Finance (No. 2) Bill

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Of course the position she sets out is exactly what we saw in the early part of this Parliament when VAT was increased and a number of other measures were put in place. At that point, inflation hit about 5.5%, which then allowed the Government to say, “Aren’t we wonderful? We have just put pensions up by the biggest ever amount.” But that increase would have come even under the old system—even under a system that was simply tracking pensions to inflation—because of the inflation rate. Pensioners were not getting some amazing extra increase that year; there was a simple tracking of what had happened, largely because of the VAT issue.

Not only have many of those low-paid people not got any further gain to get if the tax threshold keeps increasing, but they have actually lost out at the same time, because one thing that has helped to pay for all this has been the reductions in things such as tax credits. Many low-paid people lost more in tax credits than they gained in the rise in the tax threshold. The Government keep endlessly repeating that low-paid people are the ones who have benefited, but that has not been the case in practice for many of these people, particularly those with families and children—they have particularly suffered. For them, the Budget is a bit of non-event and it will continue to be so.

That is why the £12 billion of welfare cuts that have been pencilled in for some two years now in various statements by the Treasury, and by the Chancellor in particular, are very important. Part of that approach might be to cut away further the support given to people in work, perhaps through the tax credits system, at some future point. Tax credit is to be replaced by universal credit, but the issue remains much the same in terms of how it tapers off and where the losses might come.

We already know that in many respects universal credit will be less beneficial for a lot of people in work, as they increase the hours of work they do. So how much of this £12 billion will come from that source? Again, people may be given a little bit with one hand, through the increase in the tax threshold, but find that they lose as a result of what the other hand is taking. We just do not know because we have been given no detail; it has been deliberately withheld, although one suspects that someone, somewhere has a plan. It would be strange if they did not have a plan. If, under welfare cuts, we are taking away things such as support for people who are in work, it is extremely important.

The other area is housing benefit, because, again, that is increasingly being claimed by people who are in work, not just by people who are out of work. Those people who are in work will be hurt again if there are further attempts to reduce the housing benefit bill, by eroding the amounts that individuals get. Again, we have this lack of clarity and detail. It is understandable why some of us are extremely suspicious about the alacrity with which the Prime Minister wished to distance himself from a VAT increase. For all the talk about a long-term economic plan, we have a lack of any clear policy and detail about what the Conservatives will do if they are re-elected. I hope that they will not be in government, so perhaps they do not need to give any detail, but the people who will be voting in a few weeks’ time deserve to know such things.

We should not be in the position that we were in before the 2010 election when we were promised things, such as that there would be no VAT increase, that were undone very, very quickly. I do not think that people were told about the scale of the reductions that would be made.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a very good speech. She has returned to the point about the scale of the cuts. Is she as concerned as I am about that? My local council has been cut by 43% since 2010. We now have 1,000 people losing their social care packages this year. Is it not very frightening that what we face in the next couple of years are cuts that are deeper than anything we have seen before? I find that prospect frightening for social care and local services, which are already crippled, and for policing—for keeping our local community safe. Does she feel that way, too? We have already seen what has happened—

[The Temporary Chair (Mr Hood)]

Order.

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[Mr Deputy Speaker]

We are getting into areas that are not a matter for the Chair. This is agreed business of the Government. That answers that.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for a member of a Select Committee who has been involved in a serious leak and a possible breach of privilege in this House then to raise that, as happened today at Prime Minister’s questions in a question from the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie), thus exacerbating the situation the Committee has found itself in? I would be grateful for your advice.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Other members of the Health Committee are also affected. The hon. Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) has openly leaked the private considerations of the Committee. What action can be taken immediately?

The Economy

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Gentleman will know that child poverty is falling, and it is only by making work pay that we can reward the individuals who choose to go out to work and ensure that they are supported, not only through tax credits, but through the wider system, through child care—[Interruption.] The national minimum wage has gone up. Will Labour Members welcome that, because—[Interruption.] It went up last month. [Interruption.] The Opposition are belittling the fact that we have ensured that the national minimum wage has gone up, and that is part of sustaining families and helping them with the cost of living. This is not just about young people; it is about supporting parents as they return to work through our reforms to child care.

To those, particularly those in the Labour party, who point to some of the measures I have outlined as a sign of economic failure, I say two things. First, they should stop sneering at what this Government have done to give our young a hand up when it comes to employment opportunities. The apprenticeships schemes, training schemes, colleges and starter jobs are not to be sneered at—they are valued and welcome. This Government have rightly put out the helping hand to a generation abandoned by Labour by giving them the chance to train, get a profession and get on in life.

Secondly, job creation and wage increases do not happen simultaneously. If there is an exceptional rate of job creation—we have put one in place—of course that has an impact on average wages. Wage increases happen slightly later. However, as the Resolution Foundation, run by Gavin Kelly, a former special adviser to the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), has stated, when compositional changes in the labour market are accounted for, average wages for the first half of 2014 have grown in real terms. Encouragingly, the most recent monthly Office for National Statistics figures showed wage growth outstripping inflation, particularly so for the 84% of workers who were in continuous employment—those in exactly the same job as they were a year ago—who saw pay rises of 4.1%, which is double the rate of inflation.

The third way to get a recovery that works for the many is by allowing people to take home and keep more of the money they have earned: giving them more disposable income. That measure is conveniently not included in the £1,600 worse-off statistic frequently touted by the Labour party, which also does not take into account the huge increase in employment or a measure of inflation that has any credibility. Over the course of this Parliament, we will have cut the income tax of a typical taxpayer by £805, boosting the amount of money that 25 million people take home, and taken more than 3.2 million of our lower earners out of income tax altogether. These are the biggest reforms of income tax in generations.

We are cutting the cost of living, helping to make families more financially secure. We are freezing fuel duty—the Labour party was happy to increase that at every opportunity; freezing council tax; and reducing the costs of child care. Those measures are helping with the standard of living of people up and down this country.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

I do not know how much more the Minister has got to say, but I did not want to let the chance go by for her to address the discourtesy pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). My hon. Friend does not know where the Minister is going tomorrow, and I am sure that such discourtesies do not please you, Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister came to my constituency and did not bother to tell me about it. An opportunity has been offered to the Minister and I wonder whether she will tell us before she finishes speaking whether she is going to take that opportunity to be clear about where she is going tomorrow.

[Priti Patel]

Of course, Mr Speaker. No discourtesy is meant. I know that those in my office have been in touch with the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and she has been notified of my visit tomorrow. After I have finished in the Chamber today, I will ensure that she is given full details of the location of the site that I am visiting.

We have heard quite a lot from the Opposition today, and I take issue with the implication that the recovery helps only the well-off. In every Budget since 2010 revenues from the most well-off have been raised. The increases in capital gains tax in 2010, the increase in stamp duty on high-value homes and limiting income tax reliefs are all measures that we have taken. We have been able to use those extra revenues to help the most vulnerable in our society wherever we can. We have done so through the introduction of the triple lock on the state pension, making pensioners £440 per year better off; through the pupil premium in our schools; and by supporting those on disability benefits by exempting them from the annual benefit cap. It is right that we safeguard those in need through such measures. It is not right, no matter what the Labour party says, to have a tax system in place that turns talented growth-creators away from the UK. The Opposition’s dogmatic stance on the 50p rate shows that they are willing to drive wealth creators out of this country and to risk our economic security. That is no way to help the poorest in our country.

Next week, the Chancellor will present the autumn statement to the House. As this motion notes several areas where the Government have taken action, and will continue to do so, I would like briefly to touch on some of those items. As I said, we are the Government who increased the national minimum wage in October, leading to a pay increase for more than 1 million people. That was the largest cash increase since 2008. We are also the Government who are introducing tax-free child care, which will provide working families with 20% support for child care costs of up to £10,000 per year for each child. On tax avoidance, we have taken the lead on the international stage through the base erosion and profit shifting projects. Domestically, we have made 42 changes to tax law to close down loopholes and reform the system. After 13 years of Labour inaction on tax evasion, we are leading the world on tackling the issue.

We will take no lectures from the Labour party on small and medium-sized enterprises. It regulated, taxed and placed endless excessive burdens on SMEs when it was in government. This time last year we announced the largest package of business rates support for 20 years. More than half a million small businesses are benefiting from small business rate relief, with 360,000 paying no business rates at all. This Government back SMEs. We understand them and we pay tribute to them for their enormous contribution to our economy.

For the first time in a generation we have a Government who are committed to investing in our infrastructure. The national infrastructure plan has ended the corrosive stop-start cycle of infrastructure investment and enabled us to have some of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in generations, so that Britain can once again stand tall in the world. [Interruption.] No, we have enabled many infrastructure projects to take place across the country, and we are proud of the investment this Government are making in infrastructure. Housing has been mentioned, and we are investing £7.8 billion to deliver the most ambitious affordable housing programme for more than 20 years. The Conservative party is the one that has supported and championed the property-owning democracy, so we will take no lectures from Labour on home ownership and supporting the aspiration of those who want to own a home.

We live in a global economy and, as we have seen, not every country has had our laser-sharp focus on growth and economic competitiveness. In the 21st century no country is 100% master of its own economic destiny, and it would be naive to pretend otherwise. But the reforms we have carried out are making our long-term sustainable plan and our economy—this leads to the increase in living standards—so viable. Regaining the lost ground can be achieved only by backing growth in our economy, supporting those who back business and support job creation, and underpinning it with sound public finances and strong business investment. We have a plan in place and it is delivering. [Interruption.] It is interesting at this stage of the debate to see Opposition Members sneering and sniggering. We will carry on working through our long-term economic plan, which is securing a resilient economy and a better future for all.

Income Tax

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Frank Dobson]

No, as I shall finish shortly.

None of these people would have any difficulty finding an extra 5p or even 10p in the pound on their income tax.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Frank Dobson]

Yes, I give way to my hon. Friend.

[Barbara Keeley]

I wanted to intervene because my right hon. Friend is talking about behavioural change among bankers, but Government Members were shaking their heads and tutting when we were referring to disabled people, and I—[Interruption.] Yes they were; they were doing so when we referred to disabled people being hit by this Government and their priorities. Does my right hon. Friend agree that one group of people who cannot change their behaviour are the 60,000 carers who are required by this Government to pay the bedroom tax? They cannot change their behaviour: they cannot work; they cannot change their hours. Some people can afford to pay 5p or 10p extra in the pound, but people who are being hit badly—disabled people and carers—cannot do so.

[Frank Dobson]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.

My final point is this: the bulk of people who will benefit are in the banks and the rest of the finance industry. This is a very privileged industry, because every other industry in the country has to pay a 20% transaction tax, which is known as VAT, yet the City businesses pay virtually no transaction tax. I think if we want to raise some more money we ought to be introducing a transaction tax in line with what Mrs Merkel has been suggesting.

Taxation of Pensions Bill

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Wednesday 29th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Cathy Jamieson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I read with interest the transcript of the Committee’s evidence session. People need good-quality guidance to help them make the right choices. We must guard against mis-selling, for example—we cannot afford a repeat of the payment protection insurance scandal. We must prevent people from falling victim to exploitation and illegality. We know that pension liberation fraud has already endangered millions of pounds in savings, affecting many people. That is the reason why I am concerned about the way the Government have handled these reforms, which to some seem a bit rushed and haphazard.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

Is there not also the concern that people will end up spending a lot more of the pensions they have drawn down into savings accounts on social care? This Government have forcibly removed £4 billion from adult social care budgets, so we know that people are paying more for social care. If the money is held just in savings accounts, many more people will end up being liable for those costs.

[Cathy Jamieson]

The point my hon. Friend makes is absolutely crucial for many people, which it is why it is so important that they get guidance, so they can make sensible decisions to provide for the long term. I will say a bit more about social care and other services later, if I have the opportunity to do so.

After the Chancellor announced the overall pensions reforms to the House in the Budget statement, we set out three tests against which we believe they should be measured. The first was the advice test: would there be robust advice for people on providing for their retirement and measures to prevent mis-selling? The second was the fairness test: that the new system would be fair, with those on middle and low incomes still being able to access the products that give them the certainty in retirement that they want. The third was the cost test: that the Government must ensure that these reforms do not result in extra costs to the state, either through social care or pensioners falling back at a later stage on means-tested benefits such as housing benefit. We stand by those tests and would argue that so far, the Government have been unable to give assurances on any of those points.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

I should start by declaring an interest: I am well over 55 and have a pension pot that is subject to these provisions. I very much welcome the Bill because its measures are undoubtedly needed. I praise my right hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), who has been campaigning on these issues since 1999 and has done a terrific job in reforming pensions in his years as Pensions Minister.

The Bill is a revolution in terms of freedom. I am glad that defined-benefit schemes are excluded, because they were the source of much of the mis-selling that took place during the scandals that occurred, with people who had very secure local authority or teachers’ pensions, for example, being encouraged by unscrupulous advisers to cash them in and take out risky products. We have to try to avoid that.

People arrive at the time when they want to take their pension in many different circumstances. They may want to spend their money at different rates depending on their view of how they want to spend their retirement. They may have health issues that determine how they spend their money. They may make various different choices. Even though I was brought up as a Presbyterian by my Scottish parents, I have nothing against holidays, which are a perfectly good choice when one initially retires.

I know from talking to constituents that one of the main things people do these days is make a capital transfer to their children, particularly to buy a property. I can well understand why people whose income is okay might want to do so, and given that the new rules on inheritance are much less penal in cases of early death, funds that they have saved up will still be available to their family.

However—there are quite a few howevers about this Bill—annuities have a deservedly bad name in terms of value, mainly because low gilt rates mean that annuity providers can only offer low rates. Annuities do have a purpose. They are a pool, which is one of the things that I find constituents have difficulty in understanding. Perhaps even the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) has difficulty in understanding that, given what he said; I know he does not, because he is an expert in this area. When people die soon after taking out an annuity, the insurance company does not get the money; the person who gets the money is someone who is lucky enough to live to be 100. That is what pooled annuities are all about.

By demonising annuities, we have caused people to forget that they do not know how long they are going to live. On average these days, somebody aged 65 will live until they are 83, but a lot live longer and quite a lot live less than that. The whole point about annuities is that they are a pool, and people bet against how long they are going to live. I think that the industry will come up with annuity-type products to meet the desire of many people for a secure income for as long as they live.

In financial services, it is always worth asking what is the worst that could happen, because it usually does happen. That is why we need to think about some of the unintended consequences, difficulties or gaps. Several speakers have mentioned the world of guidance. I was disturbed to hear the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), who is not in his place, say:

“We will not get it right first time.”

Let us remember that guidance in this area will be given only once for each individual. They cannot keep going back for more guidance: it happens once. If we do not get it right first time and the cohort of people in the first year do not get good advice, they will suffer for the rest of their lives. From our point of view, it might take a while to get the guidance right, but for the people getting the advice it must be right when they get it. The whole area of standards and regulation in relation to the Bill would bear more examination.

Advice needs to be impartial and transparent, and it should be based on straightforward products, but I worry about the level of knowledge of the people receiving advice. A few weeks ago, a constituent came to see me who had taken out a finance deal for some solar panels. It turned out that the combination of the savings on the solar panels and the finance deal meant that she had an overall penalty in her budget. The savings on the panels in no way paid for the cost of the finance, although she had been told that it would.

[Barbara Keeley]

The hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) spoke about someone who left work and needed their care costs to be covered at a certain point. In my view, that is another thing for which constituents do not plan. I have lost count of the number of my constituents who did not even know that they had to pay for social care and did not understand the thresholds. I am concerned that a lot of people will be tripped up if they draw down money and increase their savings, because they will suddenly find that they fall within the threshold at which they have to pay for social care. People commonly do not understand that, and it will not be covered by the guidance.

[Ian Swales]

That is a very good point. The guidance needs to be much more in the round on what may happen to people after retirement, but I suspect that that will not be mentioned in the guidance unless we can do something about it.

To go back to my example about the lady with the solar panels, I went through the documents with her, and they very clearly showed the numbers. There was no doubt: she had not been scammed. What she had signed up to was absolutely clear, and her signature was on all the documents. She said, “Oh, I just didn’t realise. I’ve an A-level in maths, so I should have realised.” What worries me is that we do not have to speak to many constituents before we realise that levels of knowledge about pensions are extremely low. As the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) has said, other consequential issues of getting older are sometimes even less clearly understood.

I am worried about the guidance, and I think that there will be concerns about whether it is appropriate and whether people have the financial awareness necessary to understand it. That goes back to the need to make people more financially literate from school onwards, but we will not solve that problem overnight. The industry is talking about having a second line of defence, and it needs to be listened to. It is a clear case of “They would say that, wouldn’t they?”—it is designed to get people to move towards the type of products that the industry is offering—but such a second line of defence might serve to protect people from themselves, as it were.

We need to watch out for scams. I listened carefully when the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) mentioned criminality in relation to people losing their pension savings. Pension release companies already impose extremely high charges for unlocking pension schemes and doing very little work. I am prepared to take an intervention from her if she so wishes, but I am a bit concerned about how to define criminality. People may make a bad decision, but that is not necessarily criminal. I agree with her, but I wonder what kind of products or service she means when she talks about criminalising those who end up losing their pension pots.

Childcare Payments Bill

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

Employment levels have gone up substantially under this Government. More people are getting jobs and more hours. As I say, the Bill is about a choice. With more people securing employment, this is about enabling families to make a choice if both parents need to or want to work, or, in the case of lone-parent families, providing support that is more generous than the current employer-supported child care voucher scheme.

The scheme, which launches next autumn, is to be rolled out to all those eligible families with children under 12 within the first year of its operation. The real triumph of the scheme is that it will make hundreds of thousands of parents who are currently excluded from support eligible for it.

The scheme has been designed so that support is available to the self-employed, who play a crucial role in our economy but are currently excluded, and so that it suits the needs of part-time workers, who are very often parents staggering their way back into full-time work, and those parents who are temporarily absent from the workplace—for example, during statutory parental leave. It is also designed to support those couples where one member is in work and the other is in receipt of carer’s allowance or employment and support allowance, by making them eligible for the new scheme.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

The Minister is reading out a list, but on the question of future roll-out, Opposition Members are very concerned about universal credit, the future of which we spent much time discussing in the Chamber last week. When will additional support be made available for those low-income families, who deserve help with the costs of child care? Is it really the case that 4 million low-income families could be waiting until 2017, and why is there still so much uncertainty around funding this part of the programme for universal credit?

[Nicky Morgan]

I do not think there is uncertainty around that, but there is uncertainty among Opposition Members and I find it staggering that they are criticising and querying universal credit when it is absolutely needed. I think that all Government Members and most people in the Chamber will agree with that. From April 2016, working families will be able to recover 85% of their actual child care costs under universal credit.

[Barbara Keeley]

Where will that be funded from, because there is also a lack of clarity about how it will be funded?

[Nicky Morgan]

I do not think there is a lack of clarity. We have published regulations today and there will be further debate during the Bill’s Committee stage, so may I suggest—[Interruption.] More information and plenty of guidance will be made available to families who might move from universal credit to tax-free child care and to those who might have to move back again. That will be available online and there will be a provision to enable people to get guidance from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs as to which scheme is most suitable for them.

[Barbara Keeley]

rose—

[Nicky Morgan]

I am not going to give way again. The point is that, under universal credit, families will get support for 85% of their child care costs. In short, this is a system that recognises and adapts to the complexities of modern working patterns. It also goes a long way towards providing the simplicity sought by many parents.

Someone with a screaming child in one arm and a BlackBerry with a screaming boss on the end of it in the other hand does not want to spend their time negotiating a complex and rigid child care scheme. We have therefore been working incredibly hard to ensure that the scheme will be simple, responsive and flexible. It will be easy for parents to register and open a child care account and to access the scheme through online portals. It will be flexible to the changing demands of child care they face. It will allow them to pay in money when they want to, and it will also allow other people to pay in, such as grandparents or an employer. In many cases, it may well be a family member who is keen to support the child’s upbringing. The scheme will also allow parents to spend money on qualifying child care at a time of their choosing, by allowing them to use their vouchers on, for example, summer holiday clubs, not just during the school term.

Office for Budget Responsibility (Manifesto Audits)

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Williamson]

Very much so. For all the great talk about a different approach to politics that the Prime Minister suggested he wanted to herald in, this is the very worst of the old politics.

The hon. Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) thought the proposal a bad idea in principle, but the British people deserve better than what they have had, and they certainly deserve better than what they get from the Conservatives. Routinely, what we see from Conservative Members, with their friends in the right-wing media, is a hysterical outpouring of misrepresentation of Labour manifesto proposals.

I remember Labour’s “double whammy” of tax and spend that the Conservatives used in 1992, and the VAT bombshell and all that nonsense, when we had actually gone to some lengths to be straight and honest with the British public and produce a shadow Budget. Yes, it was clear there would have been some tax increases, but they would have been for the richest people in society; eight out of 10 people would have benefited from Labour’s shadow Budget, but that was not what the Conservatives said or what was portrayed by the right-wing media. Had we had the opportunity of an independent audit of that shadow Budget, it would have been clear that the Conservatives were misrepresenting—or not, as the case might be—Labour’s proposals.

I understand why the Government are trying to resist the motion, but I want to see our proposals audited. On housing, for example, instead of giving billions of pounds to private landlords, it would be better value to invest that money in building houses for people. Surely, that would be a better use of money. It would be good for the OBR to scrutinise and audit that.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is doing a great job of getting rid of some of the misrepresentations and nonsense that we talked about earlier. The shadow Chancellor made it clear earlier that he was proposing that the OBR would only provide independent scrutiny and certification of the policy costings of political parties with at least 5% of the seats in the House of Commons. That is an important point. We are not referring to every draughty hall or every party, however few seats it holds. Those points should be made clear, and I hope that he agrees that this shows that Government Members were just not listening.

[Chris Williamson]

I very much agree. It is pretty clear that Government Members have closed minds and closed ears. Nobody is so deaf as those who refuse to hear. It is an inconvenient truth that our proposal would take the partisanship out of election campaigns to some extent and ensure that the British people get a clearer picture of the respective merits of the Conservative offer and of Conservative values. It is perfectly legitimate for the Conservatives to say, “We want to look after and enrich the wealthiest people in our country.” They are perfectly entitled to do that—perfectly entitled to impoverish the vast majority of people and force down wages—and we are perfectly entitled to propose our alternative.

We want to ensure that the vast majority of the British people—ordinary working people—actually benefit from the economic growth that, thankfully, we are seeing now, but most of the economic growth in the country today is going not into the pockets of ordinary people, but to the top 1% of society. I want to take away the opportunity for us to misrepresent each other’s policies and limit the opportunity for negative campaigning. A lot of people are turned off by negative campaigning, but it can be very effective. Our proposal would be a force for good. It is what the British people deserve, and the British people will make up their own minds if the Conservatives and their Liberal Democrat poodles vote against this motion tonight.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I know that my hon. Friend is a dedicated campaigner in this area. The Government recognise that violence against women and girls is strongly linked to gender inequality. Our action plan sets out work to raise the aspirations and ambitions of women and girls and the Government are also taking strong action to support women’s economic empowerment and making lasting changes to ensure that our workplaces match the needs of women in modern Britain, including by extending the right to flexible working, increasing child tax credits and extending the free entitlement to early education.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her new role. Two women a week in England and Wales are killed by a current or former partner and in my constituency we have had two violent murders of women in just eight months. Both of the women were in their 20s with a young child or children. Women’s Aid has warned that cuts to services mean that women and children are likely to remain in abusive situations or are more likely to return after they have left. Is it not time for the Government to accept Labour’s idea of an independent commissioner on domestic and sexual violence to champion victims such as those in my constituency and to drive improvement?

[Nicky Morgan]

This is an incredibly serious issue and I am sure that Members on both sides of the House have dealt with tragic cases of women who have been put at risk of violence or who have suffered violence at the hands of their partner or someone close to them. Protective injunctions remain within the scope of legal aid, and immigration cases in which domestic violence is a factor continue to qualify for funding. We have also recently scrapped the application fee for those injunctions to ensure that there are no unnecessary barriers between people and the help they need, and we have said that if there are any other areas in which legal aid is not being made available, we want to be made aware of them. I am happy to look again at the issues that the hon. Lady has raised.

Finance (No.2) Bill

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Tuesday 8th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

Government Members might like to know that Salford city council, owing to the budget cuts amounting to £100 million that have been forced on it, will have to cut eight Sure Start centres this year, leaving us with only four. Government Members must stop being in denial about this issue.

[Catherine McKinnell]

Yes, I agree that it is important that Government Members stop being in denial, because it will be a dreadful indictment of their being out of touch with reality if they fail to address this issue and instead stand by and watch our network of Sure Start centres disappear.

Women and the Cost of Living

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Hodgson]

I just do not recognise those figures. Our figures from the Library—and any other figures that we have seen on this matter—show that women are £1,600 a year worse off under this Government. [Interruption.] It is true, and I will write to the hon. Lady and give her the figures.

Child care bills are rising five times as fast as incomes under this Government. Energy bills are shooting up at similar speeds. The weekly shop is getting even more expensive, and real incomes are down by between £1,500 and £1,600 as prices have outstripped wages in 40 of the 41 months of this Government. Women’s long-term unemployment is up 80,000 since the election, compared with a figure of 10,000 for men. Older women’s unemployment is up by a third, while the figure for men has marginally fallen. More than 1 million women are unemployed, and countless others are stuck in low-paid, insecure jobs.

It is women who are struggling to get by over the long school summer holidays, with extra child care to pay for, school uniforms to buy and extra food to put on the table, yet we hear from the Government that they want to slap 15% VAT on the school uniforms on our children’s backs, on the cereal in their bowls and even on the electricity that lights their homes. How out of touch can the Government get? Despite all that, women hold the key to building a sustainable economic recovery that works for everyone. Millions of women want to get back into work or to increase their hours.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is giving a great speech. Are women who work in social care not one of the most tragic cases of women struggling with the hours? Often they are not even paid the minimum wage any more, because they get an hour here and an hour there and do not get paid for travel. These women may want to work 45 or 50 hours a week but end up working only 20 hours. Is that not something we should be ashamed of: the most important job we have, yet that is how they are paid?

[Mrs Hodgson]

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend, and I commend her on the excellent work she does and has done in this area for more than eight years.

If we could support carers and the other women we have been talking about in finding extra hours and finding a job we could add more than £1 billion to our tax receipts, yet still it is women who face the biggest barriers to progressing in their careers. The reason for all that is that women are sidelined and ignored by this Government—and why should we be surprised? This Government have more millionaires in the Cabinet than women—in fact, women outnumber Davids at the Cabinet table by only one, and let us not forget the Lib Dems, the party with as many knights as women MPs.

We have another autumn statement coming up soon. The Chancellor could use that opportunity to make amends for the disproportionate impact of his decisions so far, but if it is anything like last year’s we will just see that unfairness entrenched. I am aware that the Economic Secretary was not in the Treasury at that time—in fact, no hon. Ladies were in the Treasury at that time. Perhaps that accounts for the gross imbalance in where the Chancellor’s axe fell. If it does, I hope she will be able to tilt the balance back in women’s favour this year.

The hon. Lady quoted the late Baroness Thatcher, so let me reciprocate. This may be the first time, and will probably be the last, that I quote the former Prime Minister, but this one line sums up perfectly everything that is wrong with this Government. In 1979, she said:

“Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.”

I may have spent my early life suffering because of the policies she implemented, but I have to say that she had a point. Does it not explain why this Government have such a poor record? They are a Government led by a rich boys club completely out of touch with the problems that so many ordinary women face just to keep the money coming in, a roof over their child’s head, clothes on their child’s back, food on the table and their energy bills paid. They are a Government who cannot tackle the cost of living crisis women face because they have no idea what that crisis means to the people they are supposed to serve.

The Prime Minister knows that he has a problem with women. He even had to hire an extra adviser to tell him why women do not like him—as a women, I call tell him that for free. The Prime Minister has a problem with women because we know when we are being let down and we know when promises have been broken. Even if his party chairman tries to wipe any evidence of their ever making any promises off the internet, women have been let down and seen promises broken time and again by this Prime Minister, as we have heard today. These are promises on affordable child care, decent jobs, energy bills, tax credits, financial support, Sure Start and public services. Time and again women say they need help, and time and again they are ignored.

Government Members should be under no illusion: those same women will be looking at what they do tonight. These women will see the proposals Labour has put forward to help: real help now with finding and affording early years and school-age child care; capital projects that create good quality jobs for women, not just men; and businesses supported to boost the incomes of women on the lowest wages. Those are the kind of policies that will help to tackle the cost of living crisis that women are facing now, today. They are the kind of policies women want and women need. They are the kind of policies that women deserve to expect from any Government. But at the same time they are the kind of policies they know they can get only from Labour. Every vote against this motion from those in the Government parties—every Tory and Lib Dem who would rather please their Whip than stand up for women in their constituency—will be yet another reason for those women to give this out-of-touch Government the boot in 2015.

Living Standards

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

Those increases hit people in two ways: they hit the people who paid the duty when they filled up their tanks and they hit small businesses who employed people. It was a disastrous policy, which is why we scrapped it.

We will shortly have the joint lowest corporation tax in the G20. Last year, Britain was the biggest destination in Europe for inward investment. That competitiveness is creating jobs—jobs that give people incomes. Since 2010, 1.3 million jobs have been created in the private sector. More people are working in Britain than ever before and we have the lowest proportion of workless households for 17 years. There have been more net new private sector jobs in the past three years than there were in the previous 10 years under the Labour party.

People’s living standards are higher if they are in work, but I also want people to be able to earn higher wages. The only way to achieve that is to improve the levels of education and skills in the workforce. That is why the reforms of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education are so vital. It is why we need rigour in the exam system. It is why his announcement this week that we must ensure that people leave school qualified and skilled in all ways, but especially in maths and English, is so important. It is why the 86% increase in new apprenticeship starts between 2009-10 and 2011-12 is so important.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

I would not want to waste the opportunity, with the Secretary of State for Education in his place, to raise again the cost of living issue of school uniforms, which the Prime Minister ignored earlier as though there were no issue to consider. In Manchester, one of the new academy secondary schools is charging £300 for a boy’s uniform. Families are really struggling, as I mentioned to the Prime Minister, although he did not seem to take the point on board. That cost is pushing a lot of families into debt and payday loans. The Financial Secretary talked about families struggling to get by, and this month some families are struggling to get by because they have had to shell out £300 to send their children back to school. What does the Secretary of State for Education have to say about that?

[Greg Clark]

I suggest that the hon. Lady turn up to Education questions if she wants to question the Secretary of State, but since her question refers to the cost of living, I hope she would not want the policies on such matters for every school in the country to be set from the Department for Education. It would be an interesting statement from the Labour party if it did want that. My experience of good schools in my constituency that have a uniform code, which parents welcome, is that they typically have schemes and mechanisms to help people obtain uniforms if they find themselves in financial difficulties.

Getting good jobs requires investment in skills and education for those in work. For those who are retired, incomes have been helped by the biggest ever increase in the state pension.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison McGovern]

Quite right! Jam tomorrow, but never jam today. People in the Wirral will certainly not put up with that, and I doubt that anyone in the rest of the country will either.

I have spent much of the summer talking to people about zero-hours contracts. They are a growing issue for my constituents and others. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) and I have conducted a survey in order to listen to people with experience of such contracts. Given the stories that we heard from people who simply did not know what their wage packet was going to contain at the end of each week or month, I simply cannot accept the argument that any job is better than no job. That is like saying that it is better to work for £1 an hour than to have no job at all. I cannot accept that argument. I cannot accept an economy that is devoid of standards.

This is not a proper recovery. Unless it reaches those on low and middle incomes, we shall not see the kind of economic recovery that we need. Instead, we shall see the kind of hysteresis and waste of talent that my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan has described. Zero-hours contracts affect young people; they are a blight on their prospects. Those people need a chance to build their skills so that they have the potential to have a good career. Will the Minister answer these questions? What will he do if the number of hours worked per person in the economy does not increase? What will he do if people are still underemployed in a year’s time? How will he address their need to increase their pay packet so that they can afford the prices in the shops?

On inflation, I repeat that I still cannot quite believe the Prime Minister’s response at Prime Minister’s questions today to the question about school uniforms. I remember only too well the situation in my own family. There were three of us, and September was an expensive time. My mum used to worry that we had grown. If the Prime Minister has not experienced that, or heard about it from families in his own constituency, let me tell him that it was extremely stressful. Unfortunately, the previous Governor of the Bank of England was forced to write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer citing the VAT increase as part of the cause of the inflation that we have experienced. So, although I accept the points that have been made about the global situation, the Government’s policy has not exactly helped to bring down prices.

[Barbara Keeley]

I thank my hon. Friend for re-raising the point about school uniforms. The point that seemed to escape the Prime Minister, and possibly also the Secretary of State for Education, who was sitting next to him at Prime Minister’s questions, is that the problem is due entirely to the Government’s policy of creating new free schools and academies that insist on a branded uniform. That has raised the cost of the uniforms to £300. It is not possible to buy those uniforms from a supermarket. The increased cost is directly due to the policy of creating lots of new free schools and academies. The Government have to take responsibility for that.

[Alison McGovern]

My hon. Friend is quite right.