Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Owen and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

We all know that this Government claim a lot, but now they are claiming that they have a long-term plan for towns while continuing to build them without any of the infrastructure that people want and need. Residents of Mid Bedfordshire know that all too well: like many others, they struggle to see a GP or get a dentist, and the council’s budget is half what it was in 2015. The Tories have gutted the elements that make a town a home. Can the Minister please explain why they persist in prioritising developers in our towns over the people living in them?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Owen and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 6th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Steve Barclay)]

As Health Secretary, I have been clear that deploying the latest technology and innovation is essential in order to deliver our priorities: to cut waiting lists, improve access to GPs and improve A&E performance. The NHS app is at the heart of this, including the enhancement of patient choice set out in our recent announcement, which is not available to patients in Wales. The Patients Association estimates that by enabling people to select a different hospital in the same region on the app, we can cut their waiting times by as much as three months.

We have been making major improvements behind the scenes, which are already paying off. Today, I can tell the House that between March 2022 and March of this year, there have been 6 million new registrations for the app; repeat prescriptions via the app have increased from 1.6 million a month to 2.5 million a month; and primary care appointments made on the app have increased from 30,000 a month to 250,000, and secondary care appointment from 30,000 a month to 360,000. We continue to work to increase the app’s functionality, including opening more records and test results and enabling more appointments, as part of our commitment to technology.

[Mr Speaker]

I think a statement would be better next time.

[Sarah Owen]

Brain tumours are the biggest killer for people under 40, but we are still waiting for the full £40 million that the Government promised to fund brain tumour research. In March, I raised in the House the heartbreaking experience of my constituents Yasmin and Khuram, whose daughter Amani died from a brain tumour just before her 23rd birthday. Once again, I ask whether the Minister for Health and Secondary Care or the Secretary of State will meet with me and my constituents to hear their calls for the full funding allocation to be given to researchers. That funding would be transformational for the treatment of brain tumours.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Owen and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

Under a Government who created a cost of living crisis that has sent inflation levels soaring, there are now 4.2 million children living in poverty, and 70% of them are in working households. One third of children in the west midlands and 200,000 children in the north-east live below the poverty line. Shockingly, a quarter of all children growing up under the Scottish National party in Scotland now live in poverty. What support can local authorities expect in order to deal with this increase in child poverty, and is the Department’s decision to award levelling-up funding to only one in four deprived areas a factor in the heartbreaking levels of child poverty we see in Tory Britain today?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Owen and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

A total of 7,000 council jobs in Scotland are under threat from SNP cuts to local government. Council leaders across Scotland have written to the former First Minister warning of the devastating impact of those SNP cuts—huge job losses and vital local services across Scotland slashed. Can the Minister confirm what the impact of those job losses will be on people in Scotland, and can he say what the difference is between Tory and SNP cuts to councils, or are they just two sides of the same coin?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

Every year since 2011, the number of children in temporary accommodation has risen—we are talking about well over 120,000 children without a home to call their own. It is a form of homelessness that is out of sight, out of mind and on the rise under this Tory Government—thousands of children stuck in bed and breakfasts for longer than the statutory maximum of six weeks. What do Ministers intend to do about the shocking numbers of homeless children in temporary accommodation, and when? May I remind the Minister that they are in charge of the parliamentary schedule for as long as they have left in government?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Owen and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 20th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

Over a decade of Tory cuts are not the only thing damaging council budgets; fly-tipping is a stain on our communities and costs nearly £400 million a year. Taxpayers are left footing the bill for the 16% increase in this crime under a Tory Government. Councils should not pay the price for Conservatives being soft on crime, so does the Minister agree that it is time to get tough on people who do not respect our neighbourhoods? Will he back Labour’s plan for stronger punishment for fly-tippers and the introduction of clear-up squads?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Owen and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and happy new year.

Conservative failure to tackle regional inequality is just one in a long list of let-downs. Thirteen years of Tory rule, and parts of the UK have plunged further and further into poverty. Local authorities spent over £27 million applying for levelling-up bids, only for many to lose out—places such as Barnsley and Knowsley, which have been denied multiple bids with little transparency, leaving many colleagues in the dark and resorting to questioning Ministers about local bids, with no answers at all. Will the Minister please clarify the lack of transparency and the financial costs of these bids to cash-strapped councils, particularly during the cost of living crisis?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Owen and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 21st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

Before the Chancellor’s statement, the Conservative leaders of Kent County Council and Hampshire County Council wrote to the Prime Minister warning of their likely bankruptcy. Instead of hearing the concerns of local leaders across the country, the Government passed on responsibility to them by forcing councils to raise tax. Not only is that another unfair burden on the British taxpayer, but local government experts have estimated that the Tory plans to raise council tax will bring in more than £80 per household in Surrey but only £39 per household in Manchester and Hull. That sounds dangerously like another Tory failure in the making on levelling up. Does the Minister truly understand the financial emergency facing councils today? If so, how can he justify local residents and businesses having their council tax raised while the Government allow non-doms to avoid paying between £1 billion and £3 billion-worth of tax?

Points of Order

Debate between Sarah Owen and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Thanks for that. If the Minister wishes to correct the record, they may do so in the usual way, and I look forward to seeing them when they do.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, yesterday during Defence oral questions, the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) said

“why does it take BAE Systems 11 years to build a ship”,

that

“the Japs can build in four?”—[Official Report, 7 November 2022; Vol. 722, c. 2.]

Mr Speaker, you rightly and regularly remind us to use respectful language in this House, but unfortunately this outdated and crass racial slur falls well below the bar we should expect.

At the weekend, we saw an article in The Times asking why only two MPs identify as east or south-east Asian in this place, despite making up 1.2 million of the country. Perhaps it is because of such comments by the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford, or the “little man in China” trope trotted out last week by a Government Minister, or the former Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) saying the words “yellow peril” from the Dispatch Box. It is an unacceptable undercurrent of othering that is rightly called out for other protected characteristics and ethnicities, but not yet for ours. Mr Speaker, can you please advise me on how we can discourage all Members of the House from using ethnic slurs such as those? Progress is not inevitable; it is something we must consistently and constantly strive for.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving me notice of the point of order. May I check that she has informed the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois)?

[Sarah Owen]

indicated assent.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Lady has done—excellent. I recognise, as she says, that the casual use of racial terms causes upset, and they should not be used. What I would say is that “Erskine May” states:

“Good temper and moderation are the characteristics of parliamentary language.”

I ask all Members to remind themselves of that principle in choosing the words they use carefully. Also, people reflect the language that we use. If we set the best of language, others might follow.

Bill Presented

Referendums (Supermajority) Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Ian Paisley presented a Bill to require a supermajority of votes in favour of a proposal for constitutional change on which a referendum is being held in order for it to be decided in the affirmative.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 20 January 2023, and to be printed (Bill 182).

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Owen and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 17th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Opposition spokesperson, Sarah Owen.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

I know that today’s focus is on heating homes, but for far too many people it is on saving their homes. Nearly 20,000 households have been put at risk of homelessness by no-fault evictions in the past year, a rise of 121%, while the Government dither. Mortgages are soaring, rents are rising, homelessness is increasing, and 1,300 Ukrainian refugee households, many with children, are homeless because of the Department’s failure to act on repeated warnings. The Chartered Institute of Housing says that without action this Government will break their promise to end rough sleeping by 2024. Will the new Minister tell us whether they are sticking to that pledge, or will he tell us the truth—that the homelessness crisis will not be fixed by increasing bankers’ bonuses, but will only be fixed by a change of Government?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Owen and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 27th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call shadow Minister Sarah Owen.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

I read a rather lovely interview with the Minister in a recent issue of The Big Issue where he reconfirmed the Government’s commitment to end street homelessness by 2024. All Labour Members want that to happen, and I actually think the Minister does too, but can he honestly tell the House that this pledge has his whole Department’s backing when the Secretary of State, sat next to him, is seeking to bring back the universally hated, cruel and antiquated Vagrancy Act 1824? If this Government really believe their own promise that they can end rough sleeping within the next two years, why are they seeking to recriminalise it now?

Debate on the Address

Debate between Sarah Owen and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 10th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I give way to the hon. Lady, I remind the House that there has never been a Labour Government who left office with unemployment lower than when they came in.

[Mr Speaker]

It is not normal to give way in these speeches, but obviously the Prime Minister has agreed to do so.

[Sarah Owen]

I thank the Prime Minister for giving way. We have heard a lot of words being very rapidly delivered, but what we have not heard yet is an apology to the pensioners who are choosing between heating and eating, an apology to the children who have gone hungry throughout the school holidays and an apology to the hundreds of thousands of family members of covid victims who were lost during the pandemic.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Owen and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister, Sarah Owen.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

The Government’s rough sleeping snapshot recorded 2,440 people sleeping rough throughout the whole UK in the autumn. The Minister will know that the flawed method of data collection captures just a fraction of those without a home to sleep in. Those who are not represented in the figures include people who slept on public transport, who found a bed in a night shelter, who walked around at night and slept rough during the day, or who went under the local authority’s radar completely for any number of reasons. The reality of rough sleeping is far worse than the figures imply, so will the Minister tell me whether his Department is on track to deliver on its promise to truly end rough sleeping by 2024? If it is not, will it consider seizing the mansions of Russian oligarchs and putting those empty bedrooms to good use, once and for all?

Points of Order

Debate between Sarah Owen and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Amid the first lockdown, the Prime Minister promised NHS and social care staff from overseas that they would be refunded the unfair annual £624 charge that they have to pay to use the NHS that they themselves work in. It was big, front-page news at the time, and he was pressured into it by the Leader of the Opposition, the trade unions and his own Back Benchers, including members of the Health and Social Care Committee.

I have asked Ministers countless times in written questions, in the Chamber and face-to-face in Select Committees, but none has been able to tell me the number of successful refunds of these unfair NHS charges. Yesterday, a written answer from the Minister for Health, the hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), finally admitted that the Government know the figure; they just do not want to publish it yet. As long as the figure is not published, I can only assume that it is because the number is actually a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands of health and social care heroes who are eligible—another broken promise to the people to whom we owe so much. May I request your advice, Mr Speaker? Given that the Government are ducking and diving—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Sorry, but we cannot get into a full debate. I have to try to answer the hon. Member’s point of order, which I thank her for giving me notice of. She will know that I do not have responsibility for the content of ministerial answers, but I note that the answer that she was given says that

“this information is currently unvalidated. The Home Office is considering whether this information can be verified and released”.

There are genuine questions and concerns. I am sure that the Government want to be transparent in the way in which they deal with questions. I suggest to the Home Office: get it answered quickly, and then we will have no further points of order on this matter.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Sarah Owen and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 29th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Mr Shelbrooke, I thought you might have been going on the NATO delegation, and I do not want to hear that you have missed out on it.

[Sarah Owen]

We are not going to stop the threat of variants derailing our progress until we vaccinate the world. Our country has enough vaccine to give at least three doses to everybody, yet of the 100 million doses that were pledged by the Prime Minister to the world’s poorest, less than 10% have actually been delivered. Can the Secretary of State tell us if the PM will meet his ambition to help vaccinate the world by the end of 2021, or is that yet another broken promise with catastrophic consequences?

Petition

Debate between Sarah Owen and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

Points of Order

Debate between Sarah Owen and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Member for that.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Since the end of summer I, like many other Members of the House, have tabled a series of questions to the Health Secretary on issues that are important to my constituents. It is now way past the five sitting days for most of those questions and I am still waiting for a response. A question on 8 September was about when the Health Secretary had met families who had lost loved ones during the pandemic, and another on 15 September was about how private sector contracts are letting down people in Luton North who need covid tests. I also asked about data on the number of people who are trying to get tested in Luton North; for the Health Secretary to give evidence for the 10 pm pub curfew; about targets for this year’s flu jabs; and about the track and trace app.

These questions were all asked in good faith and I know that my constituents are keen to know the answers to them. It is our job as Members of Parliament to hold the Government to account, but getting a straight answer out of the Health Secretary is almost as hard as getting a test at the moment. Will you therefore please advise, Mr Speaker, on how we are supposed to get answers from the Health Secretary to straightforward questions when he will not reply to letters, will not reply to our questions and, when he is in the Chamber, accuses Members of using divisive language when we just raise our concerns?

[Mr Speaker]

This comes on the back of what was said yesterday. I am getting very frustrated, and Members of Parliament are rightly getting frustrated, by the very late arrival of answers to questions—and in a lot of cases, Members are still waiting for them. It is totally unacceptable. We are the representatives of the electorate. We must get this message through to the Department. The hon. Lady’s frustration is shared. That is the worst part: this is not an isolated case.

I would say, however, that there are other ways; the hon. Lady could write to the Procedure Committee to explain her frustration. In the end, this affects all Members, not those on one particular side. That is the big issue. The people we represent want the answers. I would suggest that the hon. Lady writes to the Procedure Committee, but in the end the responsibility lies with the Department of Health and Social Care. It is for the Secretary of State to ensure that his Department is more proactive in the answering of letters. I understand that he may have a lot of questions put to him, but in the end—bring the extra staff in—they must be answered. I will ensure that this issue is taken up again with the Leader of the House, who I know is as frustrated as the hon. Lady’s good self and me.