Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Andy McDonald Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 3rd July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

It is genuinely an honour to speak in this debate. There have been some incredible contributions, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) for the way in which she recalibrated the tone of the debate. It got off to an appalling start, so I congratulate her on her tone and the way in which she has engaged in discussion of this vexed issue.

This is a difficult Bill. It is one of the most freedom-damaging, human rights-destroying pieces of legislation that I have ever seen. It is badly drafted and ill thought-through. I take issue with the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). The concept of trying to correct an appalling Bill that cannot be corrected is not one that I share. That said, the Labour party has tabled a reasoned amendment, which rightly declines to give the Bill a Second Reading, and sets out a compelling case as to why it should be given short shrift. I speak in favour and support of the powerful arguments contained in the amendment.

The Bill will, as we have heard, prevent public bodies from making decisions to procure goods or services, or invest or divest according to their own ethical framework. Local authorities have long played an important role in the protection and promotion of human rights overseas, for example, in opposing the apartheid regime in South Africa, as Members have mentioned. The Bill will make the Westminster Government the ultimate arbiter of what is acceptable. As the reasoned amendment sets out, the Bill is a clear and obvious fetter on the principle of devolution and on freedom of speech. By hamstringing the due diligence that public bodies carry out, it will entirely disregard the European convention on human rights.

The Bill will be a disaster for the environment and the drive to net zero, by withdrawing the freedom of public bodies to boycott countries that pollute our environment. As for Palestine, which has been the subject of a lot of attention in this debate, the legal opinion of Richard Hermer KC, commissioned by Labour Front Benchers, states that

“legislation prohibiting local authorities from taking steps to promote Palestinian self-determination within the OPT, taken with the terms of the exclusion in Clause 3(7), would likely place the United Kingdom in breach of international law obligations.”

Labour’s amendment points to the way in which that clause conflates the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the Golan heights with the state of Israel, undermining the UK’s long-standing cross-party position, and running contrary to UN Security Council resolutions, specifically resolution 2334.

By singling out the territories under Israel’s control in this legislation, the UK will give licence to the continuation of the terrible events that unfolded in Jenin today, without an appropriate, legitimate and peaceful response. No other people should be put in the position of the Palestinians. At this very moment, we are seeing the images from Jenin, where a massive number of Israeli occupation forces are committing what the Palestinian president has called a “war crime” as they storm the city and refugee camp. They have killed at least nine Palestinians, including three children, and injured countless innocent civilians. Over 180 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the beginning of 2023—about one a day. At least 34 of those have been children. The destruction of schools, homes and lives is being carried out with total impunity.

How many times have we heard warm and ineffective words from Ministers at the Dispatch Box? One wonders how such an attitude and policy would have played out in respect of South Africa. The Tory Government of the day deemed the South African apartheid regime legal, and Nelson Mandela a terrorist. If that policy had succeeded, he would have been left to rot in jail. What has happened to any sense of a moral compass in our country? Have we forgotten the lessons of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa?

The Bill would make it an offence for someone from a public body to say that, if not for the legislative ban contained in the Bill, they would have chosen to pursue some form of sanction. That has been rightly called a “Minority Report” provision and I know it worries many Members across this House. The Bill is wholly incoherent, given how we have rightly imposed sanctions on Russia following its illegal invasion and occupation of Ukrainian territory. The Bill is simply wrong—an offence against human decency and international law. I will be exercising one of my human rights, the freedom of expression and of conscience, by voting consistently against it at every stage. It is unworthy of this House and I have no doubt that history will judge it so. I urge Members to support the reasoned amendment, but to reject the Bill in its entirety.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Andy McDonald Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 28th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I rise to support this excellent Bill and to oppose the reasoned amendment. It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who made a coherent case for his own view.

I declare my interest as co-chairman since 2018 of the holocaust memorial all-party group. We have sought to obtain progress on the establishment of the holocaust memorial and learning centre, but progress has been too slow.

When we talk about the holocaust, it is hard to comprehend how 6 million men, women and children could systematically be murdered. When I was at school in Wembley, half of my class were Jewish and the rest of various other religions, but never ever were we taught about the holocaust. It was not spoken about. Jewish families in our area did not talk about the holocaust; they chose to try to forget it. It is only relatively recently that we have spoken about the holocaust and its horrors. That is why the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust in educating our young people, and the not-so-young, about what actually happened is so important.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we should be full of admiration for the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust and for the visits to the sites of terrible atrocities across Europe? Does he also agree that any visit to Auschwitz or another such site does more than bring home to people how devastating this all was? It seems to have happened just yesterday. That is why it is so right of him to reinforce the point that these events must never be forgotten and should be part of the education syllabus.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Like many others, I have been to Auschwitz. I went there with constituents and saw the true horrors—but today is not the day for remembering Auschwitz-Birkenau or any other camp; it is for dealing with the horrors of antisemitism.

My wife’s family fled Germany in the early 20th century; even back then, antisemitism was rife. Also in the early 20th century, way before the great war and before the holocaust started, my family fled France because of antisemitism and programmes in operation in that country. This problem is not confined to one particular country.

Most people would say the holocaust began around 1933, when the Nazis gained power in Germany; although they had a minority of the vote, they were ruthless. The German population were experiencing very tough times, with hyperinflation and severe reparations to pay in the wake of the great war. In such times, they sought a scapegoat, and in “Mein Kampf” we see exactly where the finger was pointed, namely at the Jewish population. Civilians had no qualms about turning their backs on Jewish friends or neighbours, and we should remember that. They isolated them from society. The momentum grew, and Jewish businesses were attacked, books were burnt, and stringent regulations restricted the freedom of Jews in the country. We should also remember, however, that of the 6 million Jews who were murdered by the Nazis, only 100,000 were German Jews. Most of those who saw this coming got out of Germany as fast as they could.

In 1938, on the awful “night of broken glass”—more commonly referred to as Kristallnacht—Nazi mobs, SS troops and ordinary citizens torched synagogues throughout Germany. They destroyed German homes, schools, businesses, hospitals and cemeteries. When the second world war broke out in 1939, the persecution escalated severely. The antisemitic undertones had now become grave systematic murder. There is no doubt that the holocaust is one of the most tragic events that the world has seen, and the brutal, wicked murder of 6 million Jewish men, women and children by the Nazis and their collaborators during the second world war must never be forgotten.

The conditions undergone by Jewish communities during that time are incomprehensible today. The testimonies of survivors paint a grave picture of what happened in the concentration camps: initially forced labour, then starvation, gas chambers and minimal hope of survival. Maria Ossowski, a brave holocaust survivor, described the experience as one

“which will haunt me all my life.”

Even today, those survivors and their families must live with the remnants of their past, to which they were subjected simply because they were Jewish. It is essential that we commemorate the hardships that were undergone, to preserve the extraordinary stories of survival and give our future generations an accurate account of history in order to educate them and prevent such scenarios from ever occurring again. We must do all that we can to prevent genocides in any form and in any part of the world—the killing of innocent people simply because they are the wrong type of people.

The memorial will serve as a national monument to commemorate the men, women and children lost during the holocaust. Alongside it will be an education and learning centre, an accurate and detailed account of this slice of history with testimonies—this is an important element—from a British perspective. The hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) made a key point about what had happened to his family. As he said, there were undercurrents in this country of what was happening in Nazi Germany. Under Mosley and his Blackshirts, a dangerous energy was brewing in this country. They sought out members of Jewish communities, who were fearful to go on the streets—certainly after dark—and who were verbally and physically attacked during the organised rallies that Mosley held.

Many Members who are present will have visited memorials dedicated to the Jewish struggle, such as Yad Vashem in Israel. In 1992 I had the opportunity to visit the original Yad Vashem, which was even more powerful than the Yad Vashem of today, because it was more personal and intense. Today’s Yad Vashem is a much bigger, bolder museum, but loses some of the original, key intentions. However, the powerful audio-visual exhibitions and the stories told by survivors send an exceptionally powerful message to visitors, ensuring that those narratives will live on forever as a stark reminder. It is expected that our site will attract half a million visitors a year, which emphasises how wide the outreach of the project will be.

The holocaust is fast moving from living history to just history. Sadly, holocaust survivors are dying, and far too many have passed on already. It is therefore important that we build the memorial at the earliest possible opportunity to pay tribute to those who have suffered in both the past and the present. The longer we take with this project, the fewer survivors will be left to see the finished memorial. Prime Minister David Cameron began the process in 2014, some eight years ago, and we still have no memorial. Devastatingly, we have lost many survivors in the last eight years, including the iconic Zigi Shipper. We need to press on urgently to ensure that as many as possible can be there to see this important site opened. Holocaust survivor Manfred Goldberg BEM recently put the situation in perfect perspective, saying:

“I was 84 when Prime Minister David Cameron first promised us survivors a national Holocaust Memorial in close proximity to the Houses of Parliament. Last month I celebrated my 93rd birthday and I pray to be able to attend the opening of this important project.”

The Prime Minister at the time announced that the holocaust commission was to examine what more should be done in Britain to ensure that the memory of the holocaust is preserved and its lessons are never forgotten. The commission concluded that a national memorial should be built, stating:

“The evidence is clear that there should be a striking new Memorial to serve as the focal point for national commemoration of the Holocaust. It should be prominently located in Central London to attract the largest possible number of visitors and to make a bold statement about the importance Britain places on preserving the memory of the Holocaust. It would stand as a permanent affirmation of the values of British society.”

I could not have put it better myself. However, eight years on, we have made little or no progress, and with the complex parliamentary process it is predicted that things will take a further four years. That adds up to 12 years and counting—longer than the second world war and longer than the holocaust itself.

There has been much discussion of the proposed location of the memorial. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) for her speech about the site. I understand completely her concerns as the local Member. I strongly believe that Victoria Tower Gardens—already home, as has been described, to another memorial—is the perfect location. With its close proximity to Parliament, it will both serve as a reminder to us decision makers to ensure that this never happens again, and attract large numbers of tourists to visit the site and learn the history. We should remember that large numbers of people come to this place already, so many will come to this place and go to the holocaust memorial centre too.

The Bill will permit Victoria Tower Gardens to house the memorial. No place in Britain is more suitable for a holocaust memorial and learning centre than Victoria Tower Gardens—right next to Parliament, the very institution where decisions on Britain’s response were made in the lead-up to the holocaust, during it and in its aftermath. I hope that we will see detail about the decisions that were made, what people knew about what was going on in the holocaust, and what we did as a nation as a result. The memorial will serve as a reminder of the potential for abuse of democratic institutions and its murderous consequences, in stark contrast to the true role of democracy in standing up to and combating racism, hatred and prejudice.

Only Parliament can change the law. It is right that Parliament should consider whether the unique significance of the holocaust justifies seeking an exception to the protections mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough, which were put in place by Parliament more than a century ago. I am aware that, for many reasons, several of my colleagues oppose the development. I hope that I can defuse their concerns and persuade them that this significant project should get the backing it deserves and that current plans should be protected.

The proposals for the memorial include sensitive landscaping that will improve Victoria Tower Gardens for all users. More than 90% of the area of the gardens will remain fully open after the memorial is built. Local residents and workers will be able to visit and enjoy the gardens just as they do now. Further, it is important that the relevant section of the unique legislation that we seek to override—the 1900 Act—applies only to Victoria Tower Gardens, meaning that the Bill will not impact any future development rights at other sites.

In response to the many concerns about the environmental impact of the site, I am assured that landscape improvements to Victoria Tower Gardens will ensure that this important and well-used green space is made even more attractive and accessible than ever before. The new development will take only 7.5% of the current area, and all the mature London plane trees will be protected. Additional planting and improved drainage of the grassed area will increase the overall attractiveness of the gardens and reduce any potential risks of flooding. There will still be a clear and unobstructed view of Parliament from all areas of the park.

It is important to note that the holocaust memorial will not be the only memorial on the site. The Buxton memorial, as has been mentioned, was placed in Victoria Tower Gardens in 1957 to commemorate the emancipation of slaves in the British empire. For years, this well-placed memorial has attracted visitors and become a loved and popular part of the park.

Teesworks: Accountability and Scrutiny

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Much of the debate has been targeted at me and there has been a request for details of allegations. I trust I will be given the opportunity to set those out.

I am grateful to my colleagues on the Labour Front Bench for giving this issue such prominence today. I want to start by paying particular tribute to Richard Brooks of Private Eye. Without his amazing forensic tenacity and persistent investigative journalism over many, many months, we would not be having this debate today. Similarly, Jen Williams of the Financial Times has gone to the trouble of conducting in-depth investigations and has raised many pertinent questions, and The Yorkshire Post so courageously refused to be bullied or silenced. The BBC and many others have taken note of these matters. It is reassuring that investigative journalism is alive and well.

It is a complex web that has been woven and it requires significant attention to try to understand what has gone on. I share the bewilderment of those on my Front Bench that the Secretary of State is determined not to request that the NAO investigate these matters in full.

The core background to this saga is founded in the painful post-privatisation collapse of steelmaking on Teesside, which came to an end in 2015. It has left a massive hole in the local landscape and economy. The Tees Valley Combined Authority was established in 2016 under the Chancellorship of George Osborne, when the Labour Tees Valley local authorities, hamstrung by austerity, agreed to set up the new body, principally to focus on economic development and regeneration, transport and skills, led locally by Councillor Sue Jeffrey, then the leader of Redcar and Cleveland, Dave Budd, then the elected Mayor of Middlesborough, and others. In May 2017, Ben Houchen was elected as Tees Valley Mayor and promised to bring back steelmaking to Teesside. Clearly that has not happened.

The South Tees Development Corporation came into being in August 2017, its principal task to assemble various pieces of land and bring them into public ownership to facilitate development, with the levering in of private investment a key element. People like Sir Alan Cockshaw, a most highly respected figure in the business world, Steve Gibson, the chair of Middlesbrough football club and Bulkhaul, and Paul Booth of Sabic all served on the STDC board and put in many hours of unpaid time—and, indeed, flew to Thailand at their own expense to further the negotiations with SSI’s creditors to free up and secure the land.

The plan of the original board for development of the site was to remediate one parcel of land, develop it, let it, and then utilise that income to fund the next parcel, and so on. In effect, the outcome would have been a sovereign wealth fund for Teesside. All that changed with Ben Houchen’s re-election in 2021. Those hard-working and generous board members were sacked by Ben Houchen and a new team brought in. While the funding was allocated from central Government—from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government—to be applied over three years from 2020-21 through to 2022-23, running into hundreds of millions of pounds, the Government made it clear that they were not in favour of sustaining an equitable public-private partnership beyond those committed moneys and that the private sector should take it on. So that was, and still is, the determinant ideology, and the end of any thought of a sovereign wealth fund for Teesside.

In the following rush, these concerning events have unravelled. It would seem that the private developers were very smart and in the right place at the right time. They seized on the opportunity when SSI got into financial difficulties and twigged that SSI was prepared to sell a particular asset in an attempt to assist in addressing its own financial woes. They secured an option to acquire a lease of some 70 acres of what was then SSI land not far from the Redcar bulk terminal. That was sold to Musgrave and Corney by SSI for some half a million pounds. In effect, they became the putative default partner in what was to manifest itself later as Teesworks Ltd.

Other parties were interested in partnering with STDC, but they had no chance. There was no tendering process or proper procurement; there was no competition. Any inquiry will need to explain how these property developers came to acquire this key part of the site when the Tees Valley Combined Authority was pressing for a compulsory purchase order to buy the entire site.

More interesting things then happened in 2019. Mr Musgrave formed DCS Industrial Ltd, which was the vehicle for his Teesworks shareholding, and what we now describe as the SeAH site was acquired by STDC through its subsidiary company, South Tees Developments Ltd, from the former occupant, Tata Steel, for £12 million. This is the site upon which SeAH, the South Korean wind turbine company, will house its factory. The construction of the South Bank quay was made possible with a £107 million loan to STDC from the Government’s UK Infrastructure Bank.

On 29 January 2020, Ben Houchen reported to STDC about the compromise of the compulsory purchase order process. But board papers reveal that in early 2020, STDC recognised the risks of getting into bed with Musgrave and Corney. Its business case for the taxpayer cash 18 months earlier noted the

“joint venture partners lack of experience on size, complexity and hazards associated with the South Tees site”

and the

“differing governance requirements between joint venture partner background and public sector requirement impacting procurement”.

Despite that, in March 2020 STDC formed Teesworks as a 50:50 joint venture with companies controlled by Chris Musgrave, Martin Corney and Corneys’s father-in-law Ian Waller, all of whom paid nothing for their shares. I trust that the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) will correct the record as far as Mr Waller is concerned.

STDC stated at the time that the joint venture company, Teesworks, would pay market value for the land it elected to buy. That changed fundamentally a little later. In early 2020, options were given by STDC for Teesworks to acquire freeholds from STDC. In August 2021, Gary Macdonald, the director of finance at STDC, reported to the board that there was now only a five-year window for development, which meant that there had to be a quick use of Government funds and

“a transfer of significant risk and rewards”

to the joint venture partners

“to incentivise the required pace of delivery”.

Those are the very people that STDC had expressed such doubts about just 18 months before.

That all begs the question, what value for money assessments did BEIS, DLUHC or the Treasury perform on this project, into which such vast sums of public money have been sunk? We should be able to see the Green Book calculations for all the different stages, ranging from the initial 50:50 arrangements through to the change to 90:10 in favour of the JV partners. In November 2021, the shareholdings of Musgrave, Corney and others via their various companies were increased from 50% to 90%. Again, they paid nothing for that increase in their equity stakes. Remarkably, they then secured the major options to buy any parcel of land on the site. Presumably, the quid pro quo was that they would stump up when the public cash ran out. As STDC put it, the extra shares were

“in return for Teesworks taking on the future development of the site, together with the net future liabilities in preparing the site for tenants”.

The inquiry will need to see the details of the meetings between Houchen, Musgrave and Corney on all those matters. What did they discuss—and when—about the initial JV and the variation to a 90:10 split and the associated changes, such as options to buy land? Why were the share classes of Teesworks Ltd changed at the same time as the 90:10 split, meaning that no dividends have to be paid to the public sector, and can be paid only at the board’s discretion?

While the split was 50:50, the position was that Teesworks would pay market rates for the land it opted to buy. A freedom of information reply from STDC indicates that once the ratio was changed to 90:10, land acquired from South Tees Developments Ltd could be appropriated at a nominal sum of £1 an acre.

Teesworks did exercise its options to buy the freeholds constituting the SeAH site, but that was not known to the public until Private Eye revealed HM Land Registry’s entries dated 11 October 2022, showing that the river frontage, known as “new quay phase 1”, was transferred from South Tees Developments Ltd to Teesworks Ltd for the sum of £16.27, and VAT in the sum of £2.71. It also revealed further Land Registry entries dated 16 December, which show that a colossal parcel of industrial land known as “plot b south bank”, excluding the river frontage quay, was transferred from South Tees Developments Ltd to Teesworks Ltd for the stated sum of £96.79, excluding VAT.

Ben Houchen has said that the true consideration paid by Teesworks is actually £15 million, despite those Land Registry records saying otherwise. Apparently, the lower figures were adopted for tax reasons. If that is right, I am sure that His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs will have something to say about it, as might His Majesty’s Land Registry. If inaccurate or misleading figures are put on transfer documents, there are usually consequences. I hope the inquiry will examine those matters, as it should.

When will this mysterious £15 million be paid? In one of his many intemperate media rants, Mr Houchen claimed that the lands we are talking about have “never” been in the public sector, and that has been repeated here today. Really? Given the audit trail and what the Land Registry documents say, it is difficult to see how he could possibly sustain such an argument. I confess to feeling somewhat sorry for his officials, who have to sweep up behind him to sort out his inaccurate stories, but it still does not wash.

There then followed a series of transactions. Teesworks retained the freehold, but leased its 90-acre site to a private investor, now known to be Macquarie, the Australia-based global financial services company, for a peppercorn rent, for which Macquarie paid Teesworks a lump sum of £70 million to £80 million. In turn, TVCA, the taxpayer, leased the land from Macquarie, the investor, for an inflation-linked £3.65 million per annum for 40 years. TVCA then sub-let the land to SeAH for £4.3 million per annum. That means 90% of the £70 million to £80 million will be going to Musgrave, Corney, Waller and their associate Chris Harrison, who have 45%, 21%, 19% and 5% shares in Teesworks respectively. That is a staggering £65 million-plus instant payday for the Teesworks joint venture partners.

While Teesworks is the freeholder for both sites, a clause in the transfer agreements ensures that the publicly owned South Tees Developments Ltd retains responsibility for environmental liabilities arising from hazardous substances. So Messrs Musgrave and Corney are not, according to that document, liable for cleaning up the site. The concern is that these property developers, who have never engaged in anything comparable to this undertaking, have become rich beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, all with the benefit of public moneys and opportunities.

Then there is the scrap. There was an agreement between STDC and Teesworks that as the by-product of the clearance and remediation works on the site, the proceeds from the scrap metal would be shared. There are hundreds of thousands of tonnes of metal on the site—approximately 500,000 tonnes in all. Up to now, a total of £94 million of valuable equipment, metals and other materials have been taken off site, weighed or otherwise. The sale proceeds are shared between STDC and Teesworks, with around £45 million going to Musgrave, Corney et al. Does the Minister believe that that represents good value for the taxpayer, who only three years ago owned all the metal on the site? Can he explain what is happening to the rest of it, which is estimated to be valued at up to £120 million?

What was there by way of a tendering or procurement process? Again, as was revealed by Private Eye, running the scrap operation is a man called Orion Kotrri, who just happens to be married to Martin Corney’s daughter. Any inquiry will need to ask how Mr Kotrri was hired, what his qualifications are for the job, whether that job was advertised and who employs him. Incredibly, we have now seen footage of Ben Houchen on a “trade mission” to meet the Albanian Prime Minister and the Mayor of Tirana, along with Martin Corney and Mr Corney’s Albanian scrap metal dealer son-in-law. We need to understand why they were present, given the visit was billed as a trade mission about international co-operation in travel and education. What did Mr Corney and his son-in-law have to do with that?

And then there is security. There is a fire raging at Teesworks right now. My hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) referred to the injury caused to the man who fell into the river, and let us not forget that two men died in the process of remediating the site. NE Security Ltd got the contract, initially worth £2.4 million, to protect the site, and then, a few months later, a further two-year contract worth £3 million. There are certainly some colourful characters involved, as has been reported by Private Eye, including those with a history of insolvency who owe HMRC £1.5 million, including an estimated £1.4 million to the anti-tax avoidance unit. Let us not overlook the proprietor’s son, who is in charge of health and safety on site, who has been given a prison sentence of 11 years and eight months for his part in running a drugs racket that stretched from Liverpool to Teesside. Both, of course, now have freeports. You could not make this up, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is the stuff of the movies.

Much criticism has been levelled at me for speaking up about these issues. I have to say to critics of my use of parliamentary privilege that they really must understand that I will not be bullied, and that the use of privilege in this place is cherished and should not be derided. It is an important part of our democracy, and it is there so that Members of Parliament can raise well-founded concerns—as I have demonstrated today and on previous occasions—without fear or favour. So I ask those critics to grow up. They may or may not be advocates of SLAPPs, but they should be careful about embracing the concept of lawsuits being used to censor and silence critics.

As for the charge of being anti-business or “talking Teesside down”—a charge that is regularly levelled against me and against the Labour party—it is nonsense. Since the day I first set foot in this place I have been advocating the advancement of green industries, along with my friend and neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham). Not only are these industries critical to saving our planet; they are a key factor in bringing good, well-paid, secure, unionised jobs to Teesside, a region that desperately needs those jobs and is ideally placed, both industrially and geologically, to pave the way not only for hydrogen industries, but for carbon capture, utilisation and storage and so much more.

That is why the behaviour of the Tees Valley Mayor is so distressing. While my critics are still obsessing about me, I have to spell it out: businesses can read. Whether I say these things or not, these concerns are widespread, and if anything and anyone is undermining the confidence of investors, it is the reckless conduct of the Tories’ blue- eyed-boy in the north, Ben Houchen. If they really care about how public moneys are spent, and if they are truly as pro-business as they say they are, this Government must abide by their own declared strictures of “integrity, professionalism, and accountability”. They should wake up and smell the coffee, and join me in ensuring that these matters are fully investigated, and corrected, before it is too late, because if they do not, a Labour Government will.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Ashley Dalton]

It seems that quite a few of us believe that we should be looking far more into a wide range of these development corporations.

[Andy McDonald]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way on that point. Is she aware that the position of Middlesbrough Council was to say, “Give us the money, don’t give it to yet another self-appointed board under the tutelage of Ben Houchen”? Is she as amazed as I am that Ben Houchen has deliberately excluded PD Ports, the biggest employer and investor in the territory, from the consultation process? Does she not find that ridiculous?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Just before the hon. Lady responds, let me remind her that there is one more speaker to get in before 6.40 pm.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Rachel Maclean)]

I thank my hon. Friend very much. He represents a new town, as I do—I am very proud to represent the new town of Redditch. We are absolutely committed to building the right houses in the right places, and that includes enabling local communities to have more say over the design and type of housing. We are doing that through the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill: through design codes, street votes and reforming the planning system. I am pleased to report to my hon. Friend that I have also launched a taskforce for older people’s housing to address the housing needs of older people.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

T4. I do not think that the staggering complacency of the Secretary of State in dismissing legitimate, serious complaints and concerns about the use of hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money will have passed anybody’s attention. I warn him that that type of response may well come back and bite him. However, if there is to be any possibility of this House and the people of Teesside having any confidence in the findings of the inquiry that he has commissioned, that inquiry must have all the powers it needs to demand and secure whatever evidence and documentation it determines is necessary, and anyone must be able to submit that evidence to the inquiry. Will the Secretary of State give those commitments?

[Michael Gove]

I am tempted to say that if the hon. Gentleman has evidence, he should please share it. It is the case that Labour in Teesside, including Labour in Middlesbrough, has consistently sought to undermine, thwart and oppose those efforts at economic development and investment that the Mayor of Tees Valley has brought forward. I recognise that the hon. Gentleman has made a number of allegations in this House that he has been reluctant to repeat outside. We look forward to him putting us right in a way that actually contributes to the welfare of the people of Tees Valley, rather than advancing the agenda of the Labour party.

Middlesbrough Development Corporation

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

I will call Andy McDonald to move the motion and I will then call the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up; that is the convention for 30-minute debates, as he will no doubt be aware.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Middlesbrough Development Corporation.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Paisley.

On Friday 24 February, Middlesbrough Council held an extraordinary general meeting, convened by the monitoring officer, to determine whether the council supported the proposal to create a Middlesbrough development corporation. The proposal was put to the vote, and 13 councillors voted to approve and 17 voted against. Many councillors from the ruling Tory-independent coalition did not attend, although they were all given proper notice of the meeting. Obviously, not all councillors can be expected to turn up for every single meeting and there will be good reasons for some absences, but, quite frankly, the appallingly low turnout for such an important vote was pathetic.

The council decided not to approve the MDC, but three days after the council had made that decision, 25 councillors, led by the elected Mayor, Andy Preston, wrote to the Government saying that the council decision should be ignored and the Minister should instead accept their letter of acquiescence as being the true position of the council. I do not need to stress just how ridiculous it is that the Government, in their determination to overreach local democracy, are prepared to ignore the formal council decision.

Indeed, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has subsequently written a letter in which he outrageously describes the vote of the local authority as being born of “misinformation and mischief making”. That is incredibly partisan language from the Secretary of State, but perhaps we should not be surprised.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that this sets a precedent for Tory Mayors or Tory Governments to ride roughshod over local democracy and local decision making in our local authorities? There could be more land grabs elsewhere in the Tees Valley, such as in Darlington and in Stockton.

[Andy McDonald]

My hon. Friend and neighbour makes a very valid point. That is one of the facets of the debate that I have sought today; I want to stress that that is a danger.

We all want to see good development in our towns, but how that development is done is important. Over the years, Middlesbrough Council has acquired and assembled assets using public money, and it holds those assets on behalf of all of us in Middlesbrough. The proposal is that if the council transfers these assets to the MDC, the MDC will, in turn, use money from central Government for development. Councillors were not elected to give our town away, but we now know that money is available. The bargain proposed is that if—and only if—the council gives up those assets and planning powers to the MDC, £18 million will be released for development.

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way, and I am conscious that he has given me his consent to speak momentarily. Does he recognise that the planning powers and funding have been made available precisely because the Government have confidence that the development corporation will be a vehicle for regeneration and renewal of a sort that Middlesbrough Council has, I am afraid, sadly not proved capable of offering for too many years?

[Andy McDonald]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. I do not share his confidence, and I will set out the reasons why the structure that has been set out is incredibly dangerous. I share his observations about how Middlesbrough Council has been run of late. I will come back to that, but perhaps it is shared territory for us.

Critically, however, the council will have no say on how any development goes ahead or how decisions are made. That is more akin to a protection racket than to good government. Those decisions about development will be made not by the council, but by an unelected board appointed by Ben Houchen, the Conservative Tees Valley Mayor. He will decide who goes on the board, not the people of Middlesbrough or its elected council.

Much is said about devolution, whereby power and resources should be pushed down and be in the gift of the most local possible form of democratic representation. Here, the opposite is being proposed. This is not devolution; it is gangster politics, taking power and control away from the people, while the elected independent Mayor of Middlesbrough and his Tory deputy will be on the board. It seems—

[Jill Mortimer (Hartlepool) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andy McDonald]

Let me finish the point. It seems that they will be there in a personal capacity, whether they remain in office or not; it is not clear. The Mayor of Middlesbrough, Andy Preston, did not attend the vote by which this decision was made. He was advised by the council’s monitoring officer that he could not attend because of his own personal pecuniary interests.

[Jill Mortimer]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way now that he has made his point?

[Andy McDonald]

I am only halfway through, but—

[Jill Mortimer]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but I want to correct what he has just stated. He has described this as gangster politics. In actual fact, those places on the board will belong to whoever is democratically elected as Mayor and deputy Mayor. If a Labour Mayor and deputy Mayor are democratically elected come May, they will take those places on the board.

[Andy McDonald]

Let us deal with all the rest of them; I am just about to do that very thing.

I was talking about a conflict of interest that the Mayor of Middlesbrough now has. The geographical boundary of the MDC takes in an area called Middlehaven and vast swathes of the town centre, and it includes an area of the town where Mr Preston owns or has owned property. According to the latest Tees Valley Combined Authority register of members’ interests, Mr Preston owns vast swathes of land and properties on both banks of the River Tees—well over 50 properties in total. Clearly, the decisions that the MDC board makes could have a direct bearing on any increase in value of any such interests, and they could potentially directly and financially benefit him.

In local government and in all public institutions, the greatest of care has to be taken regarding such potentially conflicting pecuniary interests. That is why Mr Preston was advised not to attend a vote at the crucial meeting. There is an obvious conflict of interest, and the question arises: if he cannot vote on the creation of such a corporation, how can he possibly lead on a letter to countermand that very vote and then serve on the board? It is utterly farcical; it is almost as though we have gone back to living in medieval times, with wealthy feudal landlords controlling political power over their lowly subjects without any proper democratic processes of accountability.

[Alex Cunningham]

My hon. Friend clearly shares my concerns about how development corporations are being managed on Teesside, with joint ventures being created and then used as vehicles to transfer hundreds of millions of pounds-worth of public assets to private companies, and all behind doors and in secret. Does he fear, as I do, that the new Middlesbrough and Hartlepool development corporations could see more of the same—deals made in private to transfer public assets to private companies?

[Jill Mortimer]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andy McDonald]

No, I am afraid that that is not how it works; I respond to interventions.

[Jill Mortimer]

I wanted to intervene on the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) because he mentioned my constituency.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough has the floor, and he will speak and not be interrupted. If he wishes to give way, he will indicate that he will give way.

[Andy McDonald]

Thank you, Mr Paisley.

Other people have been proposed to serve on this board as well. They include Paul Booth—a former executive of SABIC, the Saudi Arabian petrochemical company—who will be chair. I have known Paul for years. Although he is not a resident of Middlesbrough, he undoubtedly has well-intentioned views about what he thinks is in Middlesbrough’s best interests—but no one has elected him.

Other non-elected appointees include the chief constable of Cleveland, who does not even live in the Cleveland police force area, let alone in Middlesbrough. He is, of course, a senior police officer, but I am not sure what experience he has of urban regeneration. His best contribution to our town would, in my view, be to do his job and make our streets safe for residents and businesses.

Similarly, another board member will be the Conservative police and crime commissioner for Cleveland, Steve Turner—a man who, let us not forget, received a caution from Cleveland police for theft from his employer. Again, he does not reside in Middlesbrough, I am not aware that he has any urban regeneration experience or expertise, and that is not his job.

I have significant concerns about the basis on which the Tees Valley Mayor, Mr Houchen, will select board members. He will have the power to appoint and dismiss them, much as we have seen him do at the South Tees development corporation. That has been evidenced in a raft of investigative articles by Private Eye, which he dismissed as a comic book. Private Eye has unearthed, in great detail, squalid and questionable dealings at the South Tees development corporation, and it has exposed the squandering and misuse of hundreds of millions of pounds of public money. That money was primarily deployed to make the private joint venture partners even wealthier beyond imagining. In respect of that, there will one day be a reckoning.

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

I refer back to the point that the hon. Gentleman made about the involvement of the police and crime commissioner and the chief constable. We in Tees Valley understand the challenges and difficulties that antisocial behaviour brings to the regeneration of a town. The hon. Gentleman has significant antisocial behaviour issues in his constituency and, in my view, the involvement of the police and crime commissioner and the chief constable on the board is really important.

Just last week in Darlington, Labour councillors voted against planning permission for investment in Teesside International airport. What is it about the Labour party in Teesside that means it has to oppose and stop every investment?

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Andy McDonald]

On the point the hon. Gentleman made about Darlington, the Labour party often gets the charge that it is somehow anti-growth. That is utter tosh. It is the most pathetic jibe, and Conservative Members would be better served by engaging in intelligent debate.

On his original point, if the hon. Gentleman genuinely wants to talk about crime, disorder and public order on our streets, I suggest that that is what the police should be doing. I do not expect them to be serving on regeneration boards. They should get out, do their job and ensure they have people on our streets looking after our businesses and making sure people are safe. Serving on regeneration boards is not their function, and they should get on and do the job they were put there to do.

There are lots of questions emerging about how the South Tees development corporation and others have operated. My clear preference would be for the much-needed urban regeneration in central Middlesborough to sit with the elected council. In turn, the council can rely on its internal officer expertise, and, where necessary, external expertise from established professional organisations with track records of successful urban regeneration. Dealing with regeneration in that way ought ordinarily to ensure accountability and transparency.

Although I share the concerns expressed by the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) about how duties have been discharged by the current political leadership of Middlesborough Council, which runs until May of this year, I fear that the likelihood of there being proper scrutiny and accountability of the proposed MDC is very low. Yet again on Teesside, a board made up of hand-picked individuals will be making important decisions about how valuable public funds are used without any meaningful accountability or scrutiny. Indeed, the MDC will acquire planning powers that currently—and rightly—belong to the council, which will now lose valuable fee income and business rates. That will inevitably place more pressure on the council, which could lead to further cuts.

[Mr Simon Clarke]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andy McDonald]

No; the right hon. Gentleman will get his say. He asked me if he could participate in the debate, and I said yes. I will not give way any further, because I want to give him the opportunity to make his contribution.

Those pressures could lead to further cuts in Middlesbrough. We could be walking into yet another public-private joint venture that will end up transferring assets out of the domain of the MDC and into private hands, as per the recent shenanigans at the South Tees development corporation.

Of course I want investment in Middlesbrough. After 13 years of this Government, almost half the children in our town live in poverty. The town mayor and the executive have just voted through a budget that will turn off the street lights, reduce our libraries and seriously deplete our warden service. I see economic growth and development as one of the key levers to turn that around. In addition, we need a more equitable settlement from central Government, but that is a debate for another day.

We have done some great work in Middlesbrough, despite difficult economic times. Here are some examples of the significant successes. TeesAMP, next to Newport bridge, is a state-of-the-art advanced manufacturing park. It hosts many high-quality businesses at the cutting edge of their respective industries, providing high-quality, high-wage jobs. Boho Digital City is a great success story, with over a decade of starting up and sustaining digital businesses. Centre Square in Middlesbrough brings in the likes of GB Bank and AXA UK, to name but two. The historic quarter around Exchange Square works with Historic England, which has funded some wonderful work. The regeneration and redevelopment of our railway station—a subject very dear to my heart—brings better connections and opportunities for the much-needed economic growth of our town.

All those achievements were begun under previous administrations. The clear evidence is that we already have the systems in place to make this work and to enable Middlesbrough to attract investment. It makes little sense, in my mind, to create another layer of bureaucracy. All those achievements were made by people working together through the various democratic institutions. In particular, they were often in partnership and co-operation with the Tees Valley Combined Authority—from when it was set up before Mr Houchen was elected by what were then five Labour councils across the Tees valley, and continuing subsequent to his election.

There is no reason to suppose that those sorts of arrangements could not work again. We should deploy funds in a way that works, and that holds in our institutions of local democracy. All too often, the rules on good governance, integrity and sound money are undermined, with democratic and accountable control taken away from the people and given to chosen individuals to enable them to use vast quantities of public money as they see fit. I fully anticipate that the Government will plough on regardless, but they need to know that the MDC, despite the absence of transparency and democratic integrity within its structure and architecture, will be held to account by the people of Middlesborough for its decisions. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

In line with protocol, Mr Simon Clarke sought permission from the mover of the motion and myself to make a short speech. I will give you about four minutes to make that speech, Mr Clarke. The Minister is being very flexible with you as well.

Elections Bill (Instruction)

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Instruction
Monday 20th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith]

I find myself in agreement with my fellow Bill Committee member; I hope that the usual channels will find time for extra evidence sessions so that the Committee can be informed on the different types of electoral systems.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

On PCC elections, is my hon. Friend as staggered as I am to learn that the Conservative party’s PCC for Cleveland, Steve Turner, who was elected earlier this year, was sacked in the early 2000s for systematic theft of merchandise from his then employer, Safeway supermarket, at its Norton store? Does she agree that it is totally untenable for someone who was engaged in such criminal behaviour to hold the position of PCC and that he must resign from his role with immediate effect?

[Cat Smith]

I am as staggered as my hon. Friend to learn that the Conservative party’s PCC for Cleveland was sacked for theft from a Safeway supermarket. I would certainly agree that it is totally untenable for a criminal to hold the position of PCC, and if what my hon. Friend has shared with the House tonight is true, I would expect a resignation and some kind of by-election for that PCC role with immediate effect.

Turning back to the instruction, the supplementary vote system has been used to elect the Mayor of London since 2000, so it is certainly not a new system of voting. The instruction on the Order Paper suggests that it is somehow something that has come to light since the Bill has been published, but if we have been using this system of voting for the London Mayor for well over two decades, it seems inconsistent for the Government not to have been able to see fit to put this in the Bill before this late stage.

The Minister said that this measure was in his party’s manifesto, and indeed the 2017 manifesto stated:

“We will retain the first past the post system of voting for parliamentary elections and extend this system to police and crime commissioner…elections.”

However, if he reads his party’s 2019 manifesto, as I have done, he will not see it anywhere there. So this was not in the last manifesto and it has not been in the Bill since the beginning. Is this not just another example of Tory arrogance and some kind of apparent allergy to scrutiny and accountability? This Bill has been utterly chaotic and it seems increasingly likely that we are going to get a new Minister on the Bill Committee, although we do not yet know who it will be, and a new Government Whip mid-Committee. To top it all off, we are now not entirely sure whether the Bill sits within the Cabinet Office or the newly renamed “Department for Levelling Up”. So let me level with the Minister tonight: this instruction motion stinks of gerrymandering and we will vote against it.

Employment Rights

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

The Government have overseen a crisis of insecurity and a lack of protections at work, and the proposals announced today will do little to address it. There is no plan to legislate for a single enforcement body, so can the Minister explain how and when that will happen, given that the long-promised employment Bill has been ditched?

There is no new money in this announcement. We had a decade of cuts and underfunding that left us woefully unprepared when the pandemic hit. In the past year, just one workplace in 171 has had a safety or workers’ rights inspection, and not a single employer has been prosecuted and fined for putting workers or the public at risk of contracting covid-19. A staggering 2 million people are paid below the national minimum wage, yet there are currently just 18 employment agency standards inspectors responsible for inspecting 40,000 employment agencies.

Without new funding, the Minister is simply proposing to merge several under-resourced agencies into a single under- resourced agency. The hollowness of the Government’s commitment is underlined by the fact that the post of director of labour market enforcement has been left vacant for the past six months. However, the most glaring omission in this plan is that many of the most exploitative employment practices are perfectly legal.

Bogus self-employment denies millions of workers in the gig economy basic rights and protections, including the national minimum wage, rest breaks and health and safety protections. For those workers it is not a matter of enforcement, because they do not have rights to enforce. They have been totally abandoned by the Government. Will the Minister commit to giving all workers full employment rights to ensure that everyone has dignity and security at work?

On fire and rehire, the Minister says:

“This Government have always been clear that we do not accept fire and rehire as a negotiation tactic.”

These are empty words. The only clear message would be to outlaw the practice. The Government have hidden behind the ACAS report since February, using it as an excuse to do nothing. Today’s announcement that ACAS will be asked to produce further guidance kicks the can down the road yet again. Almost 3 million people—one in 10—have been subjected to fire and rehire since last March.

Allowing working people to be bullied on to lower wages and worse terms and conditions is both morally wrong and economically illiterate. The Government claim to oppose fire and rehire while encouraging it through their inaction because they believe that this one-sided flexibility is good for the economy. How many more millions of workers is the Minister prepared to allow to be fired and rehired before he acts to outlaw the practice?

The proposal to give the certification officer powers to commission investigations and fine trade unions even when there has been no complaint from a member, funded by a levy on trade unions, is an ideological attack on working people. The Minister is proposing to solve a problem that does not exist. The certification officer had a tiny number of cases last year resulting in just one enforcement order. This means that unions will face financial burdens at times when their members are facing hardship, diverting time and resources away from protecting working people to deal with spurious complaints initiated by groups like the TaxPayers’ Alliance rather than fighting for members. If the Minister is genuinely concerned about law-breaking, I suggest he looks closer to home. Staff in his Department are balloting for strike action because of repeated breaches of employment law, including unlawful deductions of wages that force staff to rely on food banks, as well as breaching the working time directive and repeated breaches of Health and Safety Executive covid guidelines.

Trade unions are the best mechanism for protecting workers’ rights, yet the Minister wants to tip the balance of power even further away from them. Compare and contrast this with Joe Biden, who is unshackling and empowering trade unions to rejuvenate the American economy and raise living standards. This Government want to hobble trade unions. The Minister has committed his Government to

“do whatever we can to protect and enhance workers’ rights.”

There is a chasm between the reality and the rhetoric. This is another deceit on working people, but I have news for the Minister: he is fooling nobody.

[Paul Scully]

The hon. Gentleman talks about enforcement issues and funding. We have more than doubled the budget for minimum wage enforcement and compliance, which is now over £27 million annually, up from £13.2 million in 2015. There are more than 400 HMRC staff involved in enforcement of the minimum wage. We concluded over 2,700 investigations on the minimum wage and returned more than £16.7 million in arrears to over 155,000 workers. We are determined that people should get a fair wage for a fair day’s work. As we build back better, we will build back fairer, and it will not be on the backs of the lowest paid. That is why we will continue to increase the national minimum wage and the national living wage and also to enforce action on transgressions in that area.

On the Health and Safety Executive and what has happened with covid, the HSE has received £14.4 million in extra funding and has conducted 274,000 spot checks in the past year.

Worker status is clearly complicated when we have three issues of the worker, the employer and the self-employed, but that allows us to have a flexible, dynamic labour market that enabled us, after the last recession, to build back better by delivering more jobs than the rest of the EU put together.

On fire and rehire, we hear a lot in this place about a binary choice, but in reality the situation is far more complicated. As we build back better, we want to make sure that we can protect people’s jobs as well as their working conditions. That is why we have to get that balance right. Only we on the Government Benches will deal with the economy and with businesses, but most importantly with workers who are subject to transgression of their workers’ rights by irresponsible employers, yet not just painting all employers with the same brush.

The hon. Gentleman talked about changes to the certification officer’s duties being ideological. Actually, it is adhering to the law, as it is what we said we would do in the Trade Union Act. All we are doing is implementing what was debated properly and agreed in this place under that Act.

We will protect workers’ rights, protect jobs, and create more jobs, and it will be through a flexible, dynamic labour market, getting that balance right. Rather than just having a 1970s-style binary debate, we want to work for 21st-century working conditions.

Uber: Supreme Court Ruling

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy if he will make a statement on the Supreme Court’s ruling on Uber.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call Minister Paul Scully, who has three minutes.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)]

I want to begin by making it absolutely clear that everyone deserves to be treated fairly at work and rewarded for their contribution to the economy with both fair pay and fair working conditions. This means that employers must take their responsibilities seriously, not simply opt out of them. If there is a dispute between the individual and an employer, as seen in the recent case involving Uber, the courts consider each case on an individual basis. The courts are independent and the Government do not intervene. As such, with the Supreme Court being the final stage of the appeal, its judgment is final and Uber will need to take action to align with the judgment.

The Government recognise concerns about employment status being unclear in some cases, and we are committed to making it easier for individuals and businesses to understand which rights and tax obligations apply to them. We have made good progress in bringing forward measures that add flexibility for workers while ensuring the protection of employment rights. For example, we have legislated to extend the right to a written statement of core terms of employment to all workers, making access to a written statement a day one right and extending the contents of a written statement. We have also banned the use of exclusivity contracts and zero-hours contracts to give workers more flexibility. This means an employer cannot stop an individual on a zero-hours contract from looking for, or accepting work from, another employer. We will continue to explore options for employment status that protect rights while also maintaining flexibility in the labour market. This Government have a proud history of protecting and enhancing workers’ rights, and we are committed to making the UK the best place in the world to work.

[Andy McDonald [V]]

Last Friday’s Supreme Court ruling on Uber was a landmark victory for working people, and testament to the hard work of the GMB union, the App Drivers and Couriers Union and the drivers who brought the action. It rejected Uber’s bogus claim that its drivers are self-employed, ruling instead that they are workers and therefore entitled to basic rights that they have so far been denied, such at the national minimum wage and holiday pay. The ruling has far-reaching consequences for tens of thousands of Uber drivers as well as all gig economy workers.

Yet Uber is attempting to dodge the Supreme Court’s ruling, just as it attempts to dodge its responsibilities to its drivers, by trying to interpret the ruling so that it applies to only a tiny minority of its workforce. If Uber ignores the ruling, tens of thousands of workers will be cheated out of their rights, forcing low-paid and precarious workers to spend time and money that they can ill afford in order to litigate to recover withheld wages, in cases that they will likely win but will take years to conclude. The Government should not abandon working people to fight for their rights in the courts, so will the Minister take this opportunity to make it clear that the judgment applies to all Uber drivers, and that the company cannot continue to cheat its drivers out of their basic rights?

Even before the pandemic, one in 10 working adults—around 5 million—were found to be working in the gig economy, in fragile and insecure work, and with one-sided flexibility. It is bad for those workers, bad for the economy and, as we have seen from the pandemic, a disaster for public health. Will the Minister confirm that the principles of the judgment in the Uber case must apply not only to all Uber drivers, but to all those on similar arrangements across the country?

Let me say again that the Government cannot abrogate their responsibility by telling workers to fight for their basic protection through an employment tribunal system that barely functions following a decade of neglect. Working people need a Government who will stand behind them, so will the Minister commit now to legislate to end bogus self-employment and provide security to all gig economy workers?

[Paul Scully]

As I have said, the Government are clear that everybody deserves to be treated fairly at work and rewarded for their contribution to the economy. The judgment has been laid down and there are no further avenues for appeal, so Uber must respond accordingly. The hon. Gentleman talked about clarifying employment status and rights. We are committed to continuing to look at workers’ rights, and to ensure that we consider carefully and in the round all the questions about the various workers’ rights, while keeping flexibility in our employment market.

Levelling-up Agenda: Tees Valley

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Alex Cunningham]

Again, we get jam tomorrow. It is all about jam tomorrow—something that is going to happen in three or five years’ time.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Can we just nail this business about state aid? It was pleaded for in Redcar. We can do that. This is a critically important point: the Tory Government decided that they would sit on their hands and let 9,000 jobs go down the pan. Do not kid me that suddenly there will be this conversion to intervention in our economy—that is absolute nonsense. The French did it; the Germans did it; the Italians did it; and the British Government sat on their hands, and we lost jobs.

[Alex Cunningham]

My hon. Friend does not need an answer from me on that point. Why has our area lost out? Where was the Tees Tory Mayor when the orders were being handed out? He was nowhere to be seen.

No doubt some will claim that jobs have been boosted in the area, but it is going to take a few more media pictures of the Mayor in a hard hat to convince me of that. The cost per job created in the Tees Valley Combined Authority area is calculated at £96,093. That means that for every job created in the last three years, the Mayor has spent nearly a hundred grand. How on earth is an approach like that going to deliver the sustainable job growth our region so desperately needs? The figures are astronomical. We urgently need a fully independent audit of exactly where the millions of pounds of taxpayer money have gone.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham]

Personally, I am still a little surprised that it ever happened. Labour-led authorities at that time supported the purchase of the airport. The Mayor was elected on the promise that he would buy the airport; it was in his manifesto and others facilitated his doing it. He is the person who will have to bear the brunt of the problems that we will face in the future, including the many millions of pounds that we are going to lose, year on year.

[Andy McDonald]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it might assist us if the various companies that have fallen under the umbrella of this organisation voluntarily agreed to be subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000? What we have here is a raft of public money, and a public body, put beyond the gaze of the public. Does he agree that that does not help scrutiny and transparency?

[Alex Cunningham]

Most certainly. I cannot understand why anybody wants to hide where the public money has been spent. I know that there are different people involved in all these different companies. I would like to know what their agenda is. Is it the agenda of the people of the Tees Valley?

The failure of the Government, both nationally and locally, angers and saddens me. The Tees Valley is fit to burst with potential. We are ripe and ready to be levelled up; we are calling out for it. We have the potential to exploit the amazing opportunities for green industry, including carbon capture and storage. We have a high skill base, tight-knit communities and local authorities that, despite political changes, have a track record of working together, and achieving great things when they do. Sometimes, local Tories try to claim that Labour politicians are talking down Teesside.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) on securing today’s debate. I just wish he could have been more generous in his speech. It was, I am afraid, a quintessential example of talking down Teesside, the phrase he rightly used. Indeed, it contained a series of remarks that are deeply disparaging of what is going on in our area, and some half-baked innuendo around impropriety by the Mayor that he would be ill-advised to repeat outside the House.

What is happening in the Tees Valley will, of course, transform the life chances of his constituents and mine. Under successive Governments, our area has never been supported properly to adapt to a changing world, so our traditional strength in heavy industry became a new-found weakness. That is changing under the Conservatives. The solutions the Labour Government offered were the wrong ones; there was an unsustainable reliance on public sector jobs, a culture of welfare dependency, and a lack of thought about how to instigate proper, sustainable, private sector growth.

What is required for the Tees Valley? Opportunity, investment, and leadership—and that is what we now have. The hon. Gentleman denigrated the fact that there is a 10-year plan; I am glad there is a plan. It is a plan that has been agreed in partnership between Government, local government, our councils and industry. That is an example of precisely the kind of successful devolution that we need to see more of in this country.

[Andy McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned over-reliance on public sector workers. Are those the same public sector workers for whom we came out from our houses and clapped on a Thursday night in appreciation of the work that they do and in acknowledgement of how much we rely on them, or is he now casting them to one side as well?

[Mr Clarke]

I will take that point head-on. Of course we appreciate our public sector workers—

[Andy McDonald]

Well, you won’t pay them.

[Mr Clarke]

We do, actually, and we have defended the lowest paid in today’s statement, but it is very important to note that in the end we need to have sustainable private sector-led growth in the Tees Valley and that was not what was delivered under the last Labour Government. What we need to see is growth, and how will that growth be delivered? There are five key aspects to that.

The first is the regeneration of the former SSI steelworks site at Redcar, supported by £233 million from the Government. It is the largest redevelopment project in the United Kingdom. What will go there? In February, I had the pleasure of speaking at the launch of Net Zero Teesside at the Riverside stadium. As we heard last week, carbon capture, usage and storage will be at the heart of the Government’s green industrial revolution. It is backed by £1 billion of Government investment, and the Tees and the Humber CCS clusters—

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

It is an absolute pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Cummins. I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) for securing the debate, and Mr Speaker for granting me permission to speak on behalf of my constituency of Middlesbrough.

Ten years of Tory austerity have been utterly devastating for our people, and for none more so than for the people in my town of Middlesbrough and for our communities across the Tees Valley. That the Government are now talking about a levelling up agenda is the result of the inequalities that have taken hold across the regions over recent years because of their policies. The prolonged period of underfunding and not providing communities with the powers to help themselves has left us in a state where the disparity in funding levels across the UK is stark.

Let us look at transport. Last year, London got £903 per head and the north-east £486. The Government do not have the interests of the whole nation at heart. The Middlesbrough to King’s Cross rail service has been put back and back and back. The latest estimated time of arrival is December 2021, and further delays would not surprise me.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

rose—

[Andy McDonald]

I will give way once, because I have little time.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Let us try not to be too party political about this. Does the hon. Member not recognise that under-investment in the north, which we all suffer from, has happened under Governments of all persuasions, for decades, and this is the first Government who are doing something tangible about it?

[Andy McDonald]

I would like to think that was true. I hear that trotted out ad nauseam from the Government Benches: “When you criticise me or hold me to account, you’re being party political.” That is our job. The Conservatives have had 10 years in Government and have done nothing but give us false promises and hard hats. We are not into it. Of course, there was nothing about Northern Powerhouse Rail in the Chancellor’s statement and there is nothing at all on the horizon for the much-needed electrification of the line from Northallerton through to Middlesbrough and beyond.

Sadly, the social, economic and health crises brought about by covid-19 have only exacerbated the existing inequalities. It is no surprise that Middlesbrough, as one of the poorest parts of the country, with 40% of children growing up below the poverty line and where four out of five workers have to leave home to go about their work, was also one of the areas of the UK worst hit by the virus.

There are, however, things that can be done to address some of the impacts of years of neglect and the ravages of covid. Many of us are old enough to remember Margaret Thatcher in ’79 cancelling the transfer of the Government’s property service agencies from London to Middlesbrough—3,000 jobs cut at a stroke. Over recent years of Tory rule, high-quality Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs jobs have been ripped out of Middlesbrough and Stockton, among them experienced civil servants who were tax inspectors and whose debt recovery performance was the best in the country. I pleaded with the Government not to rob us of those high-quality jobs, but did they listen?

That is why I am hugely disappointed that the Chancellor has not come forward today with a decision regarding the campus for the north. Over the past year I have repeatedly urged him to bring forward plans to establish that campus and bring with it 22,000 Government jobs for our communities, making the case for Middlesbrough and the Tees Valley to be chosen as a site for the new campus. Again—lots of press releases, but no action.

My hon. Friends the Members for Stockton North and for Hartlepool (Mike Hill) and I recently met senior representatives of BP and Net Zero Teesside. For many years, we have been pressing the case for carbon capture, use and storage on Teesside, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friends’ work. We very much welcomed the discussion about further work on the plans, which have been a long time in development. However, the funding behind the Government’s 10-point plan for the green industrial revolution does not come anywhere near addressing the immediate climate and employment crisis.

There is no engagement or consultation with trade unions when we secure very welcome major capital expenditure projects, totally consistent with the ambitions of the green industrial revolution. That cannot continue. I have begged the Government to listen to Frances O’Grady of the TUC and her call for a national recovery council, with Government, businesses and unions working together. We want good jobs and good industrial relations from the off. We want union engagement at the start of the process, not desperate attempts at retrofitting. On Teesside, as across the entire country, if there is to be any substance to the constant drip feed of rehashed announcements and hollow promises, it has to mean something for Teesside workers, with a clear path to delivery.

There is an opportunity here to create new, well-paid unionised jobs. There is insufficient focus on jobs and ensuring that we have the skills to secure those jobs. Sadly, Tory Governments do all that they can to undermine the strength and bargaining power of trade unions that are fighting to protect jobs. President-elect Joe Biden said the other day:

“I want you to know I’m a union guy”,

and that under his presidency unions will have increased power. He said:

“It’s not antibusiness. It’s about economic growth, creating good paying jobs.”

I do not know why the Tory Government cannot comprehend that.

The benchmark of the promise to level up will be my Middlesbrough constituents having those good jobs and being able to enjoy the benefits of economic growth with their families. As for the promise to boost skills, are the Government serious? They have just cancelled the union learning fund on the basis that it is not fair because all receiving workplaces are union workplaces. They should encourage workers, as I am doing today, to join a trade union. That is the way to secure better terms and conditions, safer workplaces, a better work-life balance and better pay and spending power to put demand back in the economy and taxes in the Treasury. Scrapping the union learning fund is levelling down, not levelling up, and it is a kick in the teeth for working people.

Sadly, far too many people in Middlesbrough and across the Tees Valley will not be looking forward to 2021 and levelling up, but they will be looking at the pork barrel Tory politics delivering for their friends, their party and their donors. It was ever thus, but it does not have to be like that. We can build back better if there is the political will, but my Middlesbrough constituents see very little evidence of it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in today’s debate. I welcome the Chancellor’s promises in the spending review, which will go a long way to kick-start the Government’s levelling up agenda. As recently as this morning, in a debate on northern infrastructure, which was notably ignored by the vast majority of Labour Members, I mentioned the need for a fund that MPs could use to secure funding for local projects to commit to levelling up.

[Andy McDonald]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Paul Howell]

Let me make some progress first, please.

[Andy McDonald]

It is on that point. If MPs have to get in a queue to get to the Chancellor or any other Minister to say, “My constituency, please”, does the hon. Gentleman see any flaws with that process?

[Paul Howell]

Not really.

[Andy McDonald]

That’s because you’re the beneficiary.

[Paul Howell]

Prior to coming to this place, I sat as a Durham county councillor, and the local councillors had a local fund to help local projects at a small level. It is a very similar concept. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, like me, knows of things on which he would like to spend money in his constituency.

The project of levelling up the Tees Valley is ambitious and attainable. We have already seen great successes in levelling up the valley, including the saving of Teesside International airport in the south of my constituency, which has flights to connect the world to Teesside. It was announced this morning that Ryanair will be joining us. Teesside International airport and its estate is a flagship for levelling up and shows what can be achieved quickly with the correct capital investment and implementation plan. I look forward to further investment.

Under the stewardship of Ben Houchen, levelling up the Tees Valley looks to have an exciting future, with plans for a new freeport that could create 32,000 jobs and add £2 billion to the regional economy, and the UK’s largest industrial zone in Teesworks will create extra jobs there. This is an exciting time for the region, and I hope this debate allows us to discuss how we can move it on further.

My constituency of Sedgefield sits on the edge of the Tees Valley, and I assume that I am the eighth of the seven that the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) mentioned—there are eight of us in the Tees Valley, and a third of my constituency is in the Tees Valley Combined Authority. Because of that, we are in a unique position. Many of my constituents travel to the Tees Valley for work every day, and many from the Tees Valley travel to Sedgefield. Because of that, hon. Members might expect good transport links between the two, but that is not the case. Out of 228,000 people in County Durham, only 13,000 use the bus and 2,000 use the train. Cars are obviously the main thing. It is not good that 164,000 people opt to use a car to get to work. I obviously support the Darlington bypass, which would link Newton Aycliffe business park, with 10,000 jobs, to Teesport.

[Andy McDonald]

Will the hon. Gentleman indulge me one more time?

[Paul Howell]

Shortly.

[Andy McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very good point about the public transport links. I wonder whether he might want to have a word with the Tees Valley Mayor about embracing the powers under the Bus Services Act 2017 to re-regulate our buses so that the hon. Gentleman can deliver the services that wants in his constituency.

[Paul Howell]

The Tees Valley Mayor’s initiatives, such as the Tees Flex bus service, are a very good step in the right direction. I wish that that service would come up to the north of my constituency.

We must remember that, in order to level up, the benefits and successes of regeneration from freeports, green jobs and so on must be distributed across the region. The critical advantage is connections to those projects by air, bus, train, bike—whatever. I welcome the Chancellor’s decision to provide funding to start a feasibility study on Ferryhill station and include it in the national infrastructure plan. The residents have been asking for it for 24 years. When a certain Tony Blair was the MP for Sedgefield, there was no progress whatever. The comment we got from the local Labour group was, “Thatcher stopped that.” Well, 24 years is plenty of time to fix it.

My point is that we need a long-term plan focused on connectivity. It is important to have an integrated transport system and short, medium and long-term commitments to encourage optimistic investment by business and housing in places where it is needed. We look forward to further benefits of opening this rail connection, which would open the door and provide a foundation to better connect Teesside with Tyneside and Wearside and improve connectivity.

Alongside the levelling up of our physical infrastructure, we must also level up our social infrastructure. This funding will be vital in the medium to long-term response to covid, since research shows that the pandemic is likely to exacerbate existing social and economic problems in left-behind neighbourhoods. What I mean by levelling up our social infrastructure is building social capital and investing in our communities and community projects.

I am co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for “left behind” neighbourhoods, and we have identified 122 constituencies with left-behind communities. We define those by using the community needs index and taking the bottom 10% of the wards in England. Some 30% of those were in former—I say again, former—red wall constituencies, and seven of the eight constituencies in the Tees Valley include left-behind neighbourhoods.

One proposal, for a community wealth fund, would provide investment and put left-behind communities in charge of the spend, enabling them to build the social capital and civic infrastructure they need. I welcome the Chancellor’s commitment in the spending review to a levelling up fund and the new community fund, and I hope to work with all local colleagues to maximise its application in our area.

Covid-19: Employment Rights

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Christopher. I congratulate the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) and the Backbench Business Committee on securing this important debate. I declare my interest as a proud member of Unite the union.

In March the Prime Minister told people across the country that the Government would put their arms around every single worker, but what has taken place in the past eight months has been nowhere close to what he promised. Instead we have had the silent erosion of employment rights and protections without a whisper from the Government. There is no doubt that this crisis has been brutal for working people, who have been laid off and made redundant in their droves and who have seen huge falls in the wages that they take home at the end of the day. It has been a brutal awakening that the rights and protections that they are supposed to enjoy, rather than acting as bulwarks against abuse by their employers, are in reality worth little more than the paper they are written on.

One of the most fundamental workers’ rights is the right to a safe workplace, as set out in numerous pieces of legislation, and the importance of that right could not be more pronounced during this pandemic, where otherwise benign workplaces such as retail have been turned into high-risk places, with high rates of contact with members of the public putting staff at risk from coronavirus. Despite that, huge numbers of workers were told to return to work over the summer, their employers spurred on by the dwindling support and increasing limitations of the furlough scheme, without proper precautions to ensure that a safe workplace was being put in place—effectively rolling back the right to a safe workplace.

The ability to demand this return to work, and the failure to put proper protections in place, putting staff in great danger—as we have seen in the health and social care sector—are a direct result of gutting local authority resources and in particular the Health and Safety Executive, which has been left powerless to enforce the rules that it was formed to uphold, with almost £150 million in real-terms cuts between 2010 and 2018 and about 500 inspectors let go. As we have seen at British Airways and Centrica, or British Gas, unscrupulous employers have been using this crisis—as my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) said—as cover to unilaterally push through dramatic changes to employment contracts and to water down staff pay, terms and conditions. These unfair, unethical and underhand fire and rehire tactics, used by some of the largest and most profitable businesses, are essentially a legal loophole for blackmail that leaves workers worse off, as employers know full well that, in an increasingly uncertain employment market and under the threat of redundancy, workers cannot say no.

Such tactics also allow bad employers, who are happy to chop away at rights and pay or to let staff take the fall for poor business decisions and mistakes while sitting on vast financial reserves and still paying bonuses and dividends to flourish, while good employers, who care about and invest in their staff, are punished as a consequence. These are the last things that people in our economy need in the middle of a recession. The Government should be helping businesses to boost wages, improve productivity and invest in their work force, not to shed staff and cut wages and employment rights. While they are at it, they could end the scourge of zero-hours contracts and insecure work.

Just look at Optare in North Yorkshire, where a last-minute concession was drawn from the Government to ensure that workers had the right to picket, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) said. Look at Ark Academy school trust, whose cleaning contractor, Ridge Crest, told the reps from United Voices of the World to drop their union and they would get PPE and the London living wage. Look at the Leicester garment workers, knocking out fashion for Boohoo at record speed, having their pay withheld and otherwise being paid half the national minimum wage. Where is the enforcement from the Government?

Then there are workers whose rights have been breached and who have been put at risk by their employer over this period, but who actually know the rights and protections that the law affords them. They still have to overcome the hurdles that are put in place by an enormous backlog in the employment tribunal system. The figures have soared to over 450,000—an increase of almost 50%. Even if a worker has been forced to return to work in an unsafe environment, has had their wages and conditions cut or has been unfairly dismissed, they are not likely to get justice for the best part of two years, if not longer.

Justice for such basic matters that takes two years to be served is not justice. Rights that cannot be enforced are not rights at all; they are just gestures of good will that employers can readily ignore on a whim. Vital and fundamental employment rights that were built over years of what were extraordinary struggles, often in the face of huge adversity, have been demoted to little more than platitudes, rather than real, meaningful and enforceable rules and protections.

While this takes place, the Government look on. Although they have set out guidance for workplaces to be made covid-secure, they have failed to make it clear that the guidance does not circumvent or replace the statutory protections that are currently in place, thereby reminding employers of their legal obligations towards the health and wellbeing of their staff, even within the offices of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

The Government have refused to back the Health and Safety Executive and to give it the teeth it needs to hold bad employers to account for their unsafe workplaces, putting staff in danger from covid by returning only a measly £14 million out of what has been a £150 million cut since the last Labour Government. It is simply illogical that the Government brought in new powers to restrain citizens from putting others at risk in the public sphere, while at the same time neglecting the enforcement of workplace protections, thereby allowing employers to flout the law in the workplaces they control and to put at risk the health and safety of workers and, in turn, the wider public.

In discharging his duty to keep safe all who work in this place, the conduct of the Leader of the House has been woeful and reckless in the extreme. On the outrageous tactic of firing and rehiring, the Government’s record is no better. They tell us that they expect all employers to treat their employees fairly and to follow the rules, and they have made it clear that they regret some of the decisions that have been taken. The Prime Minister had the audacity to tell BA staff in an email that employers should not be removing staff or changing terms and conditions, yet the Government have still allowed employers such as BA to take the taxpayer’s money and to lay off huge numbers of staff without consequences. They have refused to commit to stand up against such exploitation by bad businesses and to legislate to ban this tactic for good, as the Leader of the Opposition has rightly called for them to do.

Such outright indifference to the struggle of workers to keep their jobs, wages, rights and conditions takes place against a backdrop of the Government undermining the strength and bargaining power of trade unions that are fighting to protect jobs. However, we should not expect anything less from the same Government who sought to curtail the ability of working people to do that, though imposing employment fees.

President-elect Joe Biden said in his campaign:

“Today, however, there’s a war on organising, collective bargaining, unions, and workers. It’s been raging for decades, and it’s getting worse with Donald Trump in the White House.”

That is exactly the position in the UK after 10 years of Tory rule. After a decade of brutal austerity cuts by the Government, they have undermined protection for people at work and increased the risk to their health, safety and welfare. However, the pandemic has exposed just how much damage austerity has done, and how far these rights have been eroded.

The excuses offered by the Minister will be that such concerns are commercial issues—he has said it before—and that they are to be resolved by employers and workers. That is not good enough, and it shows just how far removed from reality the Government have become. It also demonstrates just how inadequate and unenforceable our current employment rights and protections are, and why, more than ever, we need a new employment rights settlement that can properly protect working people across the country.

I urge the Minister to confirm that the Government will never again put obstacles in the way of working people upholding their rights and seeking redress, and to guarantee that the protections afforded to working people will be strengthened in the employment Bill that has yet to appear before Parliament, a year after being promised. Their boast was that the employment Bill would

“Protect and enhance workers’ rights as the UK leaves the EU, making Britain the best place in the world to work.”

Well, let’s see it.