Cost of Living Increases: Pensioners

Debate between Matt Rodda and Alex Sobel

Monday 21st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to sum up in today’s important debate on behalf of the official Opposition.

I would like to start by thanking Members from across the House who have spoken in today’s debate. I thank the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) for pointing out the pressure on pensioners. The hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) spoke about the need for more Government help, which I thought was telling from a Government Member. My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) spoke movingly about the high energy costs for residents living away from the gas grid. The hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) talked about the need for a long-term plan for pensioners. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) talked about the pressure on disabled people—obviously, many pensioners are disabled. The hon. Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) talked about the cost of living crisis. My hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter)—I hope I have pronounced her constituency correctly—spoke about the need for urgent help for pensioners.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) talked clearly about the way that pensioners are living in poverty in his seat and across the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) spoke particularly movingly about a whole generation of pensioners. That brought to mind figures from my childhood, and I am sure that we were all touched by her speech.

The hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) spoke about her local pensioners, and the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) talked about pensioners having to choose between heating and eating. The hon. Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe) spoke about pensioners having to pay more to keep warm, and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) mentioned the real-terms cut to the state pension. Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) spoke about the most vulnerable people being left to suffer by the Government.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), the shadow Secretary of State, said, pensioners who have worked hard and paid in all their lives now face an unprecedented cost of living crisis. Food prices are up, energy prices are up and the cost of living is going up. The cost of living is a crisis made in Downing Street, but, sadly, it is felt on every street across this country. Pensioners are at the sharp end, facing the inevitable choice of having to pay for heating or eating. Not since the 1970s have pensioners faced a fall in their standard of living as great as the one that faces them in the next few months.

As I am sure we all agree, the recent events in Ukraine have been absolutely shocking. However, this cost of living crisis predates Putin’s war and his vicious attack on the Ukrainian people. The atrocities unfolding in Europe have brought into stark relief the need for the UK to radically address our energy security. However, it was clear in the autumn that food and fuel prices were rising steeply, yet the Government actually made matters worse, despite all the warning signs. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor decided to break the pension triple lock, breaking their manifesto commitment and betraying the people who are now struggling to pay their weekly food bills.

To add insult to injury, the Government failed to cut energy bills even when it was clear that a windfall tax would have provided the cash to ease heating bills for pensioners. Energy giants are enjoying record profits and see their companies as a “cash machine” at the same time as pensioners face the toughest of choices. We have to ask ourselves: what do the Government have against pensioners? Why is the plight of our pensioners not worthy of intervention by the Government? How can they do so little when we know the consequences will be so dire for so many older people?

Perhaps the Prime Minister and the Chancellor were distracted by the Government’s internal instability following the revelations about parties at No. 10 during last year’s lockdown. Or perhaps they just failed to grasp what it is like to cope on a modest income, as many colleagues mentioned so eloquently today. For whatever reason, I am afraid that the Government have simply failed our pensioners at the very time when pensioners most needed their help.

My right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State summed up well the sorry state that we find ourselves in today. Two million pensioners are living in poverty and that number will only grow because of the choices made by this Government. Some 1.4 million older people are fuel-poor. The scrapping of the triple lock has robbed pensioners of £30 a month, which is a significant amount for people on a fixed income. Energy bills are rising by 54% already and are likely to increase by a staggering further 25% in October. Some 1.3 million working pensioners will be dragged back into taxation though a national insurance rise that will pick their pockets to fund a health and social care levy.

Pensioners are being hit very hard.

Today’s debate has been an important opportunity to raise the very serious cost of living crisis now facing our pensioners.

[Alex Sobel]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Matt Rodda]

I am afraid that I am out of time. Every Member of the House will have constituents for whom the next few months will be filled with worry about bills. We owe so much to our pensioners. They have worked so very hard and paid in all their lives, raised their families and given so much to our communities. So far, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have failed to listen to pensioners and they have failed to take any meaningful action to help them at this very difficult time. Theirs is a record that they should be ashamed of: the state pension cut; the triple lock abandoned; energy bills up; food bills up; and pensioner poverty up.

The Minister now has a chance to set out what real help the Government are going to offer our pensioners. I hope that he takes this opportunity to show that the Government listen and understand. He has the opportunity, here and now, to give pensioners peace of mind in their most desperate hour of need. Pensioners need to know that help is available. We need urgent action now—please. It is clear that only Labour will help older people, and I commend the motion to the House.

UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement

Debate between Matt Rodda and Alex Sobel

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

We know that this deal is almost a carbon copy of the EU-Japan deal. We can discuss the ironies of this Government plagiarising the EU’s work on another occasion. However, I would like to focus on the small but significant differences and what they might mean for the UK.

We will undoubtedly hear a lot of concern about digital rights today, and it would be remiss of me not to voice my concerns and the concerns of my constituents—I am also a graduate of the School of Computing at the University of Leeds—about what the deal means for data privacy. The deal allows for the

“free flow of data between Japan and the UK”,

and from there on to other trade partners, undermining existing data protection frameworks.

Perhaps most concerningly, this means our data being transferred to a range of countries, including the USA, and obviously the other countries that have recently signed the CPTPP. US data protection laws are some of the weakest in the western world. There is no federal oversight, just a patchwork of state enforcement models. By allowing data to be sold off to the US, the Government are removing the right of UK citizens to know where their data is held and for what purpose. We will not be able to stop our data being used in discriminatory ways, and we will not be able to have it deleted. This could well undermine the provisions of the online harms Bill that the Government plan to lay before the House.

It is also worth noting that despite e-commerce and online retail being wrapped up in digital tech services, they are not mentioned in the deal. Instead, the deal only specifically refers to FinTech, which gives us a crucial clue about the Government’s plans. FinTech firms, usually backed by venture capitalists, are necessarily globalised. The deal fails to support small start-ups or individuals. It tells us what we already know: the Conservatives are not the party of business, they are the party of the financial elites. This deal does not create a level playing field.

The lack of concrete and enforceable environmental and sustainable provisions is another real concern of mine. This deal was a golden opportunity to outline and to aspire to establish world-leading practices as both countries work to reduce their carbon emissions to zero by 2050, and to lay the groundwork for COP26 in Glasgow. How many golden opportunities on the climate are the Government prepared to squander in the run-up to COP?

I think it is fair to say that the natural environment is at best an afterthought here. Little consideration was made of the deal’s effect on biodiversity, which is particularly pertinent as we export more agricultural goods and import large quantities of chemicals and plastics. There is an over-reliance on future technologies to excuse the potential increase in carbon emissions caused by international trade. This is worrying, and yet to be addressed.

Japan’s track record on animal welfare and sustainability is shaky, to say the least. Last year, it resumed catching whales for profit in defiance of international criticism, yet the majority of the environmental provisions in this deal are non-enforceable. Flimsy, unenforceable terms present a real barrier to upholding high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards. The Conservatives promised us in their manifesto that they would not compromise on that, so why are they compromising on it in this first deal?

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend perhaps notice a pattern emerging here? We have seen the Agriculture Bill, and the widespread concern about chlorinated chicken and other abhorrent practices. We have heard today of the deep concern about some of the things that are happening in Japan. While we obviously welcome the deal, does he agree that there is a pattern emerging of the Government putting serious environmental concerns at the back of the list of the matters they are addressing in these deals?

[Alex Sobel]

I do agree with my hon. Friend. I sat on the Environment Bill Committee many months ago, when the Bill first came in and before there was a huge pause, and this was also clear in relation to that Bill, so we are seeing a pattern across these Bills and these deals.

Moving on to the wider ambitions of the Government, I would like to ask—I see that the Secretary of State is leaving her place, but perhaps the Minister for Trade Policy will respond—whether this is the first step towards joining the regional comprehensive economic partnership, or just clearing the way to become a member of or a signatory to the CPTPP through the British overseas territory of the Pitcairn Islands.