Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete in Education Settings

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Clive Efford

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

What has been exposed is how close the Government were prepared to go to catastrophe in one of our schools before they took last-minute action this summer, just before schools went back. A school in my constituency has had to close substantial parts of its buildings. A letter from the DFE, following their discussions, says:

“As officials discussed with”

the trust

“the immediate actions should be treated as a short-term measure and you should already be developing a long-term plan for remediation of RAAC panels in your building.”

The next paragraph goes on:

“Please note the building survey in June 2023 was carried out as part of the DFE’s central RAAC Assessment Programme. As such, it should be considered in addition to, rather than in place of, any professional advice that you seek.”

Just exactly how will the Government determine what they will pay for? What work will they accept? Will it be the professional judgment of the people the schools engage, or will it be the surveyors from the eight companies that the Secretary of State has just spoken about? How will these matters be resolved going forward, because the devil in these things is always in the detail?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before the Secretary of State answers, we are not doing very well on the short short questions, are we? Of course, it is up to colleagues. If the House decides that it wants to vote at midnight tonight, that is fine by me, but I think that it is probably not the consensus, so please let us take some action now: everybody look at what they have written down and cut it in half.

Employment Rights: Government Plans

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Clive Efford

Monday 25th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab) [V]]

I wish to speak in favour of the motion in the name of my hon. and right hon. Friends. I declare at the outset that I am a member of the GMB and Unite unions.

The fact that the Government have consulted businesses on these changes shows that there is an outdated attitude towards industrial relations and workers’ rights at the heart of the Government. Good employment law protects the good employers from the bad. Employees are people; they are not tools that can just be laid aside on the whim of an employer. People have lives to lead, bills to pay, mortgages and rent; many of them have families that they need to support—to feed, to clothe and to plan holidays with. A contract of employment is a way of being able to plan ahead with security for those things. The terms should not be changed just on the whim of an unscrupulous employer.

Creating a culture where workers feel insecure in their jobs undermines the economy; it makes them less likely to spend money or to take out loans for bigger items. Creating such an environment is not just immoral but self-defeating, and attitudes need to change. Businesses need to understand that they need to act for the common good. It is no longer good enough for them to hide behind the fact that they are serving shareholders and to say, “This is why we are forced to rape the economy or pay poverty wages,” and fail to protect workers’ rights.

The covid pandemic, climate change and the state of the global finances make it imperative that we all work together for the common good. The solution is not to enfeeble workers or trample on their rights, yet companies such as British Gas and British Airways are telling their workers that they will be sacked and rehired on worse conditions. Those are hardly the British values that we want to promote globally.

British Gas/Centrica is sacking 20,000 of its workforce. It is telling them that they must sign new contracts dictated by the company or consider themselves to be sacked in April. Doing that at the time of a pandemic is grotesque. Centrica as a group had an operating profit of £901 million for 2019. In the first six months of 2020, the operating profit of its domestic heating business in the UK was £229 million, up 25% on the same period the previous year. Why are the workers who delivered that being treated so appallingly by that company?

I met workers from British Gas. Between them, they have many years of service to the company; some are the second or third generation in their family to work for British Gas. They are proud of the company that they work for; they value the jobs they do and the customers they serve.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Member has exceeded his time.

The Source NHS Drop-in Centre

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Clive Efford

Thursday 20th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I am sorry to stop the hon. Lady when she is giving good wishes, but I think the hon. Gentleman might like to intervene. He does not have a right to speak again, but I am sure that the Minister will give way if he wishes to intervene.

[Clive Efford]

Yes, just briefly. I would like to stress one point. Horn Park is an extreme example of how health services have moved away from the most deprived communities. There is an issue about accessing health services. These are the communities that are most distressed and most in need of having direct access to those services. If the Minister ever has an opportunity to talk to Greenwich CCG, will she bear that in mind when she does so and draw it to its attention? I think we could improve our health outcomes a great deal if we were to address that issue.

I wish all those who serve us here in the House a very happy Christmas.

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, and I will of course raise it in any conversation that I do have with Greenwich CCG. He is absolutely right to say that we should be doing everything we can to close the health inequalities that people experience up and down our country.

May I, Madam Deputy Speaker, wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and peaceful new year?

Points of Order

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Clive Efford

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me notice of her intention to raise a point of order. Unusually, it seems that she has had better news than she expected. The hon. Lady is well aware that the content of a ministerial answer is not a matter for me, but I am quite certain that if the Minister has inadvertently given a wrong answer, she will take the first opportunity to correct it. I have every confidence that those on the Treasury Bench will convey to the relevant Minister the points that have been made.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. During the urgent question on A and E, I challenged the Secretary of State to say whether he regretted the Government’s recommendation to close the A and E at Lewisham hospital, and he accused me of misleading my constituents and therefore of misleading the House. I have in my hand the recommendation of the special administrator’s report, published on 7 January 2013, which recommends closure of Lewisham’s A and E and its replacement with an urgent care centre. Given that the Secretary of State accepted that recommendation and was then forced to rescind it after a judicial review in October 2013, can you give me some guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker, on how I can get the record put straight and bring the Secretary of State back here to correct what he said because I was not misleading the House or my constituents?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the point of order, but as I said to the hon. Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell), the contents of what a Minister has said at the Dispatch Box or elsewhere is not a matter for me. He asks how he might draw attention to the facts, but he has just done so. Once again, I am confident that those on the Treasury Bench, from whom I am receiving nods of agreement, will make sure the Minister is aware of the hon. Gentleman’s point. No one wants the record of this place ever to be wrong, and it is important to correct it at the first opportunity.

Points of Order

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Clive Efford

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

The hon. Gentleman knows, as the House knows, that that is a continuation of the debate and not a point of order for the Chair. He has made his point, and I am sure the Minister has heard it.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. We were told that the figures for our constituencies would be in the document, but I went to the Vote Office and they are not. We have only a list of 62 authorities that have benefited from the £350 million that has been announced today. Furthermore—this is important—the document states that there are implications for converging funding under one formula in the future. That clearly has serious consequences for the constituents of those of us who miss out, but we are not being told. We have a right to know.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it in order that in a serious debate on school funding, the shadow Minister behaves like a school bully in the playground—[Interruption.]

Fixed Odds Betting Terminals

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Clive Efford

Wednesday 8th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford]

No. We are saying that we would place betting shops in their own category so that local councils would have to receive a planning application if someone wanted to open a new betting shop.

Today’s vote is not about stakes and prizes; it is about putting power back in the hands of local communities and the councillors who represent them. Taking decisions in the face of opposition from the betting industry will be tough for local councillors, particularly when it comes to removing existing machines. I happen to believe passionately in local democracy; I spent 12 years as a locally elected councillor. I believe that well-informed local councillors are capable of making important decisions that benefit their communities, and that, too often, we here in Westminster have tied the hands of locally elected representatives. It is time to put local people before the vested interests of the powerful betting industry. We should put our trust in local democracy.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I have to inform the House that Mr Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister. Before I call the Minister to move the amendment, it might be helpful for the House to know that I am obliged to put a limit of four minutes on the length of speeches by Back Benchers because there is a very considerable demand for time to speak.