is why it is appalling that the Labour leadership has failed to address the bullying and intimidation of the hon. Member for Canterbury, just as it is shameful that the Labour leadership and the shadow Minister, who by her own account was present, has failed to tackle the bully boy tactics in relation to me.
We need to be clear that the issue we are dealing with is bad business behaviour by P&O Ferries and DP World. That is what we need to focus on and reverse. Our community in Dover has given decades of loyal support to P&O. Our country has given millions of pounds of support in furlough and other pandemic assistance. It is not too late for P&O to come to the table for discussions and do the right thing. For everyone’s sake, including its own, I hope it does so now without delay. Reinstate those jobs in Dover, and come to the table and have discussions about the future.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
A most remarkable speech from the hon. Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke).
Millions of people across the country saw in horror the fascistic scenes on social media, with taser-trained security guards with handcuffs boarding P&O ships to forcibly remove workers. It was an abomination. Civil liberties and employment rights may well be trashed in Russia, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, but despite this Government’s acquiescence they are still supposed to mean something in the United Kingdom. I am sure many colleagues will rightly focus on the domestic employment law deficits and the whole employment environment that gives rise to such thuggery, while the Government sit on their hands and do diddly squat about it, but I also need to remind the Government of their international obligations.
DP World has—or had—a human rights statement on its website, which states:
“DP World respects and supports the human rights of our employees, our extended supply chain and the broader community around us. DP World releases its modern slavery and human trafficking statement annually. This states our commitment to ensuring that slavery, servitude, forced labour and human trafficking are not tolerated in our global operations or in those of our suppliers.”
Clearly, that does not apply to £1.80 an hour—that is slavery.
DP World goes on to say that its statement has been guided by:
“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights…ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work…Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights; Implementing the UN ‘Protect, Respect, and Remedy’ Framework…The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals”.
This country is a signatory to all those, so let us look at the UN guiding principles, which
“are grounded in recognition of…States’ existing obligations to respect, protect and fulfil human rights and fundamental freedoms;…The role of business enterprises…required to comply with all applicable laws and to respect human rights;…The need for rights and obligations to be matched to appropriate and effective remedies when breached.”
Where on earth is the adherence to those principles?
There are also the OECD guidelines for multinational enterprises, which set out that proper notice has to be given, as does the International Labour Organisation tripartite declaration of principles concerning multinational enterprises and social policy. The best one, however, is the Government’s document, “Good Business: Implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights”. It boasts:
“The UK was the first country to produce a National Action Plan to implement the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights”.
Where is the action? If there is supposed to be a plan, where on earth does it lead to?
The UN’s global goals for sustainable development speak of taking
“immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking”
and about needing to
“Protect labour rights and promote safe and secure working…for all workers, including migrant workers”—
we have heard little about how the Government will do that.
We all know what will happen: DP World—these bandits, these pirates of the seas—will replace workers with cheap migrant labour from the Philippines and across the world. If the Government will not seize these ships, they should not be allowed to dock. Despite all this, they are still going to allow DP World to run our freeports. We know that these anti-trade union oligarchs will do as they like and take advantage of the industrial-scale corporate welfare that the Government are shovelling their way, with no corresponding benefit for working people who are left to scrabble for whatever benefits they can derive. If that is allowed to happen, I warn the Minister that the working people of this country will not tolerate their abuses and this programme will blow up in their faces. It is indeed time that we took back control—of our jobs, our economy and our key infrastructure, including our ports, to rebalance power in the workplace and deliver the Labour party’s new deal for working people. I support the motion.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. To get everybody in, after the next speaker, I will reduce the time limit to four minutes.
Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)
I wish I could say that it was a pleasure to contribute to this debate, but it really is not. None of us wants to be debating the act of industrial brutality committed by DP World and P&O Ferries last week. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), who is not in his place, articulated an anger that I have seen is shared by many people across the country. This incident has more cut-through than any other I have witnessed in recent years and I hope that DP World is taking note of that.
As chairman of the all-party maritime and ports group, I care very deeply about this matter. It must not be without consequence for DP World. Although I was very pleased to hear the robust messages from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State at the Dispatch Box, I fear that DP World has got its ducks in a row legally and that the threats of criminal prosecution will be rebutted quite robustly. That is why we must use all the tools at our disposal to make sure that there is some punishment for DP World for taking this action. This was a decision taken in Dubai, so the company cannot claim that its subsidiary has nothing to do with it.
We must make sure that we use all the tools at our disposal. I say that as an enthusiastic supporter and proponent of the Thames freeport, which hon. Members have heard me wax lyrical about several times. I say in all honesty to DP World that if it is really serious about a resolution, it should step aside from the freeport agreements that have been struck. It would simply be wrong to give that company any tax incentives while the dispute continues. I associate myself with the calls to have the workforce reinstated; I suspect that they will fall on deaf ears, but that is why we simply must take all action at our disposal.
I crave the indulgence of the House for a moment, because Thames freeport has been associated with DP World in recent press comments since these tragic events. Thames freeport is not just DP World. Thames freeport is Ford Motor Company: the freeport will breathe life into Dagenham, which has been a centre of motor engineering for a century or more. It is also Forth Ports: while DP World has been marching around Whitehall demanding everything left, right and centre, with concession after concession, Forth Ports has been quietly operating its ports in Scotland and its port in Tilbury without asking for those favours. We have massive ambitions to expand the operation at Tilbury, and those companies do not deserve to be disadvantaged because of their association in good faith with DP World. I ask for a very clear commitment from those on the Front Bench not to let Thames freeport be disadvantaged. However, we should by all means give DP World the challenge that it cannot necessarily expect to be treated with favour after behaving in this way.
The other element of the Thames freeport is Thames Enterprise Park, which is on a redundant petrol refinery, the biggest brownfield site in Europe. That is what freeports are all about: resurrecting that growth and that regeneration. Frankly, we should not let DP World’s association with the Thames freeport undermine the very real objectives that all of us across the estuary wish to achieve.
As colleagues have recognised, our maritime sector is in our DNA. If we are serious about being a maritime nation, we have to value our seafarers. The truth of the matter is that we have all quietly looked the other way while shipping costs have been kept low. Our seafaring workforce has declined and has been replaced by overseas workers being paid a pittance. This example puts that into stark relief. We have happily looked the other way because, if we do not, it will mean higher prices in supermarkets as a result of shipping costs that properly reflect the cost of labour. At a time when the cost of living is a challenge, that is not something that we want to tackle, but perhaps now we will. We are not going to be a maritime nation unless we give young people who live in coastal communities the ambition to see the world by working in this fantastic industry.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Liverpool is where much of our personal protective equipment freight is imported into the country, including by P&O. Seafarers were and still are essential workers, keeping our country supplied with food and medicines as well as PPE. I hope that all Members in the Chamber will take the opportunity to join me in thanking every single seafarer who has kept our country going in the face of the deadly pandemic and the supply chain shortages.
On Thursday, all the workers who have kept us all going were sacked without warning by their employer. On Friday, I was at the port of Liverpool, just outside my constituency. There was an impressive turnout from trade unionists from across the north of England and concerned local residents. They were all united in outrage at this draconian, Dickensian approach and in support of the 800 workers who have been sacked by video call. We heard impassioned speeches from RMT regional officer Daren Ireland and Nautilus national organiser Steve Doran. Speaking as one, they were united in standing up for the members of both trade unions.
On Wednesday, the Chancellor will have his chance to spell out a plan to help the British people with the cost of living crisis, but the reality is that the cost of living crisis has grown even harder for the people and their families who have just lost their jobs.
So what should the Government be doing? They can suspend the P&O licences and contracts, including DP World’s contracts for two freeports, until the dispute is resolved. They can apologise to the workers for not intervening on Wednesday evening. They can claw back the covid money accepted by DP World. It beggars belief that the Secretary of State’s main suggestion this afternoon seems to be that P&O should change the names of its ferries.
What happened to the promise from the Business Secretary last year to strengthen employment protections in the UK? The Government blocked the private Member’s Bill to ban fire and rehire—and before Conservative Members say that that Bill contained flaws, let me ask why, if that is true, they did not give it a Second Reading and amend it in Committee. The Government’s failure to ban fire and rehire when they had the chance to do so has given P&O the green light to sack its workforce.
To ensure that P&O workers are the last group of workers abused by this pernicious loophole in employment law, the Government can make sure that this never happens again. They can introduce emergency legislation. They can ban fire and rehire. Yes, they can do that if they want; the question is, will they do it? I say to the Government, “Reinstate the 800 sacked seafarers, and say no to P&O!”
Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)
What happened to the workers at P&O is one of the most disgraceful examples of industrial practice in my adult lifetime. It speaks not to the weakness of our employment laws but to their strength that the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 and the Employment Rights Act 1996 have, for the last 30 years, rendered cases such as this so rare that we are debating one such case in Parliament today. What is extraordinary about this case is not that the laws did not exist, but that P&O, or DP World, thought it could break them with impunity. Let us take a moment to establish what those laws are.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) spoke about section 193 of the 1992 Act, which provides for a statutory obligation to inform the Secretary of State 45 days before any proposed redundancies could take place. That law has been broken. Section 188 provides for a duty to consult 90 days before any dismissal takes place; that law has also been broken. Section 86 of the Employment Rights Act, on the duty to give notice, and section 98, on unfair dismissal? Those laws too have been broken. The question for the House is why DP World thought it could do that, and the issue, I think, is enforcement.
It is true that failure to notify the Secretary of State is a criminal offence, but I can think of no example in my lifetime in which any criminal proceedings have been brought against any employer anywhere in the United Kingdom since the passing of the 1992 Act. The fact is that a breach of this nature is so rare that parliamentarians have probably not had to worry about it, but none the less we have not insisted on it, and I was glad to hear the Secretary of State say that he would consider enforcing section 194 in this exceptional circumstance.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
Section 194 relates to a summary offence, punishable by a level 5 fine, but the Secretary of State referred to another section which gave rise to an unlimited fine. Does my hon. Friend agree that in such an extreme circumstance as this, the egregious nature of the sackings and the number of people involved would constitute gross aggravating factors in consideration about the size of an “unlimited” fine?
Laura Farris
I think that that is correct, and I think that that was what the Secretary of State was alluding to. It is also the case that DP World has obviously concluded that it would prefer to make a severance payment that takes into account the 90-day consultation period, the notice period and the redundancy period, because that is less hassle for them than going into a consultation for 90 days with the RMT and facing strike action.
I will come to my solution in a moment, but I want first to briefly address what Labour Members have said about banning fire and rehire. The hon. Members for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) and for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) said that the commendable private Member’s Bill presented by the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) would have done that. Let me, with great respect, refresh the House’s memory. The hon. Gentleman said at the time:
“I have no intention in this Bill of banning, and there is nothing in this Bill that would ultimately ban, fire and rehire. There is an important reason for that and I will come on to it in my speech.”—[Official Report, 22 October 2021; Vol. 701, c. 1051.]
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
The hon. Lady is absolutely correct: nothing in my Bill would ultimately have stopped fire and rehire, and that was with the full cognisance of the 22 unions that supported it. As she knows, however, there were measures in the Bill that would have prevented the current situation.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Let me say this before the hon. Lady responds to the intervention: I recognise that important points are being made, but if there are interventions it would be helpful, to ensure that we can get everyone in, for Members to try to stick to the original time limit.
Laura Farris
I thank the hon. Member for Brent North for his intervention. As he will know, the reason we do not want to legislate to ban fire and rehire is that we would end up with more dismissals from the decent employer who is under extreme financial stress. As the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) said during that debate, fire and rehire must be “an absolute last resort”, and Conservative Members have always agreed with that proposition.
We feared that the Bill risked more job losses, not fewer, and that is the prevailing view at the employment law Bar. Yesterday I spoke to John Bowers QC, one of the great trade union lawyers of his generation, and his view was that the hon. Member for Brent North was jeopardising jobs with his Bill. If I am incorrect in that regard, I ask the Opposition Front Bencher who winds up the debate to address the question of why, as a matter of law, he is wrong, but it is true to say that the idea that any provision that sets conditions so onerous—as the proposed new section 187B did—that any failure to consult or to disclose everything, no matter how sensitive, could lead to unlimited damages would not lead an employer to dismiss rather than to renegotiate employment terms is fanciful. The Bill would risk more job losses, and we know from the bitter lesson of P&O that if employers can take short cuts, and if they can take the easy option, they will. The Bill would risk more P&Os, not fewer.
I have said previously that the answer to this lies in the ACAS code of practice. Parliament intended it to do so, through sections 203, 207 and 207A of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act, which conferred on the Secretary of State a power to pass codes of practice backed up by financial penalties. I have said repeatedly in the House—and I respectfully ask the Minister not to make me do it again—that that is the correct mechanism. It turns the screw on the unscrupulous employer in a way that nothing suggested by the Opposition does. It is also consistent with the prevailing view in the excellent ACAS consultation that took place last summer, when a number of points were made by practitioners, including the question of how it could be demonstrated that fire and rehire was a genuine last resort. Consultation is one aspect of that, but employers should also be required to demonstrate that they had considered other options.
What I think is imperative is a new form of injunctive relief, which is not available to the claimants in this case, and which would allow the High Court to mandate employers to impose a 90-day consultation period. I think that that would address some of the problems, but, again, it could go into an ACAS code of practice. We do not need new laws; we need to turn the screw on exploitative employers by hitting them with penalties that will stop them doing this in the first place. We can talk in the language of emotion and recrimination—
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
The first thing I want to do is express my solidarity with the 800 seafarers and their families, and pay tribute to the RMT and Nautilus for the swift support that they gave their members, along with the whole of the TUC.
I am pleased that Ministers and Tory Members have said how disgraceful P&O’s behaviour has been, but they have said how unacceptable such practices are on previous occasions. It appears today, from both their words and their body language, that they are embarrassed. Maybe somebody has been saying “Shame on you”. It is almost as if it is more about justifying this disgusting treatment of summarily firing the workforce and justifying why they did not outlaw it five months ago when they had that opportunity.
Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Lab)
I was a supporter of my hon. Friend’s Bill when he brought it forward, despite being on the Conservative Benches at the time, and I even shared a platform with him at the party conference. We heard from the Secretary of State earlier that ACAS would be bringing forward further guidance, but guidance would not have helped the people from P&O. Does my hon. Friend agree that guidance is not the solution and that we need legislation to prevent this from happening again?
Barry Gardiner
I do agree with my hon. Friend. It is clear that nothing currently in the law could have stopped this incident from happening and that, whatever the outcome, 800 families are suffering as a consequence. Had it been clear in statute and had the company known that it could not take advantage in such a way, it would not have done so. It is the Government’s lassitude on this matter that has led to where we are now.
I do not want to engage in recriminations about who said what. Let us try to be positive and think of a way in which we could develop a law in this country that could solve these problems. The first thing, to which the Minister alluded earlier, is the importance of negotiation and the fact that the negotiations that ultimately took place in previous disputes were positive. Let us get it round the right way, so that we have consultation at the beginning of the process and a statutory obligation on the employer to consult, to negotiate and to be transparent. Incidentally, that happens to be in clause 1 of my Bill.
The hon. Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) referred to proposed new section 187B, but she knows very well that this was not about a duty of disclosure on employers that was completely open-ended. No, it was a very specific one. It involved information that would be in accordance with good industrial relations practice that the employer should disclose for the purposes of the consultation and
“without which the appropriate representatives would be to a material extent impeded in carrying on consultation with the employer”.
It was a measured, sensible approach, and if the Government had any concerns about it, they could have been ironed out in Committee, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) said. But the Government were not prepared to do that.
There was also the facility in my Bill to make complaints about the failure to follow good practice. The Bill was all about instantiating good practice and penalising bad practice. That would have meant that where an employer had not followed the rules properly, not obeyed the statute, not consulted or engaged openly with their workforce or not negotiated transparently, a complaint could have been made to the central arbitration committee and ultimately an injunction could have been made to restore the jobs of the people who were fired. That is not about rehire; it is all about fire. The Minister for lassitude whispered in the ear of his colleague the other day that this issue was not about fire and rehire, but those measures would have protected the workers in this situation and the Government now need to act. They should take this opportunity. They have had a rap over the knuckles and they have been embarrassed. Now they must legislate.
Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)
The links between seafaring communities are strong but the links between those communities that run ferry operations, such as those at Holyhead in my constituency, are stronger still. The maritime Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts), visited the port of Holyhead recently and saw at first hand how important the seafaring community is to my constituency. Over recent decades ferry operators have merged and de-merged. Ships have passed hands or been sent to other routes to cover refits and repairs. Workers often move fluidly between different ports and routes, based on fluctuating demand. Back in 1996, P&O merged with Stena Line. Stena still owns the port of Holyhead and continues to run ferries from Holyhead to Ireland.
I say all this to outline the fact that the bonds between my constituents and the employees of P&O are incredibly strong, and also that P&O’s recent actions have struck fear into our local ferry workers. I have spent time on the phone with constituents who work for Stena, including David Gwatkin, a steward on board the Stena Adventurer and a union representative. They were all seeking reassurance that such things could not happen to them and their colleagues, but more importantly they wanted to share their deep anger at people losing their jobs in such an unfair and devastating way. I know that that concern is felt in other ports and industries right across the UK. I also spoke to Ian Hampton, the executive director of Stena Line, who was also in shock. He spoke about the importance of Stena’s company values and good industrial relations, highlighting how it is a partnership working together to provide the best affordable terms and conditions for their people on their vessels.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said over the weekend:
“It cannot be right that the company feels tied closely enough to the UK to receive significant amounts of taxpayer money but does not appear willing to abide by the rules that we have put in place to protect British workers.”
P&O and DP World may claim commercial reasons for taking this action, but it is enshrined in UK law that no operating business should be able summarily to dismiss hundreds of employees at a stroke without notice or consultation. This Government have a strong record of introducing and supporting fair and realistic employment rights. They introduced the national living wage, and they protected millions of jobs with swift and decisive action through the pandemic. It was also this Government who introduced equal parental leave. One need only look at the progress made in this Parliament towards protecting vulnerable and disadvantaged workers to see that it is this Government who are committed to supporting workers’ rights and putting legislation in place to prevent just this kind of worker abuse from happening.
I want to reassure P&O’s staff and others working in the sector, including my own constituents, that the UK Government are taking this matter very seriously. As the Secretary of State made clear at the start of this debate, there is absolutely no excuse for the way in which these workers lost their jobs. The strength of feeling in this Chamber today is palpable, and my colleagues and I will be pressing for swift answers to our questions and ensuring that those affected by P&O’s actions are given the support they need at this difficult time.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
I hope that the whole House can agree on this motion tonight. No matter where we are on the political spectrum, no one can defend what we saw happening last Thursday morning. Rather than being a picture of what should happen in the 21st century, it was like something out of a Charles Dickens novel. My constituents came into Larne harbour expecting a turnaround of their ship and then to head off again to Cairnryan. They found that too many buses had arrived, one with a replacement crew and one with a crew to put them off the ship. That is by no stretch of the imagination the way in which workers should be treated in the 21st century. The company has simply ignored all the requirements of law—consultation with workers, replacing workers they say they are making redundant, giving redundancy payments—while it has been planning for weeks and recruiting around the world for replacements. No one can describe that as abiding by the law.
Then the company brought in workers who will be operating at a fraction of the salary of the previous workers. The odd thing about that is that the company says that it was losing £100 million a year and had to deal with that, but it will not overcome that deficit by sacking 800 workers. Those workers were not getting paid £125,000 a year. One has to ask what else this company has in its plan for doing away with its deficit and at the same time supplying a vital service.
It is not only its workers that the company has treated with contempt; it has treated its customers with contempt, too. Those companies that relied on P&O were told, as the lorries were heading towards Larne harbour, “You’d better go elsewhere.” There was no notice given, because they had, of course, operated in secrecy. Larne harbour is owned by P&O and is a strategic point of entry into Northern Ireland. P&O is the only operator from that harbour and it carries 60% of the trade for Northern Ireland, and yet it was closed down summarily. It treated those people who rely on that strategic asset with contempt.
I accept what the Minister has said today and appreciate the work he has done to get extra capacity for Belfast through Stena. Over the past number of days, however, queuing at Cairnryan every day, Asda has had six lorries of fresh food, which cannot be held up, and 14 lorries of food that could stay for a while, although requirements do need to be fulfilled. All that has been held up.
I want three things from this debate. First, pressure must be put on P&O and DP World to ensure that they do not do this again. Secondly, we have to ensure that those workers who have lost their jobs are reinstated. Thirdly, action must be taken to address the issues and weaknesses that we now know about in the law, to punish this company and also to send a message.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
I wanted to take part in this debate because I wanted there to be a united front in condemnation of P&O’s tactics in firing 800 seafarers without notice via Zoom last Thursday. I watched that Zoom video, which was extraordinary and amateur. It thanked staff for their service while sacking them with immediate effect and without notice.
The motion condemns the decision of P&O to fire 800 staff without notice and demands their reinstatement. Despite the anger among Opposition Members, I think that this is a case of us furiously agreeing with each other, because we have shared overriding objectives. We must try to get those seafarers reinstated, and it is only if we cannot achieve that first objective that we should move on to secondary objectives, including making sure that this tactic is not seen to work either for DP World/P&O or as an example for other employers. It is really important that we set a standard and make a stand. It is quite right that through this debate—I congratulate the Opposition on calling it—we maximise public pressure on DP World to reconsider.
The Maritime and Coastguard Agency also needs to make absolutely sure that the re-manned vessels comply with all safety regulations. That means physical inspections and crew-related training and safety drills. No benefit of the doubt or leeway should be given to this business. I am not suggesting adopting discriminatory behaviour towards the company. However, if a company has lost the trust of the Government and of the public, it should be up to it to prove compliance.
I welcome the announcement that the Insolvency Service is being asked to look into the potential for a criminal prosecution and an unlimited fine. I have already mentioned that in an earlier intervention. It is also right that the Government immediately instructed officials to review all Government contracts. I understand that the Government must comply with any legal relationships that they have already entered into, but thereafter there should be no further positive relationship with a company that has forfeited its good name. The company I have in mind is DP World, not just P&O Ferries. P&O took the decision to follow the money. We need to challenge and change that calculation, to make sure that the sums for this act no longer add up.
We have to recognise that the business losses of P&O Ferries have been substantial and over a prolonged period. It is losing more than £100 million a year on an annual turnover of not much more than £600 million. That is unsustainable in the long run, even with a profitable parent company. The answer may be that a restructure is the only way to prevent the loss of the entire business, leading to many more—an additional 2,000—job losses. My complaint is not necessarily about the business decision to restructure, but about the manner and approach of P&O Ferries. There is no immediate and catastrophic change in circumstances—it has been like this for the past couple of years. There is and there has been time for notice and for consultation. There has been and there is time to work with staff to at least try to agree a route back to sustainable profitability, yet it has not even been attempted. No reason has been given for failing to treat employees seemingly within the realms of the law. This is a case of terrible business mismanagement, flouting the law in a calculation that money will be saved. We have to make sure that that calculation is wrong.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
This has been a rather strange debate so far. I am a bit discombobulated by a number of things. I want to place on the record my sincere gratitude to the RMT and Nautilus International for their fantastic work in such a short space of time on this unbelievably poor situation.
The Secretary of State stood there and said that this is not about politics. Of course it is about politics. Everything in this place is about politics, hence the name “politicians”—it’s a giveaway. The fact that 800 hard-working people got their notice in the way they did last week is an absolute outrage, an embarrassment, a disgrace—call it what you want.
The hon. Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) should not really get mixed up with people who are angry at losing their jobs, and she should not suggest that somebody who has lost their job is a hard-left militant. If I lost my job, I would be desperately disappointed. If I lost my job in the fashion that these individuals did, I would be more than angry—I would be incandescent with rage. She should not get mixed up with people who got up in the morning, kissed their partner and then, when they got to work, were told that an announcement was going to be made that day. These are ordinary people. These are 800 hard-working individuals with families, mortgages, cars and all the rest of it, who carried this country through the pandemic. To criticise them for being hard-left militants because they are angry about losing their job is distasteful, to say the least. [Interruption.]
Ian Lavery
The reality is that these people were absolutely right to say what they did at that moment in time. They got to the workplace and were told that there was going to be a Zoom call. And then the chief executive of P&O Ferries was saying how hard up the company is and that that was why they were getting their notice that day, even though they did not realise that they were going to get their notice. The right hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) said that the chief executive was embarrassed that he had to do that and that this is not really about him but about DP World. Come off it! Let’s be honest. This was a commercial decision and DP World and P&O Ferries are awash with finance. DP World paid out £270 million in dividends last year. It even sponsored a golf competition for £147 million. What on earth? What sort of golf competition is that? At the same time, there is a £145 million black hole in its pensions. It would rather support and sponsor golf competitions than pay money into the pension schemes of hard-working people.
We have to get this right. The Government pride themselves on being a patriotic party. There is nothing more patriotic than looking after the people of this country in the way they should be looked after.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
I think the House is united this afternoon about the egregious manner in which these sackings took place by pre-recorded video. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke), who went down to speak to these people. She has explained carefully that these were not just local workers; some people had been bussed in as well. However, that is an argument for another day. A number of my constituents were working at P&O. I know that for a fact because when I have been on a P&O ferry and enjoyed a café breakfast, they have come up to me and said, “Oh, you’re my MP.” That will not happen again, not because my constituents are not working there, but because I will never use P&O Ferries again.
Let me pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts), because I watched the ministerial statement he made last week and I could feel his anger. He laid out clearly what the Government are thinking about this. They will be looking at the contracts they have with P&O and DP World, and the Insolvency Service has been appointed to look at the manner in which these people were dispensed with. I am pleased that the Government are ensuring that all those bound up in this will get the support of the Department for Work and Pensions and others—that is scant thanks, but they will be available to help them. I am sure that the unions, which I will be supporting, would be looking at breaches of any contract law. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) said, we know that this is a complex area; it is about maritime law, with international contracts, which puts it in a very different place from what we might usually see.
I do not have the benefit of full, detailed knowledge about the profit and loss and finances of P&O Ferries. Undoubtedly, there have been substantial losses during the covid period, but P&O Ferries has received significant amounts of furlough money from the public purse. As the House will know, I am a chartered accountant, and I find it hard to believe that after the redundancy costs are taken into account over a period this could possibly be the salvation of a company in trouble. I am sure that fuel costs have quite a lot to feed into this as well. I would have hoped that the company would look for stability of revenues post-covid and perhaps some stability in the fuel price market and then made proper, duly considered restructuring decisions if and when they were needed. I agree fully with the rehire proposals that are coming out of this House, but I wonder: what on earth were the board of P&O and DP World thinking of? Did they not realise the reputational damage that this measure would do? My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) laid it out clearly: did they not think about the freeport proposals and DP World’s involvement with them?
I have advertised widely on the usual channels that I will never use P&O Ferries again and I recommend that we all do the same. Do you know what I would like to see as an outcome to this? I would like to see P&O Ferries going down the toilet and a new carrier coming out of the woodwork that is prepared to deal with local people properly and hire in the appropriate way.
There is much in the motion I agree with. The first line says that this House “condemns” this, and of course we do. The motion rightly notes that DP World received a lot of Government money and that the Government should look at suspending DP World from Government contracts—I agree with all that. I do not agree with the call to outlaw fire and rehire, much in the vein that the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) put forward, as I do not think this is the time to jump on other employment legislation; this is the time to try to put this right and to show up P&O as a disgraceful company. I think we can unite on that this afternoon.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
P&O’s mass sackings are clearly a matter of putting profits before people, and the fact that they were done by Zoom just confirms the employer’s callous stance. It is scandalous that this should be happening at a time of a cost of living crisis. It is an attack on the viability of the UK maritime sector as a whole. In Wales, thousands of people are directly employed in the sector, on ferries in Holyhead, Fishguard, Pembroke Dock and Swansea. The additional indirect employment and benefits reach far out into our economy. The estimate is that for every £1 of domestic output initially generated by the maritime sector in Wales, the Welsh and UK economies get a gross value added gain of £2.70. That is the scale of loss we are facing. This attack on the rights and jobs of seafarers will do great harm to the maritime sector as a whole and to the wider economy.
As we have heard, P&O does not operate ferries from Holyhead, although it has a long history with the port; Stena Line is the major employer and it is a significant employer for north Wales. It, however, has been under pressure with the post-Brexit trading arrangements. A significant proportion of the former UK land-bridge freight now moves directly from the Republic of Ireland to France and north-west Europe, with traffic through Welsh ports permanently down by 30% since 2019. That is the situation we are facing. Any actions the Government do or do not take now will set a precedent for others, and I fear we might be facing a race to the bottom across the industry.
The Government must therefore pursue all legal options available, including criminal proceedings, in response to P&O’s failure to follow its statutory obligations. They should also review all P&O Ferries’ licences to operate vessels in British waters, review any contracts they currently have with P&O Ferries and leverage future Government support to restore the jobs lost—we need to see these seafarers get their jobs back. I include in that contracts with the parent company, DP World. Importantly, as has been mentioned, that includes plans for DP World to run freeports in the UK, which the Chancellor had previously said he was “delighted” about. If the Government do not end their contracts with DP World, they are actively signalling a green light to those low standards for the maritime industry in the UK and the bad effects that we have heard about and I have outlined.
Finally, and importantly, the Government must outlaw fire and rehire. My party’s view is that in the long term the best way to safeguard workers’ rights in Wales is to devolve employment law, so that we can create a strong and fair settlement for workers that protects their livelihoods from opportunistic bad employers by providing decent working practices, pay, terms and conditions.
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
When the chief executive officer of P&O rang me last Thursday at about midday, he told me that this was not a choice about some 800 jobs; it was a choice about 800 jobs or 3,000 jobs. Many companies, in the air, on the roads and at sea, have had to make redundancies as a result of both covid and rising fuel prices, but I know of none that have done it with the brutality, sheer indignity and crass stupidity with which P&O has handled this on behalf of head office in Dubai. About three months ago, P&O was running an advert for staff recruitment, saying:
“It’s not just a job. It’s family”.
In east Kent, those of us who use P&O regularly and those of us whose constituents work for P&O regard them as family and friends. They are good, honest, decent, hard-working men and women. They are skilled and dedicated, and we cannot afford to lose them. So my message is simply this to Dubai: reinstate those 800 men and women now. Then, if you need to, get around the table and talk about what restructuring may need to be done and do it properly. If you don’t do that, I fear that the ship will be renamed—it won’t be the Pride of Kent, but the Shame of Dubai.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
This debate comes at a time when 800 workers have lost their jobs in the most disgusting and disgraceful of circumstances. I join others in paying huge tribute to the RMT and Nautilus, not just for immediately defending their members, but for providing brilliant information and support to help us ensure that this debate is fully informed.
As Members have said, one coach turned up at the portside to replace the crew with low-paid staff. They are not the enemy; they are migrant workers who are being grossly exploited. The enemy is P&O, which sent them there in the first place. Then, as the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) said, another coach turned up full of people trained in the use of tasers and handcuffs to remove current staff, some of whom had worked for the company for 30 years or more. Just think about that. This is modern Britain, and people turned up wearing balaclavas, with tasers and handcuffs, to get workers off a ship because they might not want to leave. The workers were then told that if they did not accept the money and sign an order that would forever seal their lips on the subject, they would get no money at all. This is modern Britain at its absolute worst.
The situation also calls into question a lot of legislation. Over the years, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and I went many times to the Department for Transport demanding that the national minimum wage apply to international seafarers operating in and out of British ports as well as, obviously, to those working routes within the UK’s territorial waters. That never happened, I guess because of pressure from ship-owning companies on successive Governments. It is absolutely disgraceful. Other legislation is weak on trade union protection and weak on employment protection—weaker than most countries in Europe and many other countries in the world—and that must change.
The Minister comes here with his crocodile tears of concern, yet he refused even to support the principles behind the excellent Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) on fire and rehire. If we are serious about protecting employment rights, we need legislation that protects those rights and does not allow companies to behave like this and get away with it. I suspect the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) may be right that the company gamed the process through on a legal basis to see whether it could get away with it. Well, if it does, the Government have options.
The options put forward in the RMT document are as follows. First, the Government could tell the company to reverse the decision. Secondly, they could remove all Government contracts of any sort from P&O with immediate effect. Thirdly, we can all boycott P&O. Nobody needs to go on P&O. Fourthly, we could pass the necessary legislation.
If at the end of that process the 800 have still lost their jobs and P&O thinks it can still get away with this kind of behaviour, the Government have not just an opportunity, but a duty. Shipping is a major strategic industry. We are an island. We need shipping. Those ships have to sail, so it is the Government’s responsibility to ensure that they do. If all else fails, the option of taking the industry, or that section of it, into public ownership should be used as a direct threat to that company given its behaviour and its financial and investment strategy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) pointed out, the company has money for golf and Formula 1, but the pension fund has a huge hole and £200 million was paid out in dividends last year.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
P&O has a long association with the Northern Isles, where for many years it provided the lifeline services between Scotland and Orkney and Shetland. It was originally founded almost two centuries ago by a Shetlander, Arthur Anderson. However, we looked on with horror at what that company did last week, and we simply do not recognise it as the company we have known. The Secretary of State talked about renaming ships, but I do not think he quite carried the House with him when he identified that as a priority. If any names are to be changed, I suggest it should be that of P&O Ferries itself. It can be rebranded as DP World (UK Branch), or something of that sort, because continuing to trade as P&O damages the other P&O companies and dishonours the memory of Arthur Anderson and the thousands of good, hard-working seafarers who have served my communities so well for decades.
Of course, we all know that this day has been a long time coming. As a country, and successive Governments within it, we have tolerated practices at sea that we would regard as simply unthinkable on dry land. I remember lobbying in 2016 for the enforcement of the national minimum wage for crews on the freight boats operating between Aberdeen and Lerwick, who were then being paid £3.66 an hour. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs said that it was okay, because that route was deemed to be wholly outwith UK territorial waters. That is the importance we have given to the maritime industry until now.
What really matters is that what we allow P&O to do today, others will want to do tomorrow. If anybody doubts that, they may wish to revisit the comments of Peter Aylott, spokesperson for the UK Chamber of Shipping, on the “Today” programme on Friday morning. He could not comment on anything that had been done, but he was somehow happy at the end of the interview to say that he was “content and very confident” that P&O had acted properly. If I were a company paying a subscription to the UK Chamber of Shipping and I saw P&O trashing my industry’s reputation, I would want something rather better than that from the trade body. However, it is an indication that others in the industry will look to what happens to P&O and will follow. Indeed, they will argue that they are compelled to follow if P&O gets off. We must also look carefully at what may happen to the future employment of the 800 workers, because the industry has previously been guilty of blacklisting.
The shipping industry has never been slow to come to the Government with demands. I have advocated for it in the past in relation to the tonnage tax and getting more UK officers on to our ships. This, however, is a moment for the Government to turn the tables and to take a clear message back from this House to the industry as a whole: it is time for it to get its house in order, because we are no longer prepared to tolerate behaviour of this sort. Change has to come, and the industry must lead it.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
I only want to take a few moments to express my solidarity with the workers given the disgraceful way in which they have been treated, and we can all agree with much of what has been said about that across the House. There has been a great temptation to transfer guilt this evening. Some want to blame the Government and others want to blame the unions, but that allows P&O to get away in the dark. We cannot allow that to happen. Let us keep the focus on this company and keep the punishment where it needs to be. Otherwise, P&O will get away with it, and the workers will lose even more.
I have several questions for the Government. Are they going to challenge the decision legally? If so, how? What do they have to say about the issues affecting various ports across the United Kingdom? My right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) spoke of P&O’s monopoly over Larne, which he represents. Indeed, it has a strategic impact on goods coming in and out of Ulster, so I wait patiently to hear what the Government have to say about that. What will happen to freeports? Will P&O get control? It has put in bids for several ports, but will it then control these strategic lines in and out of our island nation? How will the Government respond?
Finally, I thank the employers in my constituency, in East Antrim and in other parts of her country who have indicated that if workers are in need of immediate employment, they will step up to the mark and offer it, especially those in the hospitality sector and other sectors where there are vacancies. In the teeth of being made redundant in such an awful and brutal way, that will show the workers that there is solidarity across the community, that people are appalled by what P&O has done and the manner in which it was done, and that they want to help.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
The actions of P&O Ferries are among the most appalling abuses of British workers that I have seen in my adult life, but they did not happen in a vacuum. We did not get here by accident. I listened to the Secretary of State with care; I heard his outrage about P&O’s methods last week, but not his condemnation of the context in which this happened. A toxic combination of factors applicable in the UK but not in other jurisdictions where P&O workers live, such as France and the Netherlands, of weak employment rights, weak enforcement, a loophole in the minimum wage legislation and insignificant penalties for breaking law—have all contributed to this nationally embarrassing scandal.
In this House in June 2020, I told Ministers they needed to ensure that employers such as British Airways could not get away with their fire and rehire tactics. The Government did not listen to the warnings about where this would lead voiced by Opposition MPs and even a few in their own party, nor to workers at British Airways and the trade unions. We are in this situation today because this Government failed to act to protect workers in and of this country.
P&O’s skilled and experienced staff are being replaced by workers paid £1.80 an hour. That is morally unacceptable, but this is not just a moral issue, nor is it merely about employment law. It is about safety risk. Lloyd’s of London—hardly the most radical organisation in this country—has raised concerns, saying that the change of crew represents an underwriting risk that needs to be “swiftly assessed”, including an assessment of whether the ships can be considered seaworthy with a crew of unknown provenance who are unfamiliar with them.
I am old enough to remember the 1987 sinking of a ferry in Zeebrugge with the loss of 193 people, and the subsequent inquiry, which found that weak corporate culture was a factor. Ironically, that ship was named the Spirit of Free Enterprise. Now, in 2022, P&O’s tactics call to mind what a Conservative Prime Minister described as the “unpleasant face of capitalism”.
Ruth Cadbury
I think I would get in trouble if I did.
For too long, there has been a dirty bargain between UK Ministers and cowboy employers, such that employers know they can get away with it. They know what happens: Ministers appear at the Dispatch Box, all bluster and outrage, but what happens next? Absolutely nothing. In 2020, we saw thousands of British Airways employees being fired and rehired. Over 400 of my constituents were cast aside, and even now about 1,000 BA staff have significantly weaker terms and conditions. What is worse is that the Government were giving these companies billions of pounds of taxpayers’ support—a blank cheque—while they abused their workforces.
Ministers cannot just stand at the Dispatch Box and offer crocodile tears and words of wind. If they really care, they can use the might of their offices to stand up for workers. Specifically, they can outlaw fire and rehire, they can suspend contracts with DP World, and they can remove it from the UK Government’s transport advice workforce.
We told the Government in 2020 that they needed to act to send a clear message to bad employers. They did not listen. The Secretary of State’s key ask of P&O is to change the names of the ships. If the Government do not act today, the dial shifts. What is seen as outrageous behaviour this week could become the norm, in which the message is that all employers can treat their workforce how they like.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
I commend the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) for her outstanding speech to open the debate, as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) for his long campaign for legislation to be introduced banning fire and rehire.
The actions of P&O are morally reprehensible and may well turn out to be unlawful, even criminal. I hope those processes are carried out as quickly as possible, but even if the entire board of directors goes to jail, even if they are fined so much that the company goes into liquidation, it will not put a single plate of food on the table in front of the children of any one of the 800 people who have been treated so despicably. They are the ones who matter now. The workers have to be reinstated immediately, but even if they are, P&O and the parent companies in Dubai must be held to account. It must be made clear to them that this Government, the Scottish Government and all the Governments of Europe will not have any truck with a company that treats people so appallingly.
It was mentioned earlier that despite claiming to be losing money, P&O managed to pay dividends of £270 million. Even at £50,000 a person, those 800 employees could have been kept on for six years; it is equivalent to £337,500 per person. Instead of going to the employees though, that money went to the owners. A big chunk of it went to one of the richest and most powerful men in the United Arab Emirates, and therefore in the world—a man who was found in a UK court of law to have probably kidnapped, abducted and imprisoned his own daughters, one of whom accused him in court of torturing her to punish her for running away. Who thought it was a good idea for that person to be allowed to own a controlling interest in a company that is responsible for the livelihood of thousands of British workers, and to allow that individual to have a stranglehold on trade between Britain and Northern Ireland? Who thought it was acceptable for that sort of person to be involved at all in running businesses in these islands? Well, some people obviously did. That’s the free market for you.
We have to ask ourselves what the Government’s response would be to seeing all the ships tied up suddenly, with no notice, people’s plans being cancelled and lorries stuck on the quayside because of trade union industrial action. We would not be here today debating an Opposition motion condemning P&O. We would probably be here debating emergency Government anti-trade union legislation. If this chaos had been caused by the trade unions, the Government would have moved a lot more swiftly and a lot more fiercely against them than they are prepared to do against wealthy Arab oil sheiks. I wonder why that is.
Earlier, a Conservative Member, who is no longer in his seat, wondered why P&O thought it could get away with this action. I wonder. What could it be about six years of rhetoric about the sunlit uplands of a post-Brexit, deregulated, free-for-all Britain that made a big company think it might get away with it? After six years of being told, “We need to get rid of all the red tape that holds back businesses,” and a former Prime Minister actually saying that workers’ rights were one of the things that needed to be looked at post Brexit, I wonder what made P&O think that Britain was a good place to start trampling on the rights of its workers.
The Secretary of State, who, to his credit, turned up for the debate—a lot of his Cabinet colleagues would have run away and hidden—wants to rename the ships. May I suggest that, as a tribute to the legacy his Government are following—the trampling underfoot of centuries of hard-won rights for employees and trade unions—at least one of those ships should be renamed the MV Margaret Thatcher?
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
Last week, we saw one of the most shameful and debased episodes in our industrial history: 800 workers sacked, not because their employer was on the verge of collapse, but because they could be replaced by cheaper labour, and security personnel boarding ships in balaclavas, with handcuffs and Tasers, to remove crew who had given their lives to the company. It is the stuff of a dystopian Hollywood blockbuster, not the actions of a business in our own supposedly civilised economy.
It is important to stress that this is a business that received huge bail-outs from the British Government. Even though the company stated that it had lost over £100 million a year since the start of the pandemic, P&O Ferries actually made declared profits of nearly £63 million in 2020, and DP World, which owns P&O, made a profit before tax last year of over $1.3 billion. What about the poor workers on lower wages whom P&O now proposes to exploit? In some cases, they will be paid below the national minimum wage for much longer periods working at sea.
This whole scandal is not only illegal, but a serious warning to workers everywhere of the consequences of DP World’s strategy of international investment in shipping and logistics, including the Government’s freeports policy, which will allow even more companies to operate in this immoral and scandalous manner.
I truly hope that the Government share the outrage felt by so many Members on all Benches of this House, but I have to say that I am concerned by what I have heard today. The Government knew that this was going to happen, and they did nothing. The Secretary of State now knows what has happened and he can take robust legal action. He also needs to demand that P&O reverses its decision and holds negotiations with trade unions so that the 800 jobs and key supply chain services are reinstated. If that does not happen, the Government should take over P&O vessels as an operator of last resort and remove any Government support for P&O’s owners, DP World, including future contracts, and directly support the retention of P&O jobs instead.
Beyond that, the Government must now introduce legislation to ensure that this can never happen to any other UK workers again, and introduce new laws to protect the long-term future of workers in the maritime industry. There has been a lot of discussion today about the way in which this whole process was managed by P&O, but the fundamental point is that it was engaged in trying to do this in the first place—a profitable company trying to drive down wages and conditions for its workforce because it wants to make even more profit. We cannot stand for that as a democracy. It is up to the Government now: if they have any shred of moral decency, they will act today.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
Let me declare an interest: by visibly wearing my RMT tie and badge, I can say that I am indeed a member of the RMT parliamentary group. I wish to acknowledge the fact that RMT and Nautilus members were lobbying Parliament today, and I was honoured to meet them, to listen to their concerns and to try to relay those concerns in the Chamber today.
Thursday 17 March 2022 was St Patrick’s Day and also a day that will live in infamy for people involved in the maritime sector. Those appalling scenes that we have seen repeated—those video sackings—are really diabolical. I will not go into too much detail because of the shortage of time. The Minister said that he did not see the note, but it seems to be all over the BBC website that people are making fun of that. Whether or not that is the case, the horse has bolted. What we are looking for from the Treasury Bench is some action. The British taxpayer stood behind P&O during the pandemic. Indeed, having the honour of serving on the Transport Committee, I can say that we saw evidence and received reports that up to £15 million was paid to P&O Ferries both through furlough and through the freight subsidy scheme. That was in the same year that huge profits were recorded by this particular group—some Members have quoted £270 million in dividends.
The Opposition motion is quite reasonable. We are calling on the seafarers who have been affected—the 800 men and women seafarers and officers—to be reinstated and for workers’ rights to be strengthened. If Ministers do not act with some haste and alacrity, the great danger is that other unscrupulous employers are likely to be emboldened—I do not just mean in the shipping and maritime sector. A number of hon. Members on both sides of the House have raised those concerns with the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts) and Finance Ministers about what more can be done to support the industry.
This case is not unique. Eight hundred staff have been made redundant, so the Government have a decision to make about whose side they are on, and whether they will speak out in public. If the Minister fails to stand up for British workers today a dark cloud will linger over every employee in the maritime sector and in other sectors across the country. After the comments of the Transport Secretary today, those workers will possibly be thinking that they have no rights, or few rights, to security at work.
The Government have a choice: are they on the side of rogue employers, bandit capitalists, or do they stand up for British workers? People are becoming tired of platitudes from Ministers. I want to conclude with some words from the former RMT general secretary, Bob Crowe, who said:
“If you fight you won’t always win. But if you don’t fight you will always lose”.
So, today, is a day to fight. Will the Minister fight for what is right and stand up for those 800 seafarers who were employed by P&O?
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
Before I make my main points, may I just say that I have heard reference to the tonnage tax a couple of times in this debate? Some of us have been dealing with the tonnage tax issue for more than 20 years, and, time and again, we have raised it with successive governments. The fact is that, although tonnage tax has now paid out something like £2.4 billion to shipping companies to enable them to promote and preserve British seafaring jobs, there has actually been a significant loss of seafaring jobs. I resent the fact that P&O has had tonnage tax money and has just brutally and grotesquely sacked 800 workers, as everyone has seen.
I was in Dover on Friday at a demonstration organised by RMT and Nautilus. Of course people were angry about losing their jobs, and of course some RMT members expressed their anger—I thought relatively politely—when MPs who had voted against the legislation to bring about hire and fire protections turned up. Nevertheless, there were two things that came out of the discussions that I had with RMT and Nautilus members. What they wanted from this debate was, first, the reinstatement of the jobs, and, secondly, legislation to prevent this from ever happening again.
I hope for some form of consensus today. Nothing that I have heard from the Secretary of State gives me any reassurance either that the jobs will be reinstated, or that there will be legislation brought forward to prevent this from happening to other workers. I listened in detail to the various actions that the Secretary of State said that the Government were taking. None of them gave me confidence that there was a sense of urgency about reinstating those jobs. I worry that the anger that we have heard expressed today will deflate and that those workers will be forgotten about over the coming weeks and months, and that, I believe, would be a tragedy.
Karl Turner
My right hon. Friend and I have campaigned as part of the RMT parliamentary group for many years on the fact that the national minimum wage does not apply on international routes. The Government changed that in June 2020 to apply to UK routes. Will he say something about that?
John McDonnell
I will come onto that. That was my second point. My first point is that we need to inject a sense of urgency into this debate. I have listened to what the Government have said, and the Government have listened to what the Opposition have said and to what their own Members have said. I would welcome the opportunity for the Government to meet us on a cross-party basis and that should include the Select Committee Chair, because in the next week—no later than that—I would like to see a report on the legislative changes that need to be brought together to enable this practice to be outlawed completely. We have legislated in emergency situations before.
The second point is that we are not dealing with a normal company. This is a state company; it is effectively owned by the Dubai state and we have a responsibility in international relations to point out to it that we will not tolerate this behaviour. We also have an international responsibility to work with others across Europe and elsewhere to make sure that it is not just our Government making this point, but other Governments working with us who want to uphold basic labour standards. This gives us the opportunity to bring forward an international initiative for which some of us have been arguing for some time.
The third point is that no one should underestimate the historic moment that we are at in terms of industrial relations in this country. No one should underestimate the anger in the wider trade union movement. Working people have woken up to what is happening. The point has been made in this House time and again, that if it can happen to these workers, no one is safe. If we are not seen to be acting responsibly, both as a Government and in this House overall, people will think that parliamentary politics is not working for them. What we will see is working people out there taking it into their own hands to enforce their basic rights to decent employment and security of employment. The responsibility is on us to act. Otherwise, I warn the Government that we will see a wave of industrial unrest, and not just from RMT or Nautilus, but from other unions, because others will see the significance of what is happening to working people.
We can avoid that by bringing forward legislation that installs in law the proper protections that working people need. I believe there should be some acknowledgment now of the seriousness of the situation we are in, and emergency action should be taken. I would like a report back to this House, next Monday and no later, on what action the Government, working cross-party, can bring forward.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
Like so many in my community, in this House and across the country, I am sick to the back teeth of working-class people in our society being treated with contempt and like dirt. That was shown graphically, was it not, with balaclava-wearing, handcuff-trained security guards boarding ships to chuck workers off their ships?
We have also had enough of the crocodile tears and manufactured anger from Conservative Ministers. We heard the Secretary of State earlier make the pathetic suggestion of a response including asking P&O to change the ship’s name from “Pride of Britain”. Now, if it were to be renamed, I would suggest the unwieldy yet accurate title “Pride of Neoliberalism”, because that is where it has landed us.
The brutality and authoritarianism of the security guards—people laugh, but it is a company whose parent company is in Dubai, and trade unions and labour strikes are illegal in Dubai and the United Arab Emirates—provided a grotesque spectacle of workers being treated like dirt. We need action. Forty years of the domination of neoliberalism and the celebration of the weakening of trade unions and working people’s legal powers have brought us to this despicable point.
DP World has done very well. It posted record profits and has paid dividends of hundreds of millions to its owner, the state-owned Dubai World company, in the past two years. Its own website has a press release saying:
“DP World announces record results”,
and adds:
“DP World Limited announces strong financial results for the year ended 31 December 2021.”
It states that revenue grew 26% to $10.8 billion and earnings grew 15% to $3.8 billion.
Today, the Government have a choice. They need to act like a Government, because what this company is doing is treating not only workers and trade unions, but an elected Government with contempt. It is saying to the workers, “You can’t do anything about this. We can treat you like dirt,” and it is saying to the Government, “We know you won’t dare to act.”
The Government need to act. Nothing should be off the table. That means that until P&O reinstates the workers, the Government must ban P&O from using British waters, cancel any Government contracts with P&O and DP World, including future involvement in freeports, and launch a national consumer boycott campaign encouraging citizens of this country not to go with P&O. If after all that P&O still does not comply, the Government should take the P&O ferries on those routes and run them.
The reason P&O has not been able to sack seafarers this way in France is simply because France has better employment laws than we do. We need stronger employment laws in favour of employees. We need stronger trade unions. We need a repeal of the anti-trade union laws. Let us stop attacking trade unions. We heard the nonsense about so-called militant trade unionism earlier. If the Government want to see militant trade unionism increase—because it will have to increase—they should allow P&O and DP World to get away with this, because all that workers will be able to do in response is increase action and increase strong, fighting trade unionism.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
I add my voice in expressing outrage at the utterly appalling treatment of staff by P&O Ferries. Its methods may be more brutal, more direct and more organised, but there is a reason the company thought it could get away with them: it is simply doing what some of the most high-profile and respected businesses in our country have been doing for years. Sainsbury’s, Asda, B&Q, Marks & Spencer and even companies that bear our country’s name and flag, British Airways and British Gas, offer 90 days’ consultation and someone’s contract—however long they have worked for the company, however loyal they have been, however much they have done their job to the best of their ability—counts for nothing.
I only entered the debate on this issue when my constituent Joseph came to see me, six years ago now, to show me a consultation document from B&Q. He was a man with two children, who earned £16,000 a year working for the company and was being consulted on losing £2,500—his bonuses, his break money, his forklift truck allowance—because B&Q could not afford to pay him £16,000 a year. I would like to see anybody in this Chamber live on £16,000 a year in London.
Sainsbury’s is a company regarded as among the most respectable. I hold one share in Sainsbury’s and I went to its annual general meeting in 2018 to talk about the 8,000 members of long-term staff who were going to lose up to £3,000 a year. Hon. Members should not be mistaken: P&O will not be the last, although it may be the least successful. There are thousands of people destined to have their terms and conditions changed unless we change the law.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) made the point about the recession. If those members of staff lose the little money they currently receive and are under greater pressure to pay their gas and electricity bills, food bills and travel costs to work, we will see disquiet and trouble in our country of a size that we have never seen before.
We know the problem exists, we know the loophole exists, and we know that other companies that have difficult times over the coming months and years in our economy will look to do the same thing. The Government must decide whether they will close those loopholes and stand up for those workers, or whether they are prepared to see levels of discontent in our country that we have not seen in 50 years.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
We have heard some excellent speeches today from my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and my hon. Friends the Members for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), for Easington (Grahame Morris), for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) and for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh).
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden and her campaigning on this issue over the past six years. She was absolutely right to talk about the work she has done there and the long list of employers that have tried this before, many successfully, highlighting exactly why a change is needed. Time prevents me from mentioning every speech in detail, but I will refer to the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East—a powerful and deeply personal speech about why this situation matters so much to him. As we heard, he has been campaigning on these issues for years, and surely now we must all regret that the Government have failed to heed his warnings.
My hon. Friend called this action industrial vandalism, and that sums up the situation perfectly. What has happened to P&O workers is nothing short of a scandalous betrayal. Workers with families to support, bills to pay and lives to live had their plans upended in three minutes by an unscrupulous employer acting in the most cynical and calculating way. Every Member of this House should be united in condemning the brutality we have seen: thugs for hire, some wearing balaclavas and carrying handcuffs, turning up to boot people off the ship straight after they were sacked on a three-minute video call. If that is not bad enough, the pariahs responsible for this had already lined up cut-price workers at the dockside to replace them: workers who, let us be clear, are going to be paid at a rate that drives a coach and horses through the minimum wage laws. Those who have been sacked have also been threatened with losing what little compensation they have been offered if they talk to anyone about it, further compounding the sense of injustice they feel and further exposing the bully-boy tactics of their employer.
We need to be clear that this decision cannot stand. Unscrupulous employers cannot be given free rein to sack their workforce, destroying secure jobs and replacing them with cheap, insecure agency work. Such actions must have consequences. Every tool at the disposal of the state must be used to its maximum effect, because if one company can divest itself of responsibility for its workforce in such a callous, cynical and frankly offensive manner without a serious response from Government, then others will see that as a green light to do exactly the same. This must be a line in the sand.
Condemnation, while necessary, is insufficient, and condemnation after the event from a Government who knew it was about to happen is simply not good enough. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), a memo was circulated beforehand that makes it clear that the intention of P&O was to replace staff on lower terms and conditions, and with agency workers.
Justin Madders
I am sorry but I do not have time to give way.
That means that the Secretary of State should have known that this was not an ordinary redundancy situation. The memo also says that disruption was expected to last for 10 days. Why would there be disruption if normal consultation procedures had been followed? The Secretary of State himself said that previous redundancies had been made in the past few years and consultation procedures had been followed, but there was no disruption then, so it was absolutely clear that there was going to be something different this time. Despite those warnings, the Government could not find the time to make one single phone call before P&O went ahead with the sackings, neither to the company nor indeed to the trade unions. All the anguish, distress and heartbreak for these 800 families could have been avoided if Ministers had made the effort to contact P&O before it went ahead with its plan. Having said that, given that their first attempt at letter-writing to P&O after the horse had bolted was addressed to somebody who left the company last year, I do wonder how effective such interventions would have been. As we have heard, the Secretary of State’s big demand of P&O is that it change the name of the ship: absolutely pathetic.
The internal Government memo makes it clear that there is a level of acceptance that these measures are necessary to ensure that P&O can stay competitive, but paying workers well below the minimum wage is not being competitive; it is cheating the system. Sacking permanent staff and replacing them with agency workers is not being competitive; it is yet another example of a big company chipping away at job security and safety just to make a few extra quid.
Karl Turner
When I was on King George dock in Hull on Thursday, I met some of the new crew. They did not have a clue what they were doing there. They were told they were joining a brand-spanking-new vessel. They did not know they were there to take jobs. Does my hon. Friend want to say something about safety? Does he think that those new crew have been trained sufficiently—for example, in lifeboat practice and safety at sea? Those courses are absolutely crucial, not least given that a few days from now it is 36 years since the Herald of Free Enterprise went down.
Justin Madders
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has made another excellent point. There really are serious safety concerns. We have to be absolutely crystal clear that the Government are enforcing all safety checks, because people simply cannot get on to a ship without any experience or knowledge of it beforehand, and that certainly cannot be done with an entire crew while expecting things to run okay.
Justin Madders
No, I do not have time—I am sorry.
The memo that the Government issued makes it clear that they are content for companies to ride roughshod over good employment practice. The net result is that bad employers have been emboldened by how little this Government do to protect the rights of workers. They think they can abuse workers and get away with it because for 12 years this Government have allowed exploitative work models to grow unchecked. They have let fire and rehire practices proliferate entirely untouched by legislation. Yes, guidance has been issued by ACAS, but that has not changed the legal position one bit. It has merely restated the existing law, but that law has been shown to be hopelessly unbalanced against the worker, open to abuse, and totally unacceptable in 2022.
The Government have the power to institute criminal proceedings against directors for this—I can assure the House that those P&O staff being sacked last Thursday felt like criminals when they were confronted with security guards carrying handcuffs—but it is those responsible for the decisions who are the true lawbreakers. Exactly how many people in the past have been prosecuted and hit with those unlimited fines? If anyone has been successfully prosecuted and fined for breaching these rules, the Government have kept remarkably quiet about it. Let us hope that this time the threats made to P&O are not empty and the Government follow this right through to the end and actually make some noise about it. If that does not happen, they must understand that they continue to send the message to these bad employers that they can carry on with impunity and that this Government are more interested in protecting their own Back Benchers’ second jobs than everyone else’s first.
On the review of DP World contracts, when will the Minister be able to update the House on the outcome of that? Why are the Government still just considering removing P&O from Government advisory boards? Why have they not done it already? What more evidence do they need that P&O is totally unfit to be part of these bodies? Labour stands firmly with the P&O workers and the work being done by the RMT and north-west unions to stand up for them. Today we are asking all Members to join us in standing up with them and for the rights of all workers, who deserve security and respect in return for an honest day’s work.
This is an opportunity for us to really say what kind of country we want. Insecurity is baked into so many workplaces that it is little wonder that so many people feel a sense of helplessness and inevitability about what has happened in this case. But it does not have to be this way. Job security does not have to be out of reach to millions; it should be the basic cornerstone of any civilised society, and one building block of that has to be an end to fire and rehire.
The destructive combination of weak employment laws, opportunistic employers and an indifferent Government is leading to a race to a bottom, and it is time that race was stopped. It is in all our interests that we have strong workforce protections. A secure workforce is a productive workforce. It is good for employers and good for the economy. It creates a level playing field. Do we really think it is a healthy sign for our economy that the only way businesses think they can get ahead is for their staff to be paid £1.80 an hour and to live in a tent? Is that what we really want as a future for our country? Are we not here to try to improve the lives of the people we represent? Do we not think that security, fair pay and decency in the workplace are central to that?
For too long the pendulum has swung too far away from protection at work and too far into the hands of those who wish to exploit British workers. Changing that is a fundamental part of why Labour Members are here. We should not be bystanders but defenders of working people and workplace rights. If we let this go now, who will be next? Without job security, people have no security. We cannot—we must not—continue to allow the worst excesses of capitalism to stick two fingers up at the workers in this country. It is time that these disgusting practices met their end.
It is time that this place sent out a message—a message that was backed up by the full force of the law. We are not going to be the soft touch of Europe, we are not going to be the easiest of easy pickings for the billionaires who want to boost their profits still further, and we are not going to be a country where loyalty is rewarded with the sack and the race to the bottom is all that matters; we are going to be a country where employment protections have strength and meaning, where security, prosperity and respect run through every workplace like a golden thread, and where those who seek to undermine those values and rules are sent packing. I commend this motion to the House.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)
I thank the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) for bringing this debate to the House; it is absolutely right and important that she has done so. We have heard many powerful and passionate speeches and I am grateful to all hon. Members who have contributed. The strength of feeling in this place is absolutely clear: P&O Ferries has conducted itself appallingly.
We are working to establish the facts of the case, but there can be no excuse for the way that workers have been treated. We have seen that P&O Ferries felt close enough to the UK to receive furlough payments, but not close enough to respect UK employment law. In Britain, we expect companies to treat their employees fairly. That is not just the right thing to do; that is the law.
P&O Ferries has dismissed 800 loyal and hard-working staff without any consultation or notice. Those workers have given many years of loyal service to the company, including playing a critical role during the covid pandemic and dedicating their time, skills and experience to P&O. They should feel proud of their contribution to society, but instead of being rewarded for their efforts, they have received a massive slap in the face from their employer at a particularly difficult time. My thoughts are with those people who have lost their jobs—people who have bills to pay and families to support. It will be a very worrying time for them and their loved ones.
Businesses have experienced a challenging time during the pandemic and many may continue to face financial pressures. To stay afloat, businesses sometimes need to make staffing changes and unfortunately redundancies are sometimes necessary, but UK workers benefit from robust protections in such circumstances. I will briefly explain how those protections should work.
Collective redundancy occurs when 20 or more employees may be made redundant at one establishment within a 90-day period. Employers have a statutory duty to consult employees’ representatives about proposed redundancies. The consultation should be of good time and good length depending on the number of redundancies proposed, must be completed before any dismissal notices can take effect, and must be entered into in good faith, which means that it should be undertaken with a view to reaching agreement with those representatives. The consultation should include a consideration of ways to avoid dismissals, reduce the number to be made redundant and mitigate the effect of the dismissals.
Those rules are not a suggestion; they are the law and must be followed. If the work has a sufficient connection to the UK, the workers will have the benefit of UK employment rights, irrespective of the terms of the contract. P&O Ferries has clearly been well aware of those requirements and its responsibility under the law, which is what makes the situation particularly scandalous.
We are taking the matter incredibly seriously. As we have heard, on Thursday, the Maritime Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts), spoke with P&O and made the Government’s anger and disappointment absolutely clear. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport wrote to the chief exec of P&O last week to make it clear that the Government will review all current contracts with P&O and its owner DP World and will instruct the Maritime and Coastguard Agency to inspect all vessels before they return to service to ensure their safety.
Several hon. Members rose—
Paul Scully
I will not give way, but that reflects the contribution of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), who talked about the agency workers not knowing the vessels. I have no doubt that that will be picked up by the MCA on its inspection.
Paul Scully
I have not got time, because I want to ensure that I answer the questions before the Opposition Whips inevitably cut me off early.
With my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary, I wrote to the CEO of P&O Ferries on Friday to demand answers and explanations of its decisions and actions. Once we have established the exact facts of the case, we can determine whether employment laws have been broken here in the UK and take necessary further action if needed. P&O Ferries has until 5 pm tomorrow to respond to our questions and I absolutely expect it to meet that deadline. We have also asked the Insolvency Service to look at whether P&O Ferries breached the requirement to notify the Secretary of State in advance of making those redundancies. If we believe that it is in breach, we will not hesitate to take further action.
On fire and rehire, briefly, the P&O Ferries situation, unlike other examples that have been cited in this place over the last year or so, does not appear to be simply fire and rehire. It is worse; it seems to be just “fire”, without the required consultation, the required notice or any definite prospect of further employment—that is, no “rehire”. It appears that hard-working British workers were given no choice and no notice and were instead immediately dismissed. There are reports that they may be replaced by cheaper labour from overseas. As I have said, I have written to P&O to demand that it explains itself. We will determine what further action may be required based on a detailed assessment of the facts of the case.
P&O already has statutory obligations under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 and the Employment Rights Act 1996—both of which were creations of a Conservative Government. It is highly likely that it has breached both under UK jurisdiction. Under sections 193 and 194 of the 1992 Act, any employer proposing to make 100 or more employees redundant has a duty to notify the Secretary of State no less than 40 days before any dismissal will take effect. It has not done that and we demand to know why. The point is that whatever P&O has done appears to be in breach of existing laws within US-UK jurisdiction—it is not because we have not passed new ones.
Karl Turner
I thank the Minister for giving way; I will be as quick as I can. It is no good quoting domestic legislation. The reality is this: P&O Ferries has done what it has done because it knows that the sanction is worth it. He needs to address the issue and tell it to reinstate the workers immediately.
Paul Scully
The sanction for P&O Ferries under that legislation is a criminal sanction and an unlimited fine, so I would be wary of it believing that the sanction is worth it.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. A lot of questions have been asked during the debate. Do Members not want to hear the answers from the Minister?
Paul Scully
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will try to answer many of the questions that have been asked.
On fire and rehire, we heard an excellent speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris), who asked what action we will take. She knows that we have had many conversations. I look forward to coming back to update the House after recess with further measures that we may be able to take, reflecting our conversations, on tackling and strengthening our guidance and our rules about fire and rehire. That will indeed have an effect on tribunal findings against anybody who is doing the wrong thing in that regard.
We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) about her standing up for her local workers and her local constituents. It is a shame that that was misrepresented in contributions from the Opposition. When she was talking about militant activism, she was clearly not talking about the people from the union who invited her or the workers who have lost their jobs. She was talking about the people who have been bussed in and have come in from outside to agitate. That is absolutely not appropriate and it is not appropriate for hon. Members to accept bullying when it suits them politically.
I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), who spoke about her port. I was at the Thames estuary with several representatives to look at Tilbury and the benefits that can come from the Thames freeport. She is absolutely right to make sure that she dissociates DP World from the rest of the great work that is going on in that area.
I want to accentuate what we heard from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport when he emphasised that P&O Ferries is not the same as P&O Cruises. I think P&O Cruises should be able to continue to do the great work it is doing without being tarred with the same brush as P&O Ferries, which has acted disgracefully.
From the contributions today, P&O should be in no doubt about the collective condemnation of its behaviour. It has lost the trust of the public and given business a bad name. It is not too late for it to undo some of this damage, and I implore it to get round the table with workers and unions to discuss this issue and find a way through. ACAS stands ready to help, and I know it has reached out both to the company and to the unions involved.
On the national minimum wage, which has been raised, individuals can contact ACAS if they feel they have not been paid the national minimum wage, but HMRC has an intelligence-led approach to enforcement, so please will everybody contact HMRC to make sure that it can look at any egregious abuses of the national minimum wage on the wider scale that has been outlined? In the meantime, the Government will act on any findings we discover from our conversations with the company.
This House should be left in no doubt but that this Government will always continue to stand behind workers, because it was a Conservative-led Government who banned exclusivity clauses in zero-hours contracts, a Conservative Government who introduced the national living wage, a Conservative Government who scrapped the Swedish derogation and a Conservative Government who extended the right to a day one statement of rights to all workers. I want to reassure P&O workers that this Government stand shoulder to shoulder with them, and we will hold P&O accountable for its actions.
Question put.
Cost of Living Increases: Pensioners
(2 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That this House is concerned that older people and pensioners risk being at the sharp end of the cost of living crisis as a result of spiralling inflation, a lack of Government action on household energy bills, a poorly thought-through tax rise on older people in work and a real-terms reduction to the state pension; notes that the state pension is being cut in real-terms by hundreds of pounds a year and that working pensioners will begin paying the Health and Social Care Levy from next year; regrets that levels of pensioner poverty and pensioner debt have risen over the last decade even before the current cost of living crisis with almost one in five pensioners now living in poverty; and calls upon the Government to cut home energy bills, halt the planned tax rise on working pensioners and ensure older people are protected from the cost of living crisis.
In recent weeks I have had the privilege of travelling the country, and I have heard the most desperate stories from our elderly citizens and retirees trying to cope with the devastating cost of living crisis they face. In Swindon, a woman in her late 60s told me that she now never uses the oven and instead lives off sandwiches and cold meals to avoid the bills associated with switching on the cooker. I met a man who served this country in the RAF but who could not understand why, despite contributing so much to our nation, he has been given so little help as prices rise, energy bills rocket and his fixed income is stretched to the limit. At a food bank in Bury I heard how more and more older people who, wrongly in my view, feel there is shame in asking for handouts and are too proud to ask, now feel they have no choice but to go to a food bank and are now turning up there in ever greater numbers.
Age UK tells the story of Maureen, who says, in desperation:
“The pension goes up by pennies and bills go up by pounds, so the money in my pocket is getting less and less.”
Age UK also quotes Albert:
“I have to choose between eating and staying warm for some hours of the day. I forego social life in order not to fall behind with essential bills”.
These are not one-off stories: in every constituency there are thousands of Maureens and Alberts facing soaring inflation, sky-high energy bills, petrol prices through the roof, and price rises in the shops. The situation is desperate and the prospects are terrifying, and to say this is a struggle to make ends meet does not do justice to the scale of the crisis people are facing.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
To back up the right hon. Gentleman’s comments, I point out that 300,000 pensioners and people in Northern Ireland—18% of the population—are in absolute poverty. That is reflected right across the whole of the United Kingdom. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that this situation has swept across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to such an extent that people now, as he rightly says, have to decide whether to eat or heat?
Jonathan Ashworth
My hon. Friend—I will call him a friend as a fellow Leicester City fan—speaks, as usual, with passion and eloquence on behalf of his constituents. The poverty we are now facing is so desperate and severe, and the destitution so acute, and it is felt across the whole of the United Kingdom. I hope Ministers respond to the representations we are making tonight, and I hope the Chancellor responds to them on Wednesday.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
The right hon. Gentleman is making a very good case and illustrating the scale of the problem we face. Does he agree that since we now know that 40% of pensioners in this country will be forced into poverty for up to a year in any nine-year period, the Government should have listened to us when we said earlier in this Session that doing away with the triple lock even temporarily was a rash move, and that pensioners are now paying the price for that?
Jonathan Ashworth
The hon. Lady anticipates the meat of my speech and has put her point on the record with typical aplomb and eloquence.
Martin Lewis of Money Saving Expert has warned that he simply has no tools left to advise people on how to manage their finances; he said that people are literally going to have to “starve or freeze.” Let us look at the facts: 2 million pensioners in poverty and the number rising; 200,000 more pensioners falling into poverty in the last year; one in five people of pension age now living in poverty; and 1.4 million older people in England in fuel poverty, with tens of thousands more likely to be pushed into fuel poverty. As we also know that pensioners spend a significant proportion of their income on energy and food and the basic necessities of life, this is the moment when the Government should be helping the Maureens and Alberts in all our constituencies with extra help with the cost of living. But instead of helping those pensioners in every constituency, Ministers broke their promise on the triple lock and are forcing through deep real-terms cuts in the value of the basic state pension. When I meet and speak to pensioners across the country—older people who are struggling—there is deep despair, and indeed bewilderment, that the Government have abandoned them, having promised them so much.
In the general election campaign, the Prime Minister said:
“We will keep the triple lock, the winter fuel payment, the older person’s bus pass”
to help retirees with the cost of living. Yet just at the moment when pensioners are shivering in the cold, skipping hot meals and anxious and worried about paying the bills, rather than helping retirees with the cost of living, Ministers abandoned the triple lock, a broken promise that the former Conservative Pensions Minister, Baroness Altmann, warned would
“plunge more elderly people into poverty”.
She said:
“With rising energy costs, I fear many of the poorest will be even less able to afford to heat their homes adequately over the winter…To take away their much needed and promised protection, knowing inflation pressures are rising, seems unjustifiable”.
The former Conservative Pensions Minister was absolutely right.
I read recently—in the money section of The Daily Telegraph, no less—that
“pensioners will be worse off after the Chancellor capped the rise in the state pension…this will equate to pensioners taking a real terms cut of £7.45 a week, or £388 a year.”
That is a cut of around £30 a month. These are significant sums of money. Given that the state pension is the biggest source of income for most pensioners, and given that retired women in particular rely on the state pension and other benefits, such as pension credit, for over 60% of their retirement income, it will be retired women again who are disproportionately hit by this deep cut to the basic state pension.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that it is a disgrace that the Government have broken their triple lock promise. The Red Book shows a transfer of £31 billion over this Parliament from the pockets of pensioners to the Treasury—a disgrace. Given the point he is making, should the Labour motion not have demanded the immediate reinstatement of the triple lock? That is the one thing that I am concerned is missing from the motion we are debating.
Jonathan Ashworth
We are making clear our commitment to the triple lock in the remarks that I am making at the Dispatch Box.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the speech that he is making. When the Government made their decision about the triple lock, we were not facing the energy crisis that we are facing today. Bearing in mind that older people expend at least twice as much energy because they are at home for more hours, and that we are starting to hear of cases of people dying of hypothermia, should not the Government not only reinstate the triple lock but underpin energy bills?
Jonathan Ashworth
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have so many pensioners in poverty, and many of them are living in inadequate, cold, damp homes that they cannot afford to heat. We know that we have considerable excess deaths every winter due to issues associated with hypothermia and so on, because so many pensioners live in cold, damp homes. Frankly, that costs the NHS more in the long run, so the economics of this are completely self-defeating.
What was the Government’s justification for breaking the triple lock even though pensioner poverty is increasing, as it was before the pandemic? Ministers said that the £5 billion cost was unaffordable. So the Chancellor took £5 billion off pensioners and then a month later, in his Budget, gave away billions in alcohol duty cuts and cuts to the bank levy—literally making it cheaper for the bankers to booze on bubbly on the back of making pensioners poorer. It is a disgrace.
Let us be clear: the reason Ministers are not increasing the pension sufficiently is not that the Government lack the money, but that they lack the political will. That is why older people are now asking whether the Government will break their promise on the triple lock next year too. Last year, Ministers rejected the 8.3% rise and refused even to explore alternative measures of wage growth, but they insisted that that was a one-off and that they would honour the triple lock throughout this Parliament. The Bank of England warns that inflation could reach 8% this year. I asked the Secretary of State at questions earlier whether she would rule out breaking the triple lock for a second year in a row. She did not give that guarantee at the Dispatch Box, so I ask her again: can she confirm that the triple lock will be honoured for the rest of this Parliament? Does she want to answer that? She did not do so at questions earlier.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
The right hon. Gentleman asked multiple questions earlier and I answered at least one of them, but the answer is yes, I do make that commitment.
Jonathan Ashworth
I have secured my first U-turn in the role, Madam Deputy Speaker. Does that not just show that we in the Opposition stand up for Britain’s pensioners? I asked the Secretary of State a very simple question earlier—whether she would commit to the triple lock—and she did not say yes. I am pleased that she has now cleared up the muddle she got herself in earlier, but given the other commitments—[Interruption.] The Pensions Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman)—says Ministers have said it repeatedly, but they all stood on a manifesto saying they were going to keep the triple lock. I say to him that his commitment to the triple lock might not be worth the paper it is written on, given that he broke his manifesto commitment.
While I am talking about the Pensions Minister, he told the House in September, in seeking to justify breaking the triple lock, that the Government would
“ensure pensioners’ spending power is preserved and that they are protected from higher costs of living.”
Does any Tory Member really believe that that ministerial promise has remotely been met? Of course it has not.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
I wonder whether my right hon. Friend could secure another U-turn from Ministers, on the national insurance rise for working pensioners.
Jonathan Ashworth
My hon. Friend makes a good point. The Pensions Minister, who will sum up the debate later, promised—these are his words—that the Government would preserve pensioners’ spending power and protect them from the higher cost of living. On the same day that the Government broke the triple lock, they introduced the national insurance increase, a proportion of which, for the first time, will be paid by working pensioners. Indeed, a working pensioner on average earnings will lose out by £1,400 over two years. That is not protecting pensioners’ spending power or protecting them from the higher cost of living.
Have pensioners been protected from the higher cost of living through energy bills? Next month, we will see energy bills rise by 54%—£700 on average. In October, there is likely to be another 25% rise. All the Government are offering is a £150 rebate this April—although it is not clear whether they will guarantee that for pensioners who do not pay council tax or who get council tax benefit—followed by a loan that has to be paid back through a £40 levy. That £350, £200 of which has to be paid back, will be totally wiped out by the £388 real-terms cut to the basic state pension. That is not protecting older people from the higher cost of living or preserving their spending power; I suggest it is more like daylight robbery.
We have already said that pensioners are going to be paying more in tax, but what about pension credit, which featured in the exchanges earlier? About 850,000 pensioners eligible for pension credit are going without it. That is £1.7 billion unclaimed—something like £1,900 for every qualifying household that is losing out. As Members across the House have pointed out, pension credit often unlocks other benefits, such as free TV licences—obviously, the Government cut those and changed their financing—council tax benefit and so on. Now Ministers are praying in aid the pension credit guarantee as justification for their real-terms cut in the value of the state pension. They do not mention very often that pension credit was a Labour policy, which they criticised when we introduced it. Indeed, if my memory serves me correctly, they also opposed its precursor, the minimum income guarantee, and even voted against it. They do not mention that, but given that pension credit uptake is so poor, if they drove it up they could lift 440,000 older people out of poverty.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I very much agree with the point that my right hon. Friend is making. Pension credit, introduced in 2003, has been a powerful lever for tackling pensioner poverty. Does he agree that the Government should set an ambitious target for increasing the take-up of pension credit so that the number of people who benefit substantially increases?
Jonathan Ashworth
Yes, I do. My right hon. Friend, who was a first-class Pensions Minister and Chief Secretary to the Treasury, will remember being at the Government Dispatch Box when shadow Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions from the Tory party criticised pension credit and opposed the minimum income guarantee, saying that it was an extension of means-testing and undermined the universal basic state pension. Now, today, they are using pension credit to justify a £388 real-terms cut in the value of the basic state pension. I hope that the very sensible recommendation by my right hon. Friend, the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, is taken up by the Secretary of State, and that she responds to him when she speaks.
Of course, Ministers should be moving heaven and earth to drive up take-up, but the Pensions Minister revealed earlier this afternoon that, instead, we have a letter writing campaign. Writing to local newspapers—that is his plan to drive up uptake of pension credit. When pensioners cannot afford their heating bills and cannot afford to eat—when pensioners cannot afford the basic necessities of life—rather than taking action, all he does is write to local newspapers. What is he doing? Is he expecting pensioners to burn the papers to keep themselves warm? I am told he has written to the Leicester Mercury. Well, I have been looking at his local paper, the Hexham Courant. I cannot actually see his letter in it, but I can see that it is warning that
“Thousands in the North East to miss out on automatic £150 rebate…MORE than 320,000 households across the North-East will not automatically receive a £150 council tax rebate…and 40,000 in Northumberland”.
Many of them will be pensioners. May I suggest that he sorts out his own backyard before gracing the pages of my paper, the Leicester Mercury?
There is one other area where I think the Minister needs to show greater urgency in supporting the United Kingdom’s pensioners and I would be grateful if the Secretary of State responded in detail to the points I have made. She will know that the underpayment of the basic state pension to around 135,000 pensioners, the vast majority of whom are women, has been a scandal. I pay tribute to the former Liberal Democrat Pensions Minister, Sir Steve Webb, the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) and the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), who have all shone a light on that.
The Department has allocated £1 billion and estimates that approximately 118,000 pensioners will be traced and could receive around £8,900 by the time the payments are made. So far, so good. But the last time Ministers provided updated figures, in autumn, they had paid out just £60 million to just under 10,000 people, so £900 million is outstanding. When we are in a cost of living crisis, should not the Department be showing greater urgency? When will the other £900 million be paid? The Secretary of State will know that there are stories of the DWP helpline giving inaccurate information and false assurances, forcing pensioners to keep living on less. There is no information available as far as I can see on how lump sums will impact on capital limits and the consequent impact on other entitlements, such as to social care. Divorced women have been excluded from the whole exercise on the basis that it does not think there are enough errors to be worth doing, even though there are cases of divorced women where errors have been made and it has had to pay out thousands in back payments.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
Two weeks ago, during my absence with covid, a private Member’s Bill was presented which called specifically for divorced women to no longer be excluded and receive more than an apology. Will the shadow Secretary of State indicate whether he would support that Bill?
Jonathan Ashworth
Without having read the details, it sounds like a very sensible Bill. I look forward to reading the details. At first sight, it certainly has my strong encouragement.
Jim Shannon
I was doing some research beforehand and I see that there is an older people’s commissioner for Scotland, for Wales and for Northern Ireland, but not one for England. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with the Age UK campaign for an older people’s commissioner for England? Does he think the Minister should do that? It would help older people in England, so does he think the Government should do it?
Jonathan Ashworth
Typically, the hon. Gentleman, my friend and fellow Leicester City fan, makes a very wise and astute recommendation. I hope the Secretary of State takes it up. It would certainly have my strong encouragement.
I hope the Secretary of State can provide an answer for why divorced women are excluded. It seems utterly unfair, particularly given the desperate cost of living crisis. Secondly, when the Department makes a lump sum payment it is normal to pay interest, so why is it not paying interest on those payments? I encourage the Secretary of State to explain when she is going to get on and fix that. The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee said this process has become a “shameful shambles”. Given the scale of the cost of living crisis, can she tell us when Ministers will finally fix this shameful shambles?
Of course, there are other scandals that need fixing, too. We know about the Allied Steel and Wire steelworkers who have not got their full entitlement, or the thousands of members of the British Steel pension scheme, who incurred massive losses because of failures in pension regulation and protections on this Government’s watch. Whether it is working pensioners, women pensioners, steelworkers or anyone who relies on the state pension as their main source of income, the Government have let them down.
Our retired constituents worked hard all their lives, paid their national insurance, served our country and contributed to our communities. They deserve security and dignity in retirement. Instead, what we get is the state pension cut in real terms, the triple lock abandoned, energy bills unaffordable, pensioner poverty increasing and retirees robbed. We need a plan to get energy bills down and halt the tax rises that are coming, and a plan to ensure that all pensioners are protected from this devastating cost of living crisis. I commend our motion to the House.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. To be clear, there have been no U-turns. I am sure that the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) was not intentionally misleading the House when he suggested there was. I am again happy to put on record that the triple lock will be honoured in the future.
The Government have always supported pensioners and will continue to do so, whether through the significant increase in pension rates since we took office in 2010, or the creation of a new, simpler state pension which is better for women and reduces the need to consider top-ups through pension credit. I recognise the No. 1 concern in many people’s minds right now is the rising cost of living and its impact on their household budgets. The unique set of global circumstances that have come together to drive up inflation are largely factors beyond the control of the Government, such as the knock-on effect of covid on the global supply chain and the impact of Putin’s despicable invasion of Ukraine. These items are set out in a letter from the Governor of the Bank of England to the Chancellor, as the Bank of England is charged with achieving the 2% inflation target.
However, we are taking decisive action to cushion the impact of price rises on people’s pockets, providing £21 billion of support over this year and the next. That is particularly true for people on low and fixed incomes. Help is already on hand through the household support fund, which is still accessible through people’s local council, and we are taking further action on rising household energy bills. The £9 billion energy package announced by the Chancellor last month will benefit the vast majority of households, including pensioners, with a £150 discount on council tax for those living in property bands A to D, or the £144 million discretionary fund that is available through local councils. In addition, the £200 rebate on energy bills this year will help to spread the costs of the expected increase over the next few years. I recognise that that will still need to be repaid.
Alan Brown
Of what the Secretary of State calls the £9 billion package, how much is provided by the Treasury and how much is a loan to consumers that has to be paid back?
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Dr Coffey
No, I will not.
The extra support is on top of a range of existing help for pensioners, including: winter fuel payments, which support over 11 million pensioners’ energy bills and is worth about £2 billion every year; cold weather payments, ensuring pensioners in need keep warm during the colder months; and the warm home discount, which we are extending until 2026, including expanding it to more recipients of pension credit, namely those who receive the savings credit element and live in a home with high energy costs. I am conscious that the warm home discount is a spreading of support towards people in this vulnerable cohort, but nevertheless it is thanks to Government intervention that that is the case. As a result, the number of households benefiting from the warm home discount will increase by almost a third, to 3 million—up from nearly 1 million at the moment—with the vast majority getting their payment automatically with no need to apply. Together, I think that will be welcomed by many people, recognising the extra support that people who are not currently eligible today will receive later this year.
Emma Hardy
I want to raise a point about prepayment meters. A written question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy—admittedly, this Secretary of State represents a different Department—asked how people on prepayment meters would receive the £200 discount, many of whom happen to be pensioners. The answer, given on 25 February, was:
“BEIS will consult in the spring.”
It seems that the Government do not have a plan for how to refund the money to those on prepayment meters, but I hope that the Secretary of State can update us.
Dr Coffey
The hon. Lady asks a valid question. As I have said to the House before, tackling the cost of living and poverty more broadly is shared across Government. Although that may come under our umbrella—recognising our general role in support through the welfare system—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy leads particularly on items to do with energy and fuel poverty more broadly. I will ask him to contact her.
That leads me on to pension credit, which has been highlighted as a passport to a range of other benefits, including free TV licences, help with council tax and NHS dental treatment. Together, those are making a real difference, reflecting the Government’s commitment to supporting pensioners and continuing the work of successive Governments since 2010—when the Conservatives took office—to tackle and alleviate pensioner poverty.
The facts speak for themselves. The latest figures show that 200,000 fewer pensioners are in absolute poverty than in 2010, with levels of material deprivation having fallen from 10% to 6%, a record low. It is because of our commitment over that time and policies such as the triple lock that, from next month, the full yearly basic state pension will be more than £2,300 higher in cash terms than it was in 2010. In fact, no Government have paid more to pensioners than we will this year: £105 billion alone through the state pension. When we include all the other pensioner benefits, that rises to £129 billion a year.
Our aim over the two years of the pandemic has been to give fairness to pensioners and taxpayers, recognising what has happened with covid. For 2021-22, we protected the value of the state pension by legislating to secure and increase the state pension by 2.5%, despite a decline in earnings and inflation rising by just 0.5%. Had we not acted, the state pension, by law, would have remained frozen. Again, through the Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Act 2021, which Parliament passed last November, we legislated to temporarily suspend the earnings part of the triple lock in 2022-23 for one year. As I outlined at the time, that was in response to exceptional circumstances caused by the distorting effects of the pandemic on the earnings statistics.
Pensions will still rise by 3.1% next month. That reflects the inflation index that has been used consistently for many years, so over the past two years, pensions will have risen by a total of 5.6%. Next year, we will return to implementing the triple lock in the usual way for the remainder of the Parliament. I reinforce that full commitment, and whatever the right hon. Member for Leicester South may suggest—he may be trying to score points on politics, which, as the shadow Secretary of State he is absolutely entitled to do—I want to make sure that he avoids scaremongering.
Alan Brown
I welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to reinstating the triple lock. Given that the Chancellor said this time that 8% was unaffordable and that that was £30 billion that we could not afford, is she saying that if inflation is at 8% when the Government do the measurement, they suddenly can afford to pay the £30 billion to pensioners?
Dr Coffey
I am not aware of any Minister trying to say to people that we did this because it was unaffordable. As a result of the pandemic, there was a statistical anomaly relating to earnings. We also understand the balance relating to intergenerational fairness, as has been outlined. At the time, however, we very much highlighted the statistical anomaly.
As a result of our actions, I believe that the state pension continues to be a strong foundation from which people can build additional savings for their retirement. We are seeing a thriving private and workplace pensions market, fuelled by the success of automatic enrolment, which transformed pension savings for more than 10.5 million workers. That is creating even firmer foundations for a robust pension system to ensure that not just today’s pensioners, but those of future generations are protected and supported. I know that, as a country, we will continue to build on the progress that we have made over the last 12 years under Conservative Governments, so that in the next 12 years, and in decades to come, pensioners will be able to enjoy a secure and dignified retirement.
We also know that a minority of pensioners choose to stay working beyond the standard retirement age. They do not pay the standard employees’ national insurance on their earnings, even though employers do if they earn above the threshold. As for the NHS and social care levy being introduced through national insurance, it is appropriate for anyone working at all, including pensioners, to contribute, bearing in mind that they will do so only if their earnings are at or above the regular threshold. I believe that will be about £190 a week, which is close to nearly £10,000 in earnings a year.
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)
My right hon. Friend rightly points out that many pensioners are indeed working. What does she have to say about how the announced increase in the living wage to £9.50 will benefit pensioners?
Dr Coffey
Any uplift in the national living wage is welcome to anybody still working. Our normal practice on standard national insurance for employees is that once someone reaches pension age, their take-home pay will be automatically higher than somebody else under the age of retirement, if they are doing the same job on the same salary. However, this levy is important to make sure that we get the funding for the NHS backlogs and for the future stability of the social care system.
Let me turn to pension credit. We have heard about the success of the private pensions sector and some of the uplift for people who are still working. It is good for those still saving for their futures, but understandably, the House wants to know what we are doing for the poorest pensioners now. We had a bit of a history lesson about how pension credit was introduced under the Labour Government in 2003, as the right hon. Member for Leicester South said. Let us go back a bit earlier in history: it was only a few years beforehand that the Labour Administration raised pensions by 75p. I think the House will probably recognise that pension credit was introduced directly as a consequence of the impact of what happened with that very modest increase in pensions.
Various funds have been open to pensioners in the past year, including the household support fund, and I encourage people to approach their local council for support.
Stephen Timms
As the Secretary of State knows, about a third of those who are eligible for pension credit do not receive it at the moment. She told us earlier that there is an action plan to improve that. Will she publish that action plan and include in it an ambitious target for increasing the take-up of pension credit?
Dr Coffey
The Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee slightly pre-empts where I am heading with pension credit in my speech.
On the household support fund, within the lifetime of the Government, we have introduced a higher basic state pension so that, increasingly, pensioners are not required to resort to applying for pension credit. However, pension credit, the pension financial safety net, is helping to support those with the lowest retirement incomes. Worth on average over £3,000 a year, some 1.4 million pensioners already claim it, receiving collectively an extra £5 billion in support. As I mentioned, given that pension credit is a passport to other financial help, we want to make sure that everyone who is entitled to it claims it.
Our estimate of pension credit take-up is based on a combination of what information we have on pensioner income and analysis from the family resources survey. That suggests that more people can claim than is the case now, particularly for those eligible for the savings credit element, where we have the lowest take-up. The Minister responsible for pensions, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), and my noble Friend the Minister in the Lords—Baroness Stedman-Scott—have been striving to increase take-up. They undertook a big awareness day last year and they are continuing that work. This is the plan, I say to hon. Gentlemen.
We will continue to promote the take-up of pension credit. As has been highlighted, the Minister responsible for pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham, has raised awareness through local newspapers. We will send 11 million leaflets to pensioners with their annual state pension uprating letter and we will continue to work with the BBC, financial institutions, Age UK and many other organisations to raise awareness. The latest estimates show that uptake is increasing. We know from internal management information that the number of new applications last year is estimated to have been 30% higher than in 2019, so our efforts are working. I hope that this latest effort will also bear fruit.
Rachael Maskell
I chair the all-party parliamentary group for ageing and older people, which has just had an inquiry into the matter. One thing we suggested was that, since a lot of older people visit their GP at some point, GPs should be active in asking their patients whether they are eligible for pension credit. That would help them to claim the benefits that they should be able to attain.
Dr Coffey
The hon. Lady raises a valid point. I know that we have had paid advertising in post offices and in GPs’ waiting areas in the past; doctors often tell us that they do not necessarily like to be attached to benefit claiming and similar matters, but I hear what the hon. Lady says, and my understanding is that we intend to resume that contact. I have also asked the leading pharmacy chains to be involved, because that is often a more regular way in which people get help. We will try different outlets, in addition to those we have tried in the past, to make people more aware of the potential opportunities.
Dr Coffey
The hon. Lady has already made one intervention, and I want to make some progress.
The right hon. Member for Leicester South asked about issues relating to state pension underpayment. I give credit to my hon. Friend the pensions Minister, who has rolled up his sleeves and really got stuck in. We have 500 people working on the state payment exercise, and before the end of the year we are aiming to have up to 1,500 people getting on with it. There will be an update after the fiscal statement; we have always said that we would give updates more or less in line with it, so the right hon. Member for Leicester South will have to be slightly patient. This issue has been going on for some considerable time. There was an element of shambles in previous Administrations, which was not helped by the 2008 reforms. I respect the former Minister Steve Webb, but he did not find this element at all in his five years as pensions Minister—not even when he was going through the whole process of creating a brand-new state pension. We are getting on with this element, which was not discovered until recently, and we will get on with the job and sort it out.
When we say that we are committed to tackling pension poverty, we mean it, and we have the track record to back it up. On Wednesday, it will have been two years since we took unprecedented action to lock down the country to protect lives. We invested in vaccines and subsequently rolled out the biggest and most successful vaccination programme in the history of the NHS, prioritising pensioners. Today, as we start inviting the over-75s to get their spring covid booster, we want to encourage pensioners to consider getting the boost to their income that pension credit could provide. With the wider range of financial and other support that we are providing, we are doing our best to help to ease the current cost of living squeeze.
We must unite as a House to get more pensioners to access the support that is available. While I am conscious that many people will think that there is more to do, we can do it only if all MPs in this House make a commitment to their pensioners—I look forward to their doing so—to continue to provide as much information as possible.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Hon. Members can see how many colleagues want to participate in the debate, so from the outset they should be thinking about keeping their contributions to about five minutes.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
It is kind of a pleasure to follow the Secretary of State, but I have to say, not for the first time, that I am a wee bit puzzled, because she seemed to be responding to a different debate from the one we are having. The shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), set out some clear and harrowing examples of people who are really struggling, yet the Secretary of State gave a pre-prepared speech about a secure and dignified retirement tomorrow, ignoring the here and now.
Talking about how this Government have paid the most in pensions ever does not cut it. Those statistics are fine, but they do not help pensioners who are really struggling. That point needs to be taken on board. I asked about the £9 billion package that the Secretary of State cited, but she was not sure how much of it was Treasury-funded and how much was a loan to bill payers. I can tell her that out of that £9 billion, roughly £5.6 billion is just a loan to bill payers that will have to be paid back—bill payers who include struggling pensioners.
On pension credit, the Secretary of State picked up on what the pensions Minister—the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman)—said earlier, bragging about how the Government are writing to local papers. When the shadow Secretary of State called them out on it, however, the Minister shouted, “Oh, we’ve done that for years!” If it has been done for years and there is still £4 billion of unclaimed pension credit, it is clearly not working. It is quite clear that another strategy is needed to make sure that there is a far greater uptake of pension credit, which can then be a passport to other benefits.
I welcome this debate. The motion combines the key issues for pensioners in the ongoing cost of living crisis: rising energy costs, real-terms cuts to pensions and, for older people in work, the health and social care levy. Where I disagree slightly with the shadow Secretary of State, which is why I intervened on him, is that I think that the motion could have been stronger in explicitly demanding the reinstatement of the pensions triple lock.
Earlier today, the pensions Minister stated that pensioner poverty has fallen, but as I tried to point out, the Government’s own statistics on households below average income show that UK pension poverty has risen to a 15-year high under Tory rule. Some 2.1 million UK pensioners—18%—are now living in poverty after housing costs, an increase of 200,000 people on 2018-19. Sadly, that was the figure before the latest energy cap rise was announced, so it will massively increase unless there is proper Government intervention. It is worrying that the Minister is trying to argue something different; either he is ignorant of the facts or he does not care. The Government really need to pay attention and start intervening.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
My hon. Friend is making a terrific point about the poverty that is affecting pensioners just now. Does he agree that the effect is disproportionately felt by pensioners living in off-gas grid households? Last year, heating fuel was 42p a litre; it is now £1.25 a litre and rising. There is going to be a really dramatic effect on pensioners in those areas.
Alan Brown
I completely agree. I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting that point; he has been at the forefront of the campaign to highlight the effects of increased energy costs on those who are off the gas grid. That threefold increase in fuel costs is completely unsustainable and really does lead people to the choice between heating and eating.
Let us look at conventional households covered by the energy cap. Next month, the cost of energy for the average household will have increased by 75% compared with April 2021, a rise of more than £800 a year. Pensioners spend more time in their homes and are more likely to feel the effects of cold or damp, so increased energy costs disproportionally hit the elderly. Not being able to afford to heat their homes puts their health more at risk. There are already something like 10,000 premature deaths a year due to fuel poverty, and that was before the huge energy cost increases. It is truly shameful that in an energy-rich country, or group of nations, people are dying prematurely because they cannot afford to heat their homes.
National Energy Action has estimated that the cap increase will have caused a 33% increase in fuel poverty rates. If this rise continues without Government interventions, come October we will be looking at some 8 million fuel-poor households in the UK, with perhaps between 2.5 million and 3 million of those households containing pensioners. When we look beyond the phrase “heating or eating”, we see that the grim reality for people faced with that choice is starving or freezing or suffering in damp houses, and that brings us back to the possibility of more people dying prematurely. It is truly shameful.
The interventions that the Government have announced to date clearly do not go far enough. Even worse, the removal of the triple lock is taking more than £500 a year from the pockets of pensioners, as the Government’s own Red Book demonstrates. Earlier today and this evening, Tory Ministers were arguing that wage increases were a false measurement owing to the partial recovery from covid. They have used that to justify breaking the triple lock. Just four months on, however, we have evidence that a much larger pension increase than 3.1% is required. The facts are clear: the spring statement in two days’ time will provide the one opportunity to reinstate the triple lock, or at least, as a bare minimum, to introduce a mechanism for increasing pensions by 6.1% in line with the current rate of inflation and what the Scottish Government are doing with benefits.
It was good to hear the Secretary of State guarantee that if inflation is at 7% or 8% later in the year, at the point when calculations are being made for the purpose of future uprating, pensions will rise by that amount. I hope that the Government stick to that, and it is not just bluster at the Dispatch Box. We all know who pulls the strings; it tends to be the Chancellor, so I hope that the Secretary of State is lobbying the Chancellor, because we know that inflation is not going to go down any time soon.
While I am talking about inadequate measures, let me point out that the £150 rebate on council tax will not catch all pensioner households in terms of bandings; and, as the shadow Secretary of State said, many pensioners living alone or in receipt of pension credit already receive a full or partial council tax discount, and are therefore unlikely to benefit from the new council tax rebate measure unless the Government do something about it. Making others who have avoided debt all their lives take out a £200 loan to pay back later is also morally wrong. That loan should be converted to a grant for all, and certainly, as the bare minimum, for pensioners and those on benefits.
The Secretary of State spoke about the warm home discount, but, as she knows, the Government put no money into that scheme, although too many Ministers do not even understand that; it is actually paid for by other bill payers. While I welcome the extension of the discount to 3 million households, only 10% more pensioners will receive it. The Government should extend it further, but, in doing so, should provide some direct funding rather than imposing the funding on other bill payers. They should also consider extending the energy company obligation scheme so that more homes become energy-efficient, but that too should involve direct funding rather than other bill payers having to foot the bill.
Apart from the £150 funded rebate, the only direct Government intervention to date on energy has been the allocation of £1.7 billion for the development of Sizewell C. Not content with Hinkley Point C being the most expensive power station in the world, the Tories are determined to build another more expensive one. In their own impact assessment for the Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill, the upper estimate of the capital and financing costs of the Sizewell C development is £63 billion. How will that help people who need energy costs to come down? And why did Labour vote to commit bill payers to that amount for a new nuclear power station? The money could be spent so much more wisely. There really needs to be a rethink on this nuclear policy.
There are other cost increases to be considered. For instance, the cost of food is rocketing.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
I note the hon. Gentleman’s opposition to the gaining of low-carbon energy from nuclear. He has also told us that this is an energy-rich country. What does he think the Government should do with the Cambo oilfield? Should we open it up to reduce energy prices for pensioners?
Alan Brown
The hon. Gentleman is not comparing like with like. Cambo means more fossil fuel extraction, and there needs to be a proper assessment to establish whether this could be done in a way that is compatible with net zero. That is a test that the Government are refusing to apply. Apart from that, they should be investing much more in floating offshore wind, in tidal stream, in which Scotland leads the world, and in pumped- storage hydro, which is a dispatchable low-carbon technology. That scheme is ready to go, but the Government have not agreed a pricing mechanism. Then there is carbon capture and storage at Peterhead, in which respect Scottish customers have been let down again. So much more could be done in energy, and it would not cover even a portion of that £63 billion that has been allocated to nuclear. More energy efficiency reduces demand, and therefore reduces the need for new power generation. I hope I have answered the hon. Gentleman’s question.
Alan Brown
Yes!
Returning to fossil fuel, obviously petrol and diesel prices have increased massively at the pump. They have gone up by between 35p and 40p a litre compared with a year ago—a 30% increase. That also means that while people struggle to run their cars, VAT returns to the Treasury have increased massively. The current rates compared with last year mean that the Treasury is getting something like £3 billion a year extra in VAT returns, but that should be recirculated to support hard-pressed people, especially pensioners. It seems that the Chancellor may respond to calls to cut fuel duty, but if he does, he will be demonstrating the folly of a 12-year duty freeze. When we had lower prices, that was the time when bolder action could have been taken to raise fuel duty, so that when fuel prices increased in the way they have, fuel duty could have been decreased. That would have created a much smoother curve, instead of peaks and troughs, and the Treasury would have had a far more stable income as well.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)
I am just trying to understand the hon. Gentleman’s policy. Is it genuinely his policy to raise fuel duty? That is the impression he has just given.
Alan Brown
I repeat that the time to be bold and increase fuel duty would have been when fuel prices were at a record low. That would not have had the same impact on people’s pockets. The current rise is unsustainable—[Interruption.] The Minister did not listen to what I said. This here-and-now policy from the Government is unsuitable; it should involve bolder long-term planning. Had they raised fuel duty earlier when prices were lower, they could have reinvested the revenue in public transport and in creating money for a rainy day, like right now.
Drew Hendry
Is it not a fact that pensioners and other people could have been helped greatly in this fuel crisis, had the Government listened and introduced a fuel duty regulator, which would have regulated the price and ensured that fuel was affordable for people just now?
Alan Brown
Absolutely. My hon. Friend has made my point much better than I was making it myself, and I appreciate that. A fuel duty regulator is exactly what would have given better stability for the Treasury and for people’s pockets.
Looking at other windfalls the Treasury receives, we see a VAT windfall from the £800 increase in average household bills. That is well over another £1 billion coming into the Treasury coffers. The Treasury is also benefiting from increased oil and gas revenues. The last Budget predicted an extra £6 billion in oil and gas revenues in this Parliament compared with the March 2021 Budget, but given the sustained period of increased prices, that £6 billion will prove to be an underestimate. That is more money that should have been reinvested.
I know that Labour has targeted a windfall tax on the oil and gas companies, but that sounds a wee bit like raiding the one traditional cash cow. Why do we not, as the SNP motion suggested last week, look at this in the round? Why do we not target all sectors or companies that have benefited disproportionately from the pandemic, and in particular the new-start companies and the Tory crony companies that were awarded PPE contracts and that have realised record profits since? That is a real obscenity that should be targeted. Anyone who has read Private Eye and seen the eye-watering sums that those companies have made should be truly horrified.
I want to highlight some additional measures in Scotland where the SNP Government are providing mitigation for pensioners, but even the powers the Scottish Government have are nowhere near enough to make the transformational changes that we want. Older people in Scotland get their bus passes at the age of 60, instead of having to wait until the state pension age. They also have universal free prescriptions and are more likely to have had targeted energy efficiency measures for their homes. All charitable organisations in this sector, as well as the energy companies themselves, want the UK Government to follow the lead of the Scottish Government in making energy efficiency a national infrastructure programme. The low-income winter heating assistance will give around 400,000 low-income households a guaranteed £50 payment every winter instead of the complicated UK cold weather payment of just £25.
Guy Opperman
I am just trying to understand the hon. Gentleman’s speech. Is it still SNP policy that, post-independence, the rest of the UK would have to pay for Scottish pensions? He seems to be unclear on that, and I just want to be utterly clear.
Alan Brown
I am not sure how I can have been unclear when I have not mentioned it. The Minister is listening to a different speech—that is simply not what I have in front of me. This is very interesting. First, on day one of independence, Scotland can afford pensions. Right now, we collect about £11.5 billion in national insurance contributions. Pension payments are about £8.5 billion, so that is a £3 billion surplus right away to cover other payments from national insurance contributions. On day one, we can afford it. If we are supposed to be a Union of equals, it is very strange that we are being told not, “Stay with us because we value you,” but, “Stay with us because we are threatening you.” A DWP official publication from 2014 says that there is an historical precedent for dealing with this, with historical credits being built up in pension payments. So in 2014 the DWP actually stated that there is a solution, but obviously the Minister has conveniently forgotten that.
Perhaps this is a good time to finish. The Minister’s intervention shows that after 315 years of the Union, Scotland needs full independence as a means of counteracting this present-time dystopia, which Labour has also recognised and sought to address today.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. We should reiterate the points we have been making since the uprating orders. It is clear that, for people living on a fixed income like a pension, with no prospect of earning any more, a state pension increase of 3% is not going to be enough to get them all the way through until April 2023. The Government are going to have to find a way to do more to help people over the next 15 months; otherwise, they simply will not be able to make ends meet.
I regret that the motion does not set out specific policies that the Opposition would like the Government to introduce. Instead, it gives a slightly convoluted tour through history, but I think that the Government’s record of support for pensioners over the past 12 years is pretty good, with the new single-tier state pension and the triple lock. Over the past decade, I do not recall there being many calls for more support for people over retirement age. The demands have been, probably quite rightly, on behalf of people of working age. Equally, I am not convinced that it is logical to say that somebody over the state pension age who is still working should pay a lower tax rate than a young person with a young family who is trying to pay a mortgage and all the bills. People who are still earning after retirement should not pay national insurance on their state pension or other pensions, but I am not convinced that it is sensible that they do not pay it on earnings over £9,000 year. We need to find money to pay for bills and for more social care, which will no doubt be used by people over the state pension age before those of working age. I am not sure that that is the right tack to set our face against.
I want to talk about two practical things that the Government could do to help over the next 15 months or so. The first is on pension credit, which has been discussed. We clearly need to ensure that all those who are entitled to it are getting it, but I am not sure why the Government have set their face against a target. In any large organisation, we usually find that what gets measured gets done and that when there is a target, people will try to achieve it. I understand that there is reluctance because we might not hit the target and that that is embarrassing when we measure it, but I think that the embarrassment is far less than the effect of not getting a substantial increase in pension credit take-up. During the pandemic, when the then Health and Social Care Secretary set his target for 200,000 tests a day, it got done by the end of that month, and he himself would say that without having set that stretch target, it would not have got done. Let us have that target. Let us work out what is realistic and reasonable, and then drive the system to achieve it. I think that would help make serious progress.
The second thing that the Government should look at is how to give people on a pension more income before April 2023. The Chancellor seems to like doing one-off payments. I understand that. If we think it is a short-term blip of a crisis, the effects of which might go to into reverse, that can be done quite quickly, with no long-lasting spending effect. The danger, however, is that all those things do not get put on the pension—they do not get indexed every year—and in effect they are worth less money as time goes on. I am afraid that I am not convinced that the increase in bills is going to be a short-term, six-month problem. We all wish that that were the case, but it would probably require a change of regime in Russia, with a new, friendly, democratic and unsanctioned regime giving us free access to their gas at the price we used to pay. I think that assumption is for the birds, so the Government need to have a different plan. On the basis that they probably cannot now increase the pension by more in April, my suggestion is that if inflation is still running at this level in October, they should do a half-yearly pension increase, of perhaps half what is forecast for next April. That would give people a bit more on their pension, up front, for six months. It will cost more money, but it will be only a six-month thing, so it will be an acceleration of the rise people are going to get next year. If they are going to get 8% next April because their energy and food bills have shot up before next winter, give them some or all of that rise before next winter so that they have a fighting chance of being able to get through next winter. That would be a simple thing for the Government to do.
It is tempting to say, “We can wait to the autumn to make that decision”, but part of the reason we are in this mess is that we have had to use September’s inflation number to drive the April state pension increase. If that logic is true and we have to have six months’ warning, we have to use March’s inflation to have a pension rise in October, so we are going to have to make a decision next month. I urge the Chancellor to say to pensioners in the spring statement, “We understand how hard this will be for you. If this problem persists, before next winter we will give you some extra money through a state pension rise of a few more per cent. to give you a bit more money so that you do not have to be saving and penny-pinching. You will have enough to heat and eat through next winter. We will find a way to do that.” I urge the Chancellor to do that on Wednesday.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
Thank you for calling me so early in the debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. I want to begin by talking about energy bills and putting on record my thanks to Helen and Joanna at the North Lancashire citizens advice bureau, whom I spoke to today specifically about energy bills for my older constituents. I thank them and all the other staff at the CAB, who support my constituents right across Lancaster and Fleetwood on a whole matter of issues, as people often feel they have nowhere else to go.
On energy bills, one thing that has not been mentioned much is something that affects my rural constituents. I have been approached in the past couple of weeks by a couple in the Ellel area of Lancaster who have turned off their oil-fired heating as there is no price cap on heating oil and with the prices of oil trebling they have been left particularly vulnerable. Often such people are in poorly insulated houses off the grid, and I call on the Minister to do something to support rural pensioners who are feeling this acutely.
These issues are not just being faced in the rural areas of my constituency. A pensioner I was speaking to on Russell Grange Lane in Fleetwood, a much more urban area, is struggling with the rising energy bills. By way of an example, let me say that she lives alone and is receiving the state pension, and her gas bill has risen recently from £85 a month to £114 a month. That is an increase of 34%, but her pension is going to rise by only 3.1%, or about £5.50. She is really concerned about how she is going to be able to afford food, as food prices are going up, and whether she is going to be able to make ends meet. Pensioners spend twice as much of their money on energy bills as the under-30s, so this is a cost felt acutely by pensioners.
Helen told me that we are now in the worst situation since she joined the CAB in 1992. She said that in most cases there was almost nothing they could do to help clients whose benefits or pensions are not enough to live off and that they could only refer them for emergency food parcels. They have then exhausted that limited charitable help available. That is probably reflected right across the country. I do not think that Lancaster and Fleetwood is particularly unique in experiencing that. What has changed in the six years I have represented the constituency is the number of pensioners approaching me to say how much they are struggling. I have noticed that increasing in the past couple of years and, in particular, in the past couple of weeks. A man approached me in Macbeth Road to tell me that he felt utterly betrayed by the breaking of the triple lock on pensions and how it means that his pension will not keep up with rising costs. People feel like this not just about energy costs and pensions, but about, for example, the betrayal on the TV licence for the over-75s, which was a point raised recently with me by a constituent from Agnew Road.
With almost one in five pensioners living in poverty—of course, that will be many more if this Government do not take action—I will continue to support my constituents as best as I can, as will my local food banks, the citizens advice bureaux, churches and charities such as Age UK Lancashire. I will do things such as promote the awareness of pension credit. With around 850,000 older people currently missing out on that benefit, many of them will be in my Lancaster and Fleetwood constituency, and I will do what I can to raise awareness.
As Martin Lewis said on television yesterday, we can only do so much to try to teach people to save money if the amounts are getting smaller, bills are going up and petrol prices are rising, because the rest, frankly, is politics. I wanted to speak in this evening’s debate to highlight the fact that this effect has been felt right across my constituency, from the urban Warren area of Fleetwood right through to rural areas in Ellel just outside Lancaster, which makes me think that it is probably being felt right across the country. We now need Government action to tackle pensioner poverty, which is acute and real.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I will try to get everybody in with relatively equal time, so I am dropping the time limit to four minutes.
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)
I hope that I can stick to the time limit, Mr Deputy Speaker. I know that you will ensure I do.
The global pandemic and the increase in wholesale energy costs have put an enormous strain on household budgets, and I believe that the Government have provided a strong package of measures to mitigate the effects, delicately balancing support for the economy and for our pensioners. However, I feel that this debate is a little premature bearing in mind that we are hearing from the Chancellor in two days’ time.
We have provided a package of £9.1 billion to help households across the UK with the cost of their energy bills, building on cold weather payments, winter fuel payments and the warm home discount. As the Secretary of State said, that builds on other support, including the £150 council tax rebate, the £200 smoothing payment, and the £150 million being given to local authorities to help those in properties outside bands A to D.
Alongside that, pension credit offers a real helping hand with living costs for people on low incomes, and we know that it is chronically underclaimed. In Darlington, almost £4 million is unclaimed, and I am doing all I can to support increasing take-up. I am delighted to hear that the Minister has written to all the local newspapers, and I hope that he sent letters to the Darlington & Stockton Times and The Northern Echo to ensure that take-up increases in my constituency. Let us not forget that pension credit is the doorway to other benefits, such as a free TV licence and cold weather payments.
Our levelling-up White Paper announced the creation of a new taskforce to look at ways to provide greater security, choice and quality for housing for older people, planning for the future to ensure that pensioners are comfortable in their homes during their retirement. More widely, we have a strong record of delivering for pensioners. Since 2010, the state pension has increased by 35% when, in the same period, inflation measured 22% and wages increased by 27%. This year alone we are spending £129 billion on pensioners—more than any other Government—allowing us to reduce absolute pensioner poverty by 200,000 people across the country. In-work pensioners will also benefit from the increase in the national living wage—a benefit of almost £1,000 a year for nearly 2 million people.
Under the last Labour Government, pensioners suffered. We had the fourth-highest level in Europe of pensioner poverty among the over-65s. The level of the state pension stagnated, and they had no long-term plan for pensioners. This Government are delivering for pensioners, and I know that they will continue to do so long into the future.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
The respected Joseph Rowntree Foundation annual poverty report shows increasing poverty over people’s life course—children, working age adults and pensioners. Both the JRF and the Equality and Human Rights Commission say that the key determinant of this rise in poverty is our inadequate social security system, which has been decimated over the last 12 years. The safety net that should be there for all of us in our time of need, providing dignity in retirement, is failing us—it just is not there—and it was doing so before the energy crisis.
Professor Sir Michael Marmot has identified the declining value of social security support and the lack of protection that this provides as contributing to the fall in life expectancy of those on the lowest incomes. More than 14.5 million people in this country are living in relative poverty—that is more than one in five of us—and using the JRF figures we see pensioner poverty increasing by 500,000 since 2010 to 2 million.
Pensioners living on their own, predominantly women, are particularly at risk of poverty. They account for 1.2 million of the 2 million pensioners living in poverty, and we see an associated decline in women’s life expectancy and healthy life expectancy. I hope the Government will bear that in mind as they embark on their consultation on the state pension age. I know the Pensions Minister feels this keenly, but I offer a gentle reminder that groups representing women born in the 1950s estimate that between 2010 and 2020 more than 80,000 older women died before becoming eligible for their state pension, after their pension age was increased from 60 to 66, catching many unawares.
In the remaining time available to me, I want to talk about disabled people living in poverty. The report published last year by the all-party group on health in all policies, which I was involved in developing, shows the savage impact of a slew of social security policies on disabled people in particular. The EHRC estimates that disabled families have lost £3 out of every £10, and similar figures have been produced by the Disability Benefits Consortium. As we know, we have record levels of in-work poverty—work no longer protects people from poverty—but what about those who cannot work because of sickness or disability? We must never forget that nine out of 10 disabilities are acquired. It could happen to any of us. We could be walking down the road and have an accident, or we could contract an illness. In a civilised society that is one of the richest in the world, one would expect that, just as we have the NHS, we would have the disability protection that that affluence affords, but we do not.
The social security cuts and the extra costs people face by virtue of their disability mean that disabled people are the most likely to live in poverty. Of the 14 million disabled people in this country, a third are living in poverty. Where is the adequate system for them?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Sorry, but we are under pressure of time. The wind-ups will begin no later than 9.40 pm, and anyone who has participated in the debate is expected to be here for them.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
Last Saturday, like many hon. Members across the House, I was undertaking street surgeries and knocking on doors in my constituency. I spoke to several tens of pensioners, and it is absolutely right to say that the cost of living crisis is very much an issue, but it was also noticeable that people understand and recognise the causes of the crisis—the post-covid supply bottlenecks and, increasingly, the price that we all have to pay to support Ukraine and stand up to Russian aggression. I found universal support for the Government’s strong position and recognition that if we do not stand up to President Putin now, we will only make him stronger and ourselves weaker.
Although residents understand the causes, that does not make the cost of living crisis any less real, particularly in rural areas such as mine in Broadland where car transport is a necessity and homes are often heated by oil. People on fixed incomes are most vulnerable to inflation, which is why the Conservative Government over the past decade have done so much to raise pensions from the lows of the last Labour Government. In 2010, Labour spent £70 billion on pensions. The Conservatives have increased that by £35 billion—a 35% increase—while inflation, at 22%, amounts to a 13% real terms increase. Average earnings have been outstripped by pensions growth by 8% during this period. It is the case that state pensions are now at their highest, relative to earnings, for 24 years. It is so different from Labour, famous for its 75p increase in pensions.
Pensions are not just state pensions. Some 88% of all eligible employees are now participating in a private pension. That is not by chance; it is as a direct result of innovative Government policy. Pre auto-enrolment, fewer than 50% of workers benefited from an additional pension. Because of Government intervention an additional £28.4 billion has been saved every year since 2012 and continuing, raising living standards for pensioners of the future.
The Government are not just relying on years of pension increases, but are taking further steps to help pensioners with increased energy costs. We have already heard about the cold weather payment scheme, which provides £25 per cold weather week for those on pension credit, income support, income-based jobseekers’ allowance, income-related employment and support allowance or universal credit.
We have heard about the warm home discount, with an additional payment of £150 increased to 3 million households most in need. We have also heard about a reduction in council tax of £150 this year for council tax bands A to D, and the £200 of delayed payments for energy bills this autumn to help flatten the impact of the spike in energy prices. Then there is £144 million of discretionary fund. The two councils in my patch are considering applying that to oil heating support.
In addition to all those schemes, we know about the pension credits, which are guaranteed to top up weekly income to the equivalent of £9,200 a year. It is very heartening to hear the Government’s strenuous efforts to increase the take-up of that scheme. We have the spring statement later this week. I, like many others, am hopeful that there will be additional assistance with the cost of living, particularly for pensioners and particularly for rural areas, such as the one that I am lucky enough to represent.
I know that the Chancellor will continue to do all he can to support pensioners and others on lower incomes. If he does so, he will be building on a decade of support by Conservative Governments.
Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
I rise to speak in favour of the motion, which clearly highlights the fact that older people and pensioners are really at the sharp end of the Tory cost of living crisis, and that they urgently need Government assistance. There are 2.1 million pensioners living in poverty, and there has been an increase in older people’s poverty from 13% to 18%, according to most recent data.
We also know that pensioners are more likely to live in fuel poverty. Age UK reported that, by October of this year, pensioners could be using up to 20% of their income on fuel.
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent point on the impact of energy bills on pensioners. Pensioners in my constituency of Coventry North West are having to spend twice as much on their energy bills compared with those under 30. Does she agree that this Conservative Government need to do much more to support pensioners to weather the storm of this horrible cost of living crisis?
Beth Winter
I fully agree with my hon. Friend. Indeed, this Government have an absolutely appalling record. It is financial punishment for older people. I never cease to make reference to the fact that behind these statistics are real people. In my constituency in Cynon Valley, older people are disproportionately affected by the cost of living crisis. We have an older housing stock—terraced housing—and high levels of health inequality.
To add insult to injury, two of the campaigns I am involved with in my constituency show that older people are being short-changed by billions of pounds. I refer to the Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign and the Mineworkers Pension Scheme. I thank in particular Mi Morgan and her husband in Cilfynydd in my constituency, who work tirelessly on the Mineworkers Pension Scheme campaign, and Dilys Jouvenat, who leads the WASPI campaign back home in Cynon Valley.
People who have helped all their lives to build this country and their communities are suffering, and this Government are not responding to their needs. The cost of living crisis is driven by the Tories’ betrayal of their manifesto pledge to maintain the triple lock and by the regressive tax increases on working pensioners. Perhaps most importantly, it is being driven by inflation outstripping salaries, social security and pension payments, and all that is happening on the Tory Government’s watch.
On national insurance, under the Chancellor’s plans, around 1.3 million working pensioners will be asked to pay the health and social care levy through national insurance. Labour is calling on the Government to halt their poorly-thought-through tax rises, particularly when there are people with broader shoulders who could take the burden that must be borne.
Worst of all, the Tories have chosen to impose a real-terms cut to state pensions this April by sticking to last September’s rate of inflation, which was 3.1%. We know the rate of inflation is likely to be much higher than that. That is why last month in this Chamber I warned that the proposed pensioner up-rating order would increase the level of pensioner poverty in this country, and supported the Child Poverty Action Group, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and other organisations that called for a 6% increase—and indeed we need an even higher increase now, given the likely coming rise in inflation. The 3.1% increase in pensions is an absolute insult to older people in our country.
I will quicky refer to what is happening in Wales, where the Welsh Government are trying to take action. In their recent budget, they extended eligibility criteria for the winter fuel scheme to more people, which has been welcomed by groups such as the Bevan Foundation. The Older People’s Commissioner for Wales has announced an action plan: in addition to extending the eligibility criteria, she says we must maintain that for the second payment due later this year, and that we need a plan published for increasing the take-up of pension credit. Recently the Welsh Affairs Committee, on which I sit, published a report on the benefits system in Wales, noting that much greater awareness raising of people’s entitlements to benefits is needed, because a total of £1.7 billion in pension credit went unclaimed last year.
The UK Government must take urgent action. Some of the things they could do include increasing their financial offer to cushion the rise in energy bills through a windfall tax on those who can afford it, cutting VAT on energy bills and cutting the national insurance rise. The 3.1% rise in pensions, when the Bank of England is hinting that inflation may hit 10%, tells us all we need to know. The Chancellor must act this week. I urge hon. Members to support this motion.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
One person has withdrawn unexpectedly, so I think we are able to go back to five minutes. Ian Byrne, it is Christmas.
Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
The fear being felt across this nation is palpable. Millions, including pensioners, are worried about whether they will freeze or starve in their homes. In the fifth richest country in the world, how has this injustice been allowed to happen? That is the position so many face, due to political choices taken in this House. Shamefully, the figures show that one in five pensioners in the UK is living in poverty, 1.3 million retirees are undernourished and 25,000 die each year due to cold weather.
Food and energy bills are rising at the highest rates in 30 years. It is immoral that the Government have chosen this moment to force through a real-terms cut to the state pension of £388 this year—a state pension, let us remember, that is already one of the least supportive by international comparison. In November, I asked the Minister:
“What impact assessment has the Department for Work and Pensions made of scrapping the triple lock, and how many more pensioners in Liverpool, West Derby will be living in poverty and unable to afford food as a result?”—[Official Report, 8 November 2021; Vol. 703, c. 16.]
I was not given an answer, so I ask again on their behalf: what impact assessment has been made? I would like to touch on the impact of the cost of living crisis on the 5,360 women in Liverpool, West Derby who were affected by the changes made to the women’s state pension age by the Pensions Act 1995, 4,000 of whom were further affected by the Pensions Act 2011, which accelerated the increases to ages 65 and 66. It is clear from the correspondence I have received and from speaking to people in our area just how much hurt has been caused by the actions of the DWP, as women who were paying in with the expectation of a set retirement date had that taken away from them without proper notice.
Guy Opperman
I notice that the hon. Gentleman jumped through the 13 years of the Labour Government on state pension age increases when there was the same policy, including a pensions Act that raised the state pension. With great respect, this Government and the coalition Government have increased the state pension exactly in line with the policies of the Labour Government in the 13 years that they were in power. There is no difference.
Ian Byrne
I thank the Minister for that intervention. I will go on to the issue of full restitution shortly.
The harm caused by this situation goes beyond just financial matters. Many women who are facing this unjust situation have faced huge disruption to their lives, their wellbeing, their work and their plans for themselves and their families—and now the cost of living crisis has worsened this dire situation even further. I would like to read out some of the correspondence I have received from women affected. One said:
“As a single parent with a dependent child and caring for elderly parents, it was terrible to discover the huge financial loss caused by the Government removing my state pension for 6 years with no notice. Near destitution was the result, despite me and my employers paying National Insurance contributions for 45 years.”
Another email said:
“I like millions of other 50’s women never received an official letter from the state informing me that the pension age was changing and allowing me time to build up a private pension, which I never had. All my money went towards paying a mortgage as no council houses were ever available. Rightly or wrongly, I chose not work when my children were born so that I could spend as much time with them as possible while they were young. My plans for the future were to retire at 60 and finally spend time with my Mother, time that my siblings and I never had growing up as she was always working. The Government robbed me, not just financially but in so many other ways.”
It is unacceptable that the Government have so far refused to act to right this wrong. I urge Members in all parts of the House to support my early-day motion 906 on providing full financial restitution to women born in the 1950s.
Pensioner poverty is a political choice, fuel poverty is a political choice, and hunger is a political choice: all choices made by this Government that could be reversed if Conservative Members had the political will to do so. Let us hope they start this week with the Chancellor’s spring statement.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
When I was little, I grew up next door to a wonderful couple called Marg and Ray. Marg was like a grandma to me. Sometimes when Mum was busy with my younger sister, she used to send me with a box of toys through the hole in the fence to Marg and Ray’s for the day to be looked after by Marg. I remember very distinctly a few times walking with her to the post office where she would go and get her pension, in cash, then coming back and sitting chatting to her in the room where we spent most of our time. There was a big sideboard in there and she would put different parts of cash into different areas of it. When I asked what she was doing, she would say, “That’s the money for my electric bill and that’s the money for this other bill”, separating out all the cash into the different compartments. She was terrified of getting into debt. Although she did not have much money, she never owed anybody anything, and she was fiercely proud of that.
When I was out recently talking to residents in the Pickering ward in Hull, I met some people who reminded me exactly of her. I talked to one elderly lady who told me the same thing about how she had never owed anyone anything. She was fiercely proud of the fact that she would never owe anyone a penny. I was trying to talk her into setting up a direct debit. I said, “If you set up a direct debit for your council tax and your bills, you get them cheaper.” She said, “No, I’m not setting up a direct debit. I couldn’t be owing them that money—I wouldn’t know what was going out each week or each month.” She was absolutely opposed to the idea of having a direct debit even though I was saying that she was paying more for her energy bills because she had a prepayment meter.
I have brought to the Minister’s attention before the issue of people with the least money paying the most—the poverty premium—and I will talk about it briefly now. I have spoken to many elderly people who have prepayment meters because they have a traditional and, I have to say, probably quite right idea that people should not owe money and should pay for what they want up front. It is not a fair system, however, as I have discussed with the Minister in the Treasury Committee; I hope that those conversations will be ongoing about how we can fully address the poverty premium.
A study by Fair By Design has shown that the poverty premium costs the average low-income household an extra £490 a year—that is how expensive it is to be poor. For more than one in 10 of those households, however, it costs an extra £780 a year. It is not a fair system. To give other examples of the poverty premium, it is why people end up paying more for car insurance or life insurance in areas of greater deprivation and why people pay more for credit and for all financial services when they have the least money. Our system is set up at the moment so that the poorer someone is, the more they pay. That is not fair and it is a huge contributing factor to the cost of living issues that pensioners face.
The highest poverty premium in Hull West and Hessle is area-based insurance. Constituents currently pay in total £1.3 million more for their insurance if their postcode is considered higher risk. As I say, I have mentioned that to the Minister before and he acknowledged that there is more to be done. When he comes to the Dispatch Box, I hope that he will talk more about what exactly will take place.
I intervened on the Secretary of State earlier to draw attention to concerns around the prepayment meter and how exactly people will get the £200 back, but there is also an issue with the direct debit. We have a situation in Hull where the money back on council tax was meant to be paid to people through reductions in their direct debit, but, of course, families who are in insecure work—not just pensioners—will face problems: they do not set up direct debits because they cannot guarantee how much money they will have each month.
Although I believe that the Minister is trying to take some actions to address the issue, there is a failure to really understand what life is like for many people who do not have direct debits and who are still scared of debt and use prepayment meters. The failure to design policies that address the poverty premium mean that, once again, the poorest pay the most.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
Increasing numbers of pensioners in my constituency have been reaching out to me in recent weeks, because they face the real choice of heating or eating. It seems unfair that while some businesses have made enormous profits from the pandemic and the energy price hike, individuals face financial ruin for exactly the same reasons.
A retired couple in my constituency wrote to tell me that the combined impact of removing the triple lock on pensions, the increase in energy prices, and the Conservative-led Shropshire Council’s maximum 4.9% council tax rise this year means that they can no longer afford to heat and eat. They worked throughout their adulthood before retiring, but their energy bill has increased from £960 a year to more than £2,400. Every week, there are stories of people from all parts of society reporting the same issues, such as that they can afford to heat only one room of their house and they are experiencing damp inside. Citizens Advice has even told me that it has had someone who is afraid to boil the kettle for a cup of tea because their financial situation is so precarious.
In more rural parts of Britain, as hon. Members have said, there is an additional element to the energy cost crisis: people whose homes are off grid or rely on oil or liquefied petroleum gas to heat them are not protected by the energy price cap. They have to pay huge amounts up front to fill their tanks and in addition, there are now shortages of heating oil and rationing. I have constituents in their 70s who have no access to heating or hot water, let alone the means to pay for the fuel if it were available. We desperately need the energy price cap to be extended to heating oil and LPG to protect people who live in isolated areas.
It is not all about energy either. Elderly residents in rural communities are most likely to be isolated without access to a car or public transport and without a computer to shop online. Research by Citizens Advice Shropshire shows that a basket of essential items is up to two and a half times more expensive in a local village shop than in a town-based supermarket, so our pensioners are being hit really hard by this cost of living crisis. It is so extensive this time around that it is hitting households who have not previously faced fuel poverty, and those who, sadly, are only too used it are seeing a crisis like never before.
It is just not right that this is being allowed to continue while companies that extract oil and gas reap billions as a result of what, for them, are purely lucky circumstances. It is desperately unfair. Tax, benefits and pensions should be fair, and should be used to protect the vulnerable. That is why I support, among other measures, a windfall tax on oil and gas companies and a temporary reduction in the rate of VAT, and I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement earlier that the Government will honour their own manifesto commitment to reinstate the triple lock on pensions.
It is also essential for the Government to take more effective action to ensure that those who are eligible for pension credit are aware of that fact and are able to access it. As many people have mentioned, it is estimated that more than £1.5 billion goes unclaimed every year, and yet it is a key to unlock all sorts of other essential benefits. Surely it should now be a priority to ensure that all of those who are eligible are accessing all of the help available to them. Every day that goes by is another day of deep concern for our pensioners. I think the time to act for them was months ago, but I hope the Chancellor has a set of meaningful measures to announce in his statement on Wednesday, because although it may already be too late, I hope it is not too little for North Shropshire’s pensioners.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I do apologise, Wendy. I hinted that you would have come in a bit earlier, so you may as well come in now—my error.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
That is very kind of you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Before Christmas, a constituent reached out to me to tell me about his mother. She had recently died, and when dealing with her affairs, he was distraught to discover that she had died with no money in the bank and with unpaid bills stacking up. She had worked hard, paid into the system and raised her family, and what she was left with was not enough. Of course, there was nothing I could do for his mother, though he was obviously extremely distraught to think that she had experienced that anxiety in the latter days of her life, but he wanted me to be aware of the cost pressures that pensioners face and to do what I could to stop older people ending up in the same position.
We know that my constituent’s mother is far from the only pensioner to have had to live in poverty and make the choice between heating or eating. That sounds like a cliché, but I am the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on ending the need for food banks, and we hear in our inquiry sessions of people going without. They do not have the patience or the time to wait for the Chancellor’s statement. For many, the Government’s recent actions have pushed them over the edge, with the real-terms cut to the state pension by abandoning the triple lock and the failure to respond to the cost of living crisis.
In her opening remarks, the Secretary of State said two things. She said that the triple lock had been paused because the pandemic had caused an unexpected, unplanned or out-of-the-ordinary increase in inflation, but that the cost of living crisis was due to multiple factors. Can we just accept that covid is one of multiple factors that has caused the cost of living crisis?
I have always said that the state pension is not just about pensioners now; it is about people in the future. Young people who cannot get on to the property ladder, cannot get a mortgage or are in insecure employment need to know that there is a state pension for them in the future that will support them. This evening, I was at the Gingerbread single-parent family reception downstairs, and it was pointed out to me that many single parents do not qualify for auto-enrolment because they do not earn enough. That is another reason why it is even more important that the state pension is viable if private pensions are not going to be there to support people in the future.
Research by Independent Age has shown that, in 2018-19, only 60% of those entitled to pension credit were receiving it. If those extra 40% of people were reached, 440,000 pensioners would be lifted out of poverty, as others have mentioned. I was pleased that a recent DWP response to a written question of mine said that it was currently estimating that there had been a 30% increase in new claims in 2021 compared with 2020, or approximately 31,000 new claims. However, that figure does not tell us if any of those claims come from pensioners in older age groups who were already missing out on pension credit, or if they are from people newly reaching pension age. We know that there are 80,000 more people reaching pension age each year than the year before, so a figure of 31,000 could just mean that 49,000 are not receiving it when they are entitled to do so. There does not seem to be targeted awareness-raising. We have agreed across this House that we must do as much as possible to ensure that those who qualify for pension credit get it. I want to understand what the Department for Work and Pensions can do to upgrade its systems and identify those who might be eligible or potentially assess broad geographical areas where there are low take-up rates. What is it doing to ensure its messaging is reaching those it needs to reach, and is it conducting any critical analysis?
We know some groups are especially likely to be in poverty in later life and that is linked to underpayment of pensions. My friend and former colleague the former Liberal Democrats pensions Minister Steve Webb has been mentioned this evening and I am grateful to him for his work around that. However, as has been mentioned this evening, divorced women are explicitly being excluded from the LEAP—legal entitlements and administrative practice—exercise. Dealing with pensions on divorce is incredibly complicated—such as the allocation of one person’s potential future pension rights to another’s. It is hard to understand why the Department thinks there can have been no error in the payment of pensions under these complicated arrangements considering some of the basic errors made in other areas. My hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green) presented a private Member’s Bill on my behalf just two weeks ago while I was off with covid; it would include divorced women in this exercise. I ask the Minister to consider supporting my Bill, or to set out either this evening or in the fiscal statement why he will not do so.
Bills are increasing dramatically now. It has taken 35 years for underpayments of some state pensions to be identified, but pensioners on the poverty line cannot wait that long. The Government must now act to address this crisis both historically in terms of their own failings and given the current cost of living crisis.
Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind)
Older people and pensioners are being disproportionately affected by the Government’s cost of living crisis. Office for National Statistics research shows that pensioner households are having to spend more per week than other age groups. With the energy price cap increasing and protections decreasing, a typical pensioner household’s bills will be fourfold what they were, just to keep warm. The ONS also found that a higher proportion of older people live in the least energy-efficient houses.
In September 2021, the Government announced that they intended to remove the earnings link to the state pension triple lock and downgrade to a double lock of prices or 2.5%, as they say they are unwilling to increase the state pension given the economic pressures of the pandemic being felt by other sectors of society. Today the Government say there will be no U-turn. They should properly clarify their position; they should commit to the triple lock now—not next year, now.
The Government uprated the state pension this April by 3.1%, less than half the forecast rate of inflation for this year. For an individual in receipt of the full state pension the reduction is nearly £400 a year in real terms. Rather than levelling down the state pension due to the cost of living crisis that they themselves are responsible for, the Government should abandon their zero-sum economic mindset, reinstate the triple lock and level up their economic support to all demographics, including full restitution to women born in the 1950s who have lost their pensions from the age of 60. And of course all of this should be funded through taxation on corporations and the super-rich.
From the 2023-24 financial year, around 1.3 million working pensioners will be asked to pay the health and social care levy, a 1.25% tax hike. Across the UK, there are around 1.3 million working pensioners who could face paying the levy, including 91,100 in the east midlands. This Government only raise funds by squeezing the struggling many, while allowing the astronomical wealth of the few to grow continually. The Government should scrap the national insurance hike and replace it with a wealth tax. Shamefully, after 12 years of Conservative government, there are half a million more pensioners living in poverty; the figure increased from 1.65 million in 2010 to over 2.1 million in 2020. The rate of pensioner poverty rose from 14% in 2010 to over 18% in the year before the pandemic. Age UK has also warned that an estimated 150,000 additional pensioner households are likely to be pushed into fuel poverty this winter, taking the number of fuel-poor older households to over 1.1 million this spring.
It is intolerable that the Government have presided over the normalisation of widespread pensioner poverty. They must act now to end the cost of living crisis and prevent the further impoverishment of older people and pensioners.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)
It is clear from the absence of Conservative Members that this Government do not care about pensioner poverty, but even before the pandemic, people in Liverpool, Riverside and constituencies across the country faced significant financial difficulties, with the roll-out of universal credit, the impact of the bedroom tax, the increase in unscrupulous employers using precarious zero-hours contracts, and the stagnation in welfare benefits and pensions. It is a sad indictment of this nation that our pensioners now face the prospect of real-terms reductions in their state pension, with cuts of hundreds of pounds a year.
The Government, having failed to take action on household energy bills, now propose to make people take out a loan—to be spread over five years—to cover the spiralling cost. That is wholly unacceptable. Pensioners face the prospect of a crippling cost of living crisis, with petrol, food and energy bills skyrocketing, and an increase in food banks.
While inflation is set to increase to over 8% and home energy bills to skyrocket by more than 50%, what have this Government chosen to do? Have they chosen to go after the billionaires, or the oil and gas giants, which tell people to wrap up in layers or hug a cat to keep warm? No, they have chosen to place the burden on those least likely to be able to afford it. This Government have once again chosen to attack the worst off, offering a pitiful 3.1% increase to pensioners and those on benefits.
Twelve years of austerity cuts—a political decision—have meant that one in five pensioners is living in poverty and half a million more are living in debt. They are living in poorly insulated homes and paying more for energy on prepayment meters, which means that the small amount of money they have has to stretch further. My constituency has some of the highest levels of in-work poverty in the country, and almost one in five people in my constituency is over 60.
The cost of living crisis is impacting constituents in Liverpool, Riverside, with 85% experiencing more expensive energy bills and nearly 70% paying more for fuel and transport. Nearly one third of the constituents I represent have lost income due to the cut in universal credit. The 54% increase in fuel costs will push more constituents into financial crisis at a time when the profits of gas and oil giants have soared. Can the Minister tell us what is stopping the Government capping energy price rises, as France has, at 4%?
The condition of housing stock is a real concern. One in five homes headed by someone aged 60 or older is so poor that it impacts their health and wellbeing. Last year, almost 9,000 people died in England and Wales because their homes were too cold and damp. We are the fifth richest country in the world; elderly people should not be dying because they are unable to heat their homes. Everyone deserves to grow old in dignity, but here, in the fifth richest country in the world, we are forcing the oldest generations into desperate poverty and making them choose between heating and eating. The Government must choose to protect the people they are here to serve, and not the wealthy companies that have benefited financially through the pandemic. Will the Minister commit to Labour’s plan for a windfall tax on energy giants to ensure the cost of living crisis is borne by those with the broadest shoulders?
The Minister mentioned earlier that the Government are doing their best, but their best clearly is not good enough. They need to accept the catastrophe they are causing, tax the billionaires and energy giants to cushion the living costs of those most in need, and reinstate the triple lock immediately. The ugly truth of the matter is that thousands of people will not survive the cost of living crisis unless the Government act immediately.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
Pensioners across the country are on the brink of financial hardship. Currently, nearly one in five pensioners—2 million people—live in poverty and over half a million have been forced into debt over the past decade. The number of older people renting rather than owning their homes has reached an all-time high. At its heart, this is a class issue. The most vulnerable people are left to suffer. It is a class issue exacerbated by over a decade of Tory rule. The public share the utter indignation of those of us on the Opposition Benches: more than 80% of respondents to a YouGov poll commissioned by the Centre for Ageing Better stated that the Government are failing to ensure a decent life for older people.
My constituents and the wider public recognise the increased hardship for what it is: a political choice by this Conservative Government. Spiralling inflation, soaring energy bills, rising petrol prices, a real-terms cut to the state pension and a tax rise on working pensioners—this toxic combination will have a devastating impact on pensioners’ living standards, and threaten the health and wellbeing of those most vulnerable. The Government’s state pension real-terms cut alone will mean that individual pensioners will be £222 worse off per year and couples £335 worse off per year.
Abandoning the pension triple lock in the midst of the cost of living crisis is irresponsible policy making. That is before we even consider the energy crisis, which will disproportionately impact older people as they are more likely to live in the least energy efficient homes. According to House of Commons Library estimates, the energy price cap, which has already gone up by 12%, may increase significantly more to 29% in April. This would mean energy bills increasing by around £341 a year per person for a typical household aged 65 and over. Working pensioners are likely to be £1,400 worse off over the next two years due to a mix of soaring prices, a tax hike and a lower state pension. That is 1,170,000 working pensioners across the east of England out of pocket. Even before the pandemic, 40% of over-50s had savings of £3,000 or less. What are the Government doing to ensure that older people will not be forced to run down their savings during this cost of living crisis?
The Conservative party seems incapable of devising solutions to fix the cost of living crisis. Older people across the country need concrete action in Wednesday’s spring statement. Without a plan, the Government will knowingly leave older people exposed to the crisis. They must consider measures like those in Labour’s plan, which would cut household energy bills by up to £600, scrap the unfair tax hike and commit to protecting pensioners’ financial situations in the long term. After a lifetime of contributing to our country, older people deserve security and prosperity.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to sum up in today’s important debate on behalf of the official Opposition.
I would like to start by thanking Members from across the House who have spoken in today’s debate. I thank the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) for pointing out the pressure on pensioners. The hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) spoke about the need for more Government help, which I thought was telling from a Government Member. My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) spoke movingly about the high energy costs for residents living away from the gas grid. The hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) talked about the need for a long-term plan for pensioners. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) talked about the pressure on disabled people—obviously, many pensioners are disabled. The hon. Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) talked about the cost of living crisis. My hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter)—I hope I have pronounced her constituency correctly—spoke about the need for urgent help for pensioners.
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) talked clearly about the way that pensioners are living in poverty in his seat and across the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) spoke particularly movingly about a whole generation of pensioners. That brought to mind figures from my childhood, and I am sure that we were all touched by her speech.
The hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) spoke about her local pensioners, and the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) talked about pensioners having to choose between heating and eating. The hon. Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe) spoke about pensioners having to pay more to keep warm, and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) mentioned the real-terms cut to the state pension. Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) spoke about the most vulnerable people being left to suffer by the Government.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), the shadow Secretary of State, said, pensioners who have worked hard and paid in all their lives now face an unprecedented cost of living crisis. Food prices are up, energy prices are up and the cost of living is going up. The cost of living is a crisis made in Downing Street, but, sadly, it is felt on every street across this country. Pensioners are at the sharp end, facing the inevitable choice of having to pay for heating or eating. Not since the 1970s have pensioners faced a fall in their standard of living as great as the one that faces them in the next few months.
As I am sure we all agree, the recent events in Ukraine have been absolutely shocking. However, this cost of living crisis predates Putin’s war and his vicious attack on the Ukrainian people. The atrocities unfolding in Europe have brought into stark relief the need for the UK to radically address our energy security. However, it was clear in the autumn that food and fuel prices were rising steeply, yet the Government actually made matters worse, despite all the warning signs. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor decided to break the pension triple lock, breaking their manifesto commitment and betraying the people who are now struggling to pay their weekly food bills.
To add insult to injury, the Government failed to cut energy bills even when it was clear that a windfall tax would have provided the cash to ease heating bills for pensioners. Energy giants are enjoying record profits and see their companies as a “cash machine” at the same time as pensioners face the toughest of choices. We have to ask ourselves: what do the Government have against pensioners? Why is the plight of our pensioners not worthy of intervention by the Government? How can they do so little when we know the consequences will be so dire for so many older people?
Perhaps the Prime Minister and the Chancellor were distracted by the Government’s internal instability following the revelations about parties at No. 10 during last year’s lockdown. Or perhaps they just failed to grasp what it is like to cope on a modest income, as many colleagues mentioned so eloquently today. For whatever reason, I am afraid that the Government have simply failed our pensioners at the very time when pensioners most needed their help.
My right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State summed up well the sorry state that we find ourselves in today. Two million pensioners are living in poverty and that number will only grow because of the choices made by this Government. Some 1.4 million older people are fuel-poor. The scrapping of the triple lock has robbed pensioners of £30 a month, which is a significant amount for people on a fixed income. Energy bills are rising by 54% already and are likely to increase by a staggering further 25% in October. Some 1.3 million working pensioners will be dragged back into taxation though a national insurance rise that will pick their pockets to fund a health and social care levy.
Pensioners are being hit very hard.
Today’s debate has been an important opportunity to raise the very serious cost of living crisis now facing our pensioners.
Matt Rodda
I am afraid that I am out of time. Every Member of the House will have constituents for whom the next few months will be filled with worry about bills. We owe so much to our pensioners. They have worked so very hard and paid in all their lives, raised their families and given so much to our communities. So far, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have failed to listen to pensioners and they have failed to take any meaningful action to help them at this very difficult time. Theirs is a record that they should be ashamed of: the state pension cut; the triple lock abandoned; energy bills up; food bills up; and pensioner poverty up.
The Minister now has a chance to set out what real help the Government are going to offer our pensioners. I hope that he takes this opportunity to show that the Government listen and understand. He has the opportunity, here and now, to give pensioners peace of mind in their most desperate hour of need. Pensioners need to know that help is available. We need urgent action now—please. It is clear that only Labour will help older people, and I commend the motion to the House.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I have heard “Cynon Valley” pronounced in so many different ways over the past 30 years. You pronounced it perfectly.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)
With a mother who was a Llewelyn by birth, I am under tremendous pressure with this speech. I will attempt to address in some detail the points that the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) made.
This year, we will spend more than £129 billion on the state pension and the benefits accrued for pensioners in Great Britain. We have never supported our pensioners with more in this country. That figure includes more than £105 billion on state pension, £5 billion on pension credit, £2 billion on winter fuel payments, £325,000 on cold weather payments so far this winter and £144 million on the warm home discount payments last year.
Before I get into the meat of the debate, may I address one key point? The spring booster campaign was announced today. It is utterly vital that Ministers send out the message from this Dispatch Box that we really want the 5 million people at whom the campaign is targeted to take up the vaccine, which is being offered to adults over the age of 75, care home residents and the most vulnerable over-12s—those who, like me and several other Members of this House, are immunocompromised. Approximately 600,000 people will be sent invitations over this coming week, as I understand it, and 5 million people will ultimately be contacted. I urge everyone, primarily the pensioners with whom we are all concerned today, to apply and to come forward when asked.
Jonathan Ashworth
In a cross-party spirit, may I endorse what the hon. Gentleman says? I shadowed the Department of Health and Social Care for many years, and I completely agree. I want the message to go out across the country that there is no division: everybody who needs the vaccine should get it. I encourage my constituents, his constituents and all hon. Members’ constituents to come forward for the vaccine.
Guy Opperman
The right hon. Gentleman does himself credit with what he says. Much as he did as shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, he seeks cross-party ground where it is right and proper, which I support and really appreciate. We need to get that message across.
I thank all colleagues who have contributed today. As the Secretary of State set out, we are experiencing a period of increasing consumer demand that, together with disruptions to global supply chains and the impact of the war in Ukraine, is definitely placing a strain on household and other finances. The Government recognise that inflation is rising; together with the Bank of England, we are closely monitoring the situation.
I applaud the many Members across the House who have put in detailed recommendations to the Chancellor for the spring statement. I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench have been listening most carefully. In the intervening period, we have taken significant steps to ease the financial pressures by providing a support package worth billions of pounds during this fiscal year and the next.
The state pension is clearly the foundation of support for older people. Over the last two years, the basic and new state pension will have increased by more than 5.6%, taking into account the 2.5% rise this year and the 3.1% rise from this April. There has been much discussion of pension credit, which continues to provide invaluable financial support to approximately 1.4 million vulnerable pensioners. We want all pensioners to claim it.
Peter Gibson
My hon. Friend has had the opportunity to raise the matter of pension credit at the Dispatch Box on several occasions today. What advice can he give Members across the House on engagement with our constituents to raise the profile of that valuable benefit, which opens up the gateway to other benefits and help for pensioners? What help is available from the Department to Members across the House?
Guy Opperman
My hon. Friend is right to raise the issue. A bit like with the jab, we are all responsible for making the case to our constituents that there is huge benefit in what is in reality a passport to several hundred pounds a month—potentially £3,000-plus a year. The stats are extraordinarily good. When we took office in 2010, the take-up was 70%; it is now up to 77%. Obviously we want it to go higher. The take-up figure for guarantee credit is up to 73%, and internal management information suggests that in the 12 months to December 2021, the number of new claims for pension credit was about 30% higher than the figure for the 12 months to December 2019.
My hon. Friend specifically asked what the Government could do. There are a number of things that we have been doing for some time. We set up the pension credit taskforce to work with key stakeholders such as charities—including Age UK, which many Members rightly mentioned and whose representatives we have met several times—the Local Government Association, Virgin Money, and several of the banks. The energy company Centrica is involved, and ITV and the BBC have a key role to play in raising awareness, ensuring that we have greater knowledge of pension credit and that our constituents are aware that the opportunity is out there.
As the Secretary of State said, 11 million letters about the state pension uprating were sent out—that has never been done before—along with copies of the pension credit information factsheet containing information for pensioners so that they could apply. That, too, seems to be making a difference. There was a pension credit awareness day last June, when we worked with the BBC throughout the country. We also worked with the other stakeholders, including Age UK, with which we formed a specific partnership. We have been making the case to local papers: we wrote to all of them on three occasions last year, we did it again this year, and we will continue to do it. Individual Members of Parliament can do a fantastic amount in making the case to their local communities, working with their citizens advice bureaux and Christians Against Poverty groups. Mention has been made today of the older persons fairs, which have been very successful in individual constituencies and have made a big difference to pension credit take-up.
Guy Opperman
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, because he allowed me to intervene on his speech.
Alan Brown
How much extra money do the Government set aside each year on the assumption that there will be a greater uptake of pension credit, and what happens if that sum is not used? Does the Minister agree that any money that is not used for pension credit should be recirculated to support elderly people?
Guy Opperman
I can answer that question easily. There is no limit whatsoever. This is a means-tested benefit which was set up by Gordon Brown. If there were a 100% take-up, the Government would pay. If the take-up is 70%, the Government pay.
I was going to address some of the comments made by the hon. Gentleman in his interesting speech. I genuinely felt that it was the policy of his party to raise fuel duty, which is certainly an interesting approach to cost of living difficulties. He made no mention of the powers conferred by sections 24, 26 and 28 of the Scotland Act 2016 and the capability of his Government to intervene if they should choose to do so—which, to be fair, they have done. The hon. Gentleman shrugs his shoulders and heaves a sigh, but he probably does that when he tries to analyse and understand the policy of that humble merchant banker-crofter the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), whose approach to the state pension is something that we all struggle to comprehend.
I did test the hon. Gentleman by asking him what genuinely was the Scottish National party policy on the state pension in the unlikely event that the Scottish people were unwise enough to choose independence. Is it the old policy that was agreed previously, or is it the new policy of his leader in Westminster that the rest of the UK should pay for this? I genuinely do not understand, and I think one of the reasons why the popularity of independence is falling in Scotland is the fact that the leadership that the hon. Gentleman so strongly supports are not making the case in any way whatsoever.
The arguments of the hon. Members for Cynon Valley, for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) and for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe) centred on the issue of the state pension age. Let me say, with respect, that that is a matter that has been determined by successive Governments. As I pointed out earlier, this Government continued, as did the coalition Government, the policy of the Labour Government under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. I realise that no one is a Blairite any more, but those 13 years saw exactly the same policy. The arguments put forward on that issue were comprehensively rejected by the Court of Appeal.
The situation in respect of energy prices has been addressed in detail by the Secretary of State, but it is right to make the point that the key intervention was announced by the Chancellor on 3 February with a £9.1 billion energy bill rebate, and there is in excess of £12 billion of support over this financial year and the next to ease cost of living pressures. We have set out in sufficient detail the £200 rebate for households, the £150 non-repayable council tax rebate for all households in bands A to D, and the fact that local authorities will in addition have access to £144 million of discretionary funding to support households in need, regardless of their council tax band.
Alex Sobel
I spoke to my constituent Maggie Stead today. Maggie has been diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. She told me that she cannot afford her rising bills on her state pension, and that she sits at home in her hat, scarf and gloves and eats only one meal a day. I am doing everything I can to help Maggie. What can the Minister tell me to tell her about how we can support her, given the ever-increasing energy bills that she cannot afford?
Guy Opperman
Quite clearly she should be contacting her local authority, because several million pounds has been set aside for individual councils up and down the country so that they have the capability to intervene for such constituents. Obviously I would hope the hon. Gentleman has advised her to apply for pension credit, which could unleash £3,000-plus for her, and although I cannot comment on individual circumstances, I presume she will qualify for the winter fuel payment, which runs to £2 billion, the cold weather support payment and the various other supports that exist, including the warm home discount scheme, where payments will increase from £150 in 2022-23, with spending rising from £354 million to £475 million. Pensioner households are able to access the £144 million of discretionary funding from local authorities to support households who need support but are ineligible for council tax rebates.
My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) rightly defended the record of the coalition and of this Conservative Government. I will just briefly remind the House that the change to the state pension that has been taking place under the coalition—to be fair to our Liberal Democratic colleagues—and the Conservative Government has been absolutely transformational. There has been a 35% increase in the state pension, with massively enhanced figures going forward. Without a shadow of a doubt the triple lock, which the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) never mentioned, has had an impact. Not once in any of the 13 years of the Labour Government did they have a triple lock—not once. Gordon Brown famously raised the state pension by 75p in 1999, so I will take no lessons on that from Labour.
My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) is a brilliant champion for his local area, and he was right to say that pensioner poverty has decreased under this Government—
Guy Opperman
Yes, it has. I am terribly sorry to have to point out that on this particular point the hon. Gentleman is utterly wrong. The number of pensioners living in absolute poverty has fallen. There are now 200,000 fewer pensioners in absolute poverty, both before and after housing costs, than there were in 2009-10.
My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) made a very good speech and was right to mention the impact of the Ukraine conflict. He was also right to talk about automatic enrolment, which has transformed private pensions in his constituency, with 2,150 employers supporting 9,000 employees who are saving 8%. That is a cross-party, cross-Government implementation of real impact to address pensioner poverty on a long-term basis. It is a 20-year policy that is transforming this particular situation.
This Government are committed to ensuring that people have security and dignity in retirement. We have recognised and acted on the concerns of pensioners struggling with the cost of living, and we will continue to spend £129 billion on pensioner benefits this year, which includes the £105 billion on the state pension. Obviously there is also the £9.1 billion energy rebate pack and the £2 billion on winter fuel payments and the warm homes discount scheme. I strongly urge the House not to accept this Labour motion.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved.
That this House is concerned that older people and pensioners risk being at the sharp end of the cost of living crisis as a result of spiralling inflation, a lack of Government action on household energy bills, a poorly thought-through tax rise on older people in work and a real-terms reduction to the state pension; notes that the state pension is being cut in real-terms by hundreds of pounds a year and that working pensioners will begin paying the Health and Social Care Levy from next year; regrets that levels of pensioner poverty and pensioner debt have risen over the last decade even before the current cost of living crisis with almost one in five pensioners now living in poverty; and calls upon the Government to cut home energy bills, halt the planned tax rise on working pensioners and ensure older people are protected from the cost of living crisis.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Minister, your pronunciation of “Cynon Valley” was very good as well.
Business without Debate
Delegated Legislation
Petitions
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
Earlier this morning I was at Bannerman High School in Baillieston to sign its anti-racism charter. I am delighted to stand with them on this UN international day for the elimination of racial discrimination. I pay tribute to Ms Morton and Ms Mulholland, who organised today’s signing event.
The petition states:
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to adopt the principles of United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of the United Kingdom,
Notes that pupils in Bannerman High School in the constituency of Glasgow East have adopted an anti-racism charter which will be signed by everyone who studies and works in the school; further notes that the charter will be signed by pupils and staff on the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination; further notes that the charter includes the commitments ‘we will respect everyone’, ‘we will challenge all racist slurs, discrimination, and abuse’, ‘we will report any of the above to a member of staff’, and ‘we will be allies in the fight to end racism for good’; and declares that the charter adopted by students and staff at Bannerman high school should set an examples for other institutions to commit to anti-racist principles, this should include the House of Commons.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to adopt the principles of United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P002720]
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
I rise to present a petition alongside a corresponding online petition signed by over 50,000 people. People face a cost of living emergency, the worst in decades, due to soaring energy bills, falling wages and universal credit cuts, yet the Government are about to make this even worse with their national insurance hike.
The petitioners request that the House of Commons urge the Government to cancel the proposed National Insurance increase and commission an investigation into the feasibility of a wealth tax on the richest 1%.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of the United Kingdom,
Declares that the Government must scrap its plans to hike National Insurance on ordinary working people from April 2022; further that people are already facing huge increases in energy bills, high inflation, real-term wage cuts and cuts to Universal Credit; further that they cannot afford a further tax hike; and further that investigation over the feasibility of a wealth tax on the richest 1% of the UK population should be commissioned by the Government.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to cancel the proposed National Insurance increase and commission an investigation into the feasibility of a wealth tax on the richest 1% of the UK population.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P002721]
Jack Ritchie: Gambling Act Review
(2 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I am grateful to have been granted this debate.
Jack Ritchie was a constituent of mine; an outgoing young man, popular and bright, with lots of friends; a teacher, just starting his career, with everything to look forward to. But in 2017, at the age of 24, he took his life, driven by his addiction to gambling.
I did not know Jack, but I have come to know his story because of his inspirational parents, Liz and Charles, who are with us in the Gallery this evening. They have made it their mission to stop gambling addiction claiming the lives of others, as it does too often—more than 400 people in England alone each year; around 8% of all suicides.
Jack became addicted at the age of 17 when he started playing fixed odds betting terminals at a local bookies with a group of friends in his school lunch hour. Sadly, he was soon hooked, and we know that it is an addiction that comes quickly. Jack moved to online gambling, with products licensed by the Government. When he recognised his addiction, he struggled to break it. He managed to stop for long periods. When he died, he had been pretty much free of gambling for more than a year and a half. He had not gambled at all for five months, but he slipped back on 19 November 2017 and took his life just three days later, after a single day of intense gambling. Although he had lost money through gambling, he died with hardly any debts and with money available in one of his bank accounts. Until I heard Jack’s story, I had always thought the financial consequences of gambling addiction pushed people to suicide, but I learnt that it was the addiction itself that does this; the clinically recognised impact it has on the brain destroys that sense of self. Jack felt that he had lost control of life and would never be free. He felt ashamed and he blamed himself, which is what the industry-promoted responsible gambling model seeks: putting blame for gambling disorder on the individual, convincing them it is their fault, their weakness and their problem to solve.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for holding this debate. Northern Ireland has the highest rate of gambling disorders in the whole UK, with some 2.3% of the adult population addicted. Gambling with Lives is a great charity set up to work with secondary school pupils by grieving parents in Fermanagh who lost their son to suicide. Such charities are wonderful, yet they do not negate the duty on this House to get this right, through the legislation.
Paul Blomfield
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He makes a point I will be reflecting on throughout my contribution. I was saying that the industry promotes this idea of blame on the individual, but when the coroner looked at the evidence at Jack’s inquest he pointed the finger at us, saying:
“Jack didn't understand that being addicted to gambling wasn’t his fault.”
The coroner went on to blame a failure of diagnosis, of treatment and of regulation. That is hugely important, because it resets the approach we have to adopt. It finally moves us away from the vulnerable individuals model of regulation. I welcome the fact that a few days later the Minister recognised that, by saying that
“everyone is at risk of developing”
a gambling disorder.
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
The coroner also said that the services available to Jack were “woeful”. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that until we ringfence a statutory levy that can properly fund, through the NHS, the help, support and education that is required, the services will continue to be woeful and more young men such as Jack could be forced into taking their own lives?
Paul Blomfield
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and pay tribute to the work he does on this issue. He is absolutely right about that and it is a point to which I will be returning.
I joined Liz and Charles to hear the coroner’s verdict on the last day of the inquest. They had secured the first article 2 inquest into a gambling suicide, examining whether any arm of the state had breached its duty to protect Jack’s life. The coroner found multiple failures spanning three Departments, those responsible for regulation, for education and for treatment. These are failures we have the opportunity to address in the review of the Gambling Act 2005. I know that the Minister shares the concern. He has met Liz and Charles, and others, and he has spoken powerfully on the issue, but there will be powerful forces trying to stop him, just as there were when we took on the tobacco industry.
As I said, Jack was still at school when his addiction started, and the coroner highlighted the following:
“The evidence was that young people were the most at risk from the harms of gambling yet there was and still appears to be, very little education for school children on the subject.”
According to research by the University of Bristol, 55,000 children aged 15 and under have a gambling addiction. That is shocking and it is not by chance, as a generation of gamblers are being hooked before they understand the harm. The industry cannot legally aim its advertising at children, but that is the effect. In 2020, Ipsos MORI and the University of Stirling found that 96% of 11 to 24-year-olds had seen gambling marketing in the previous month and were more likely to bet as a result. Nowhere is this more pervasive than in sport and, particularly for young people, in football. Gambling advertising on shirts, in stadiums, on TV and on social media has merged sports and gambling into a single integrated leisure experience. The industry knows what it is doing, and so do the public, over 60% of whom want a total ban on gambling advertising. We could at the very least return to the approach before the 2005 Act, so I hope the Minister will share his thinking on that, particularly in relation to children.
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
As my hon. Friend rightly points out, the regulations are out of touch with the online age. For young people gambling marketing is all-pervasive online in video games and streaming services. We need regulation that is up to date and protects young people from that marketing, including free credit offers, VIP clubs and the whole range of things that bring them into the mechanics of gambling early and powerfully.
Paul Blomfield
My hon. Friend is right. The 2005 Act was flawed, but it did not anticipate how the terrain would change and it is now completely out of date given the challenges we face. Meanwhile, the industry is using every opportunity to exploit people to maximise profits.
The Minister may also reflect on the coroner’s suggestion, as endorsed by the CEO of GambleAware in her evidence, to provide warnings on products saying, “Gambling kills”—just as we did with tobacco. The coroner was also damning of the regulations, saying:
“Despite the system of regulation in force at the time of his death, Jack was able to continue to gamble when he was obviously addicted.”
Despite small changes since 2017, the coroner insisted that “significantly more” needs to be done by the state to protect people. The inquest also revealed the failures in the regulation of dangerous gambling products—some with addiction and at-risk rates of 50%—and the inadequate requirements on operators to intervene and prevent harm. The Gambling Commission must step up its game and take a proactive role in testing and licensing new products, which should be allowed only with safeguards and warnings, and the commission needs to be funded to do that job properly.
The industry must not be given the job of policing itself, and that is a powerful lesson from the inquest. Eighty-six per cent. of its profits come from just 5% of its customers—those who are addicted or at risk of harm. The conflict of interest is clear. Effective regulation starts with protecting those facing harm by tracking their activity across multiple operators, but the industry has been given responsibility for developing a technical solution—the single customer view—to protect those at risk or addicted. The last time the industry was tasked to develop a similar harm reduction tool, GAMSTOP, it dragged its heels for six years, and it failed.
The Betting and Gaming Council has been told to deliver data from its first pilots of the single customer view at the end of March—not far away—so I hope the Minister will update us on what progress, if any, has been made. He should also commit that the single customer view will be put in the hands of a properly resourced and independent body if the BGC fails to deliver what has been demanded by next Thursday.
Linked to that, affordability checks are vital to help addicts and those at risk of harm. Affordability checks for those who lose more than £100 a month gambling would make a profound difference. Some have questioned whether £100 a month is proportionate, but research by the Social Market Foundation found that any affordability checks above that level would continue to allow high losses. Crucially, it would not pick up addiction early enough. Liz and Charles believe that Jack would be alive today if such checks had been in place, flagging his behaviour much earlier and allowing meaningful intervention. He did not lose large sums of money until later, by which time his addiction was entrenched. I ask the Minister to look carefully at affordability checks.
We could also place a duty of care on operators to make them active partners in harm reduction. It would change the landscape, requiring companies do all reasonably possible to avoid harm and allow redress for those who experience it. As well as his thoughts on that, I hope the Minister can share what other regulatory action he is exploring.
As the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) said, the coroner described the warnings, information and treatment as “woefully inadequate”. His prevention of future deaths report states:
“The treatment available and received by Jack was insufficient to cure his addiction—this in part was due to a lack of training for medical professionals around…diagnosis and treatment.”
The coroner highlighted that Jack did not know that his addiction was not his fault. As we move away from the individual responsibility model to a public health approach, we need to change the Gambling Commission’s objective 3 so it has a clear responsibility to minimise gambling harm by protecting the whole population.
Jack was told by health professionals that he had an addictive personality that he would have to learn to live with. He was not diagnosed with gambling disorder. If it had been recognised sooner, if more information had been available to him, to Liz and Charles and to the healthcare professionals he saw, Jack would be alive today. The inquest heard from Dr Matt Gaskell, who leads an NHS northern gambling clinic, that the treatment Jack received was insufficient and that this contributed to his death. Dr Gaskell spoke about the impact gambling has on the brain, causing major changes as addiction develops—and develops quickly. He also underlined that the whole public are at risk, not just a vulnerable few.
We need a new approach that recognises that the problem is with the product, not with the patient, and corresponding public health messaging—an approach that provides early diagnosis and treatment pathways that build on the excellence that exists in the NHS, but make it available to everyone across the country. I recognise that that would require significant additional resource, and there should be no suggestion that the NHS or the taxpayer should have to find that money. We need to adopt the polluter pays principle on this issue as we have on others—that those who create the harm must deal with the damage. The current voluntary arrangements are not up to the task; they will not guarantee the funding we need. We need a statutory levy, independently collected and channelled to the NHS, so that the industry does not have undue influence over its allocation. I hope the Minister agrees.
The coroner’s statement painted a clear picture that gambling led Jack to his death. Jonathan Marron, the director general of the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities at the Department of Health and Social Care, agrees. He told the inquest:
“I don’t think there’s any dispute that there’s an association between gambling and suicide.”
That changes everything. The responsibility to make the change falls to Government and to Parliament. We have it in our hands to prevent more deaths.
Given the seriousness of his findings and the multiple failures he identified, the coroner’s prevention of future deaths report was issued to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care. The Departments have to respond within 56 days giving details of action taken, or proposed to be taken, and setting out the timetable for action. I do not expect the Minister to speak for them all today, or to provide insight into all the discussions in Government, but I hope he will demonstrate that the Government are ready for the scale and pace of action that we need to stop this industry gambling with lives.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Chris Philp)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on securing this important and moving debate, inspired by a young man, Jack Ritchie, whose life was tragically lost as a result of gambling addiction. I join him in paying tribute to Jack’s brave and determined parents, Liz and Charles, who as he says are with us this evening and whom I have had the privilege of meeting on at least three occasions since becoming the Minister responsible in this area, about six months ago, for their campaigning and work to bring something constructive and positive from their son’s tragic death. They have pursued their campaign with great vigour and have succeeded in getting the attention of Government and Parliament, as this evening’s debate clearly demonstrates.
The coroner’s report into Jack’s tragic death is very powerful, and I will turn to its contents in a moment. Clearly, the coroner’s report lays out, as the hon. Member said very eloquently and powerfully, a number of inadequacies and failings. I have in front of me a copy of the coroner’s Regulation 28 report, which says that
“the system of regulation in force at the time of his death did not stop Jack gambling at a point when he was obviously addicted to gambling.”
That was a point that the hon. Member cited in his speech. The second point that it makes, under its section “Matters of Concern” says:
“The warnings Jack received were insufficient to prevent him gambling.”
The record of inquest, a separate document, says:
“The evidence was that gambling contributed to Jack’s death.”
It makes it very clear that there was a link between the two.
I thank the senior coroner for the South Yorkshire West area, David Urpeth, for the time and trouble that he took in preparing this thoughtful report and in writing to us. He said in his report:
“I issue this preventing future death report in the hope that Government finds the concerns raised informative and of assistance, especially at a time they are considering the whole issue of gambling and its regulation.”
We do find the report informative and of assistance, and I am grateful to the coroner, to the family, Liz and Charles, and to everyone who played a part in that inquest for their work in bringing this report to the attention of the House and to the attention of Government.
It is worth putting it on record that there have been some positive changes since 2017, but, clearly, these do not go far enough. Just for the record, it is worth emphasising what those changes are. Clearly, this House voted a couple of years ago, after a powerful public campaign, to reduce the stake on fixed odds betting terminals—the B2 machines—from £100 down to £2 because of the overwhelming evidence that they were causing and fuelling gambling addiction. Gambling on credit cards has now been banned, online slot games have been made safer by design, the age limit for the National Lottery has been increased to 18, and there are tighter restrictions on the VIP scheme. In addition, there are currently two, about to be five, and there will be 15 gambling addiction treatment clinics funded by the NHS long-term plan, but, as I will say in a moment, these measures are not enough by a long chalk and we need to go further.
Ronnie Cowan
I welcome all those measures, but the Government have brought every single one of them to the table kicking and screaming. They have all been from pressure groups outside looking in and saying, “You must change this.” What I want to see is the Government leading by example, particularly when it comes to the entire review of the Gambling Act 2005.
Chris Philp
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I hope that he has heard me speak on these topics relatively frequently, including just a week or two ago, and I hope that he will gather from those comments that he has heard me make—families will say the same thing, as I have spent time with many families over the past few months—that there will not be any kicking or screaming required when it comes to the Gambling Act review, which is now imminent. The evidence that we have seen, including from this coroner’s report and from many other sources, makes the case that we need to go significantly further to make sure that people are appropriately protected.
As Members will appreciate, I cannot pre-announce all the proposals on which we are working that will form part of the White Paper, the Gambling Act review. Clearly, a great deal has changed in the 17 years since 2005 when that Act was passed, not least the explosion of internet gambling, which was not really a phenomenon back in 2005. Since then though, it has exploded. It now represents about half of all gross gambling yield. The nature of the online games, the fact that people can access them 24/7, the fact that frequency of play is very high, and the look and feel of some of the features make them significantly more risky than other forms of gambling, such as gambling in person at a racecourse, playing bingo or playing the National Lottery. All those things can be addictive, but the online games have a much higher risk.
Of course, when the 2005 Act was conceived, that was not appreciated or understood, but it is appreciated and understood now. That is why the gambling review will take the significant additional steps needed to protect people like Jack and to protect everybody who is gambling. We want to be proportionate in taking those steps—we do not want to prevent people who want to gamble on a leisure basis from doing so or put unreasonable obstacles in the way—but we do need to take action.
Another piece of evidence we should all consider in making the case for action is that of the failures being committed today by gambling operators. For example, just a couple of weeks ago one of the major operators —I think it was 888—was fined £9.4 million by the Gambling Commission for a series of failures. Those failures included allowing someone to lose £37,000—not to gamble £37,000, but to lose it—in a very short space of time without any checks or intervention. Obviously, that is an unaffordable amount for almost anybody. It also allowed an NHS worker to have a loss limit set at approximately 90% of their monthly salary.
There was another case where a gentleman was eventually jailed, I think, because he had stolen £15 million to fund a gambling addiction. How can it be possible that someone can be allowed to lose £15 million without appropriate checks? It is just absurd. A further fine was levied against a major gambling operator, which I think was owned as part of the Flutter Entertainment group, which had sent marketing material actively promoting gambling products and promotions to recovering addicts.
Ronnie Cowan
The Minister is correct to point out that 888 was fined £9.4 million for its tardiness, but the point behind this is that the operators decide what rules they implement, because they are governed by their own body, the Gambling Commission, which they fund. 888 is a gambling firm—a bookmaker. It will have weighed up the odds: “Fine me £9 million? I’m making £29 million. I’m making £200 million. If you’re going to fine me £9 million for breaking the rules, I’ll do that anyway.” 888 is a bookie. That is what it does.
Chris Philp
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The reason I highlighted those failings was to make the point that proportionate reform is needed. I agree with him that it is no good the Gambling Commission’s identifying some of those cases after the event—and it by no means identifies all of them; these are just the cases it finds. They are just the tip of the iceberg. The fact that these examples were found after the event is further evidence of the need for appropriate reform. It needs to be proportionate, as I say, but reform is needed.
One area where we can go is using data. I mentioned that online gambling is one of the areas that carry higher risk, unlike betting at a racecourse, for example, which carries a risk, but a significantly lower one. Data should and will enable the Gambling Commission to do a much better job at identifying what the operators are really doing and getting a complete picture of whether they are intervening when people’s gambling patterns of behaviour indicate that there is a problem, which clearly did not happen in Jack Ritchie’s case.
I take the point about the single customer view that the hon. Member for Sheffield Central made. We are watching that extremely carefully and will be commenting further on that in the White Paper. I also take his points about timing and about the need for it to be effective and appropriately overseen and governed.
I also take the hon. Gentleman’s point about the importance of affordability checks. They need to be proportionate and pitched at the right level, but they have a really important role in making sure that some of the situations that I have mentioned, and situations like Jack Ritchie’s, do not occur. The data is available if operators properly use it and if the Gambling Commission has proper access to it to deliver that result. That should be a very significant area of attention in the Gambling Act review that is coming up very shortly.
I repeat my thanks to the hon. Gentleman for convening this debate and for speaking so powerfully and eloquently on this topic. I look forward to working with him, with the shadow Minister and with other colleagues across the House on this issue, which I think commands cross-party support. As we seek to reform our country’s gambling legislation through the review, we do so with cases like Jack Ritchie’s in mind. I know that all of us in this House will be profoundly and powerfully conscious of our duty and our obligation to protect young people like Jack Ritchie and many, many others to make sure that we learn the lessons from his tragic death and so protect our fellow citizens. I conclude by saying once again how grateful we all are for the campaigning and courage of Charles and Liz in bringing this important issue to the attention of the Government and of the House.
Question put and agreed to.