Summer Adjournment

David Linden Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I echo the comments of the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) about the warm welcome that has been extended to new Members. I pay particular tribute to our staff in the SNP Whips Office, who have supported me in my meteoric rise to deputy assistant junior Whip.

I want to mention the proposed closures of Parkhead and Easterhouse jobcentres within my Glasgow East constituency. These proposed closures are ill-thought-out and will have a deeply damaging impact on some of the most vulnerable communities in Glasgow’s east end where access to transport and digital connectivity are major barriers. Ministers on the Treasury Bench would do well to come to Glasgow and see for themselves the havoc that these proposals would cause to an already fragile community. My main subject today is a difficult and deeply upsetting one. I must confess, I even thought twice about whether to speak about it at all, but it is incumbent on me to speak up because those who I want to speak for cannot speak up for themselves. They are the children and babies with life-threatening and life-limiting conditions, children who never live long enough to go to nursery or school.

Many right hon. and hon. Members will have experienced the joy of becoming a parent. Most, if they are lucky, will have a trouble-free pregnancy and a safe delivery. Some of us have gone through a difficult pregnancy, and the child is born prematurely or in dangerous circumstances. My own son Isaac was born prematurely and spent the first two weeks of his life in an intensive care and special care unit. We are indebted to the staff at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde for all of the care, love and support they provided to him during that time.

Isaac eventually left hospital, and he is a happy, if cheeky, little boy. However, on or before birth, some parents have to face the sobering, tragic reality that they will outlive their children, which is utterly unimaginable, yet, sadly, a reality for the families of approximately 50,000 children on these islands.

In preparing for this debate, I was incredibly grateful to my constituent and friend, Louise Gillan from Springboig, who shared with me her personal experience of having a child with complex health needs. Her daughter, Erin, was diagnosed with a rare condition at the age of two.

Across the UK, there is a mixed picture when it comes to the funding of children’s palliative care. Together for Short Lives quite rightly wants the UK Government to follow the lead of the Scottish Government, who have allocated £30 million over five years to children’s hospices, so that there is parity of funding with adult hospices. Children in England, Wales and Northern Ireland deserve the same recognition, opportunity and support as those in Scotland.

At this juncture, I want to pay tribute to the hon. Members for Colchester (Will Quince) and for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) for speaking so personally and movingly about their own experiences of being bereaved of a child. The hon. Gentleman did excellent work in the last Parliament to build interest and momentum around the concept of parental bereavement leave, which both Labour and the Conservatives included in their election manifestos. I am pleased that, in the past 24 hours, the Government have committed to introducing bereavement leave and supporting the private Member’s Bill of the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake).

The main issue I want to raise today is the cruel anomaly of not paying the mobility component of Disability Living Allowance for children under three years old. This has been dubbed the baby benefit bar. Children under three with life-shortening conditions often depend on ventilators and large equipment to stay alive. Some babies and children have permanent wheelchairs, as they are not able to use buggies suitable for well children of the same age. The wheelchairs are heavy because of the equipment needed to secure them to a vehicle.

All this leads me to conclude that exclusion from the mobility component of DLA is as inherently unfair as it is illogical. Calling on the UK Government to include the under threes in the mobility component of DLA is a small ask, but it is one that could enormously support and transform the lives of the families of children with short lives. These additional mobility needs are already recognised in other areas of Government policy. Children under three who depend on bulky medical equipment, or need to be near their vehicle in case they need emergency medical treatment, are already eligible for a blue parking badge, so excluding them from the DLA component is clearly an anomaly.

What we are talking about here is the difference of just £58 a week, which is a drop in the ocean for the Government when we consider just how few families this will affect, but it will have the potential to move some of those families away from unnecessary poverty.

I want to share with the House this testimony from a parent of a child receiving palliative care. They told us:

“My daughter has had a tracheotomy with a ventilator attached 24/7 since the age of eight months. She needs these for an undiagnosed neuromuscular condition. She cannot support herself at all. Carrying her, her vent, her suction machine, her oxygen, her emergency equipment to our car and back for two years was extremely difficult. We ended up selling our family car and purchasing a wheelchair accessible vehicle privately as it just became too hard to carry her as she grew.”

Time is not on the side of these families. The best that we can do is to be on their side.

Balancing the Public Finances

David Linden Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. As we are going to leave the European Union, we want to be more global and outward-looking and we want more companies to locate in Britain, so it seems to me that this is exactly the wrong time—if there ever is a good time—to increase corporate tax rates.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about the importance of what this Government have done for young people, but can he tell us how many people in the figure he mentioned are on exploitative zero-hours contracts? If the Government are so passionate about young people, why will they not pay them a real living wage? Why are they discriminating against the under-25s?

[Mr Harper]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman raises zero-hours contracts. It simply is not true that everyone on a zero-hours contract is being exploited. There is some good evidence from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. I am not sure whether these data have been updated, but it did a survey in 2014 that showed that around 63% of people on a zero-hours contract—higher than the proportion of people on a permanent full-time contract—were satisfied with their terms and conditions. Most people on zero-hours contracts actually find that they fit their requirements, because they are either students or people with caring responsibilities.

There are of course people who would prefer not to be on a zero-hours contract. That is why I welcome Matthew Taylor’s review, which was published today. He thinks that employees should have the right to ask their company to put them on a permanent contract. Indeed, McDonalds recently offered that to its employees. It is true that some of its staff on flexible contracts said that they would prefer to move to a fixed-term contract, but about 80% preferred to stay on a flexible contract because it suited them. I just do not agree with the contention that a zero-hours contract is by definition exploitative. In many cases, it suits the worker and it suits the business—it is a win-win. But it is completely true that if such contracts do not suit people, it is better that they should have the opportunity to move to a full-time or permanent contract to guarantee them hours. I am pleased with Matthew Taylor’s report.

My final point about youth unemployment concerns what happens to young people’s opportunities in countries that do not deal with their public finances. The most obvious example is Greece, which clearly has not dealt with its public finances, where 47%—nearly half—of young people are without work. Countries that do not deal with their public finances damage young people’s opportunities, probably for their lifetime. I do not want us to go down that road and be that sort of country; I want us to keep focused on balancing the public finances.

There is an interesting factor relevant to my constituency. I looked at a debate in the House in 1983, in which my predecessor but two, Paul Marland, spoke. He pointed out that at that time unemployment in his constituency was 15.3%, which was 2% above the national average. I am pleased that, seven years into a Conservative Government, unemployment in my constituency is 1.6%, which is below the average for the south-west—1.7%—and below the United Kingdom average. Our economic record has not just delivered for the United Kingdom and for the south-west; it has absolutely delivered for my constituents, who now have the opportunity to be in work, which is important for their families.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ryan. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) on securing this debate. It was somewhat mischievous of him to comment on one side of the Chamber being empty—interestingly, the Government side was empty last week when we were debating WASPI women.

For far too long, balancing the public finances has generally been done on the backs of the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[David Linden]

I will not, because Members have taken quite a long time. Despite several years of austerity, Her Majesty’s Government continue to miss their targets on debt, deficit and borrowing. Quite simply, austerity has failed to rebalance our public finances, and we need to reassess and re-evaluate our approach.

The biggest contributor to a sluggish UK economy and the biggest threat to our public finances is the reckless hard Brexit currently being pursued by Her Majesty’s Government. That has not been helped by Labour Members voting to give the Prime Minister a blank cheque by voting against single market membership only two weeks ago.

Scottish National party Members will continue to stand up not only for access to but membership of the single market and customs union. When we look at our public finances, we see a major trade deficit, which in the three months to April was £8.6 billion, up from £6.9 billion in the previous quarter. By turning our back on the single market and pursuing a hard Brexit, we risk delivering further shocks to our already precarious economy.

The UK economy grew by just 0.2% in quarter 1 of this year. In comparison, in the same quarter Scotland’s economy grew four times faster. That was somewhat of a surprise, not least because colleagues in the Scottish Conservative party were briefing last week that Scotland was about to move into recession, which certainly did not happen.

We face difficult financial decisions in Scotland, not least because Scotland’s budget faces a real-terms cut of £2.9 billion due to UK austerity. That figure of £2.9 billion is significant, because had Barnett consequentials been followed during the Government’s grubby deal with the Democratic Unionist party, Scotland would have stood to receive £2.9 billion.

I want to move on and to some of my concerns about the deeply worrying consequences posed for Scotland by a hard Brexit. The stark reality is that Brexit threatens to cost the economy around £11 billion by 2030 and result in 80,000 fewer jobs compared with remaining within the EU. We understand and accept that, despite 62% of Scots voting to remain in the EU, we are leaving. However, the Scottish Government have sought to be reasonable and amicable, and have come forward with a compromise that would allow Scotland to remain within the single market. Unfortunately, those pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

We know that Her Majesty’s Government are pursuing a reckless approach to the economy, with a hard Brexit coupled to an ideologically driven obsession with austerity. SNP Members believe it does not have to be like that. Cuts are a choice, not a necessity. During the recent general election campaign, we put forward a responsible and credible fiscal plan that would return a balanced budget by the end of the Parliament. However, in doing so, we would generate an additional £118 billion cumulatively over the next Parliament, with around £10 billion flowing to Scotland. Our fiscal plan would stabilise net borrowing at the level it was before the financial crash and see debt begin to fall as a share of GDP from 2019-20.

Ministers and Conservative Members regularly tell us how employment is high under this Conservative Government. What they do not say is that much of that is due to part-time work or, worse still, exploitative zero-hours contracts. Unstable and low pay is a worry for my constituents in the east end of Glasgow, with the Resolution Foundation estimating that the period 2011-2020 will be the worst decade for wage growth in 210 years. That is before we take into account the Government’s con trick of the living wage, which will actively discriminate against under-25s.

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[David Linden]

I will not, because of time pressures.

Austerity strangles the lifeblood out of an economy by exacerbating inequality. The Government’s tax and welfare reforms disproportionately affect the least well-off. Charities have warned that current planned welfare cuts are set to drive a potential fall in incomes of 10% for the poorest third of working-age households and a rise in inequality not seen since the 1980s.

[Mr Harper]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[David Linden]

In conclusion, let us have a debate about balancing public finances but let us be serious and not balance the public finances on the backs of the poorest and most vulnerable.

[Several hon. Members rose—]