Management of the Economy and Ministerial Severance Payments

Debate between Alex Cunningham and Lisa Nandy

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

The hon. Gentleman can shake his head, but it is a fact. This is money that many families across the country simply do not have. Food is going up, energy is going up, rents are going up and now mortgages are going through the roof. The one thing that this country cannot afford anymore is more of this Tory Government, who have been in office for 12 years.

Almost 2 million people are struggling to afford their mortgage costs. Government Members do not have to take my word for it—that is according to the Office for National Statistics. That is one in four mortgage holders. First-time buyers now face putting £1 of every £4 they earn towards their mortgage. Mortgage repossessions have soared by 91% compared with the same period last year, while the number of orders to seize property is up over 100%.

The crisis does not just affect homeowners; it is seeping into every part of the housing market. Buy-to-let landlords’ profits have declined by almost three quarters compared with last year because of rising interest rates, which means many tenants, already forking out huge chunks of their income on rent, are seeing their rents go through the roof. This is a housing crisis, the likes of which we have not seen for a generation, and what caused it? Let us make no mistake that this is a Tory crisis created in Downing Street by a disastrous mini-Budget which crashed the economy and threw families up and down the country under a bus. It is no coincidence that, after the mini-Budget, more than 40% of available mortgages were withdrawn from the market. It is no coincidence that the Bank of England had to launch an unprecedented intervention to stabilise the markets. Hon. Members do not need to take my word for it; 12 days ago, the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee report said:

“The sharp pickup in UK interest rates has been partly driven by global factors, but UK-specific factors have played an important role”—

and that

“UK interest rates had increased by somewhat more than others”.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her very good speech. I have been pleased to see lots of new homes being built in my constituency and nearby, because that has created jobs. However, does she share my anxiety that, with increased mortgage costs, the new homes will not be sold and that the people who will build the next phase will lose their jobs as well?

[Lisa Nandy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I will say more about that in a moment. This country is facing not just a housing crisis, but a growth crisis. Housing is a central part of the answer to the growth problem that the Tory Government have presided over for the past 12 years and it has to be part of the solution. This is a Tory crisis; it was made in Downing Street and is being paid for by working people. It is not Tory Ministers who will pay the price for it, but working people who will do so for years to come.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lisa Nandy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The truth is that before the former Prime Minister and Chancellor crashed the economy, we had a housing crisis in this country. We saw social housing stock being lost faster than it was being built, with rents rising in the private rented sector and a real squeeze on people there. The Government promised to do something about it, but we have had three years of them dragging their feet. We have had more Secretaries of State than we have had promises, and we have had a lot of those, but nothing has been delivered. I will say more about that in a moment.

Given all of that, I genuinely ask Government Members: where is the Housing Secretary? Why has he not met banks and lenders in the middle of this mortgage crisis? Any Government worth their salt would be moving heaven and earth to help families and protect vulnerable people as we head into what promises to be the harshest winter that many families can remember. The crisis is of such magnitude that we accept that there is no magic-bullet solution, but any Government worth their salt would do everything in their power and pull every lever to make a difference.

This afternoon, the shadow Chancellor—my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves)—and I will be talking to lenders about what can be done. Why is the Housing Secretary not doing the same? He has a reputation for roving across Government as Mr Fix-It. This is a major crisis in his brief; why is he not doing everything he can to fix it?

[Alex Cunningham]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way a second time. I remember the mortgage rates during the Thatcher years: mine exceeded 15%. Despite a good income, we struggled, but all around us, people were losing their homes. Interest rates have some way to go to reach those levels, but does she share my anxiety that if the Government do not take the right action now, another generation will face double-digit interest rates in this country?

[Lisa Nandy]

I agree absolutely. Bringing stability back to the economy is the first step, but the Government could do more. We know that the only way out of this crisis is growth and we know how central housing is to that part of the puzzle. The Government could start by committing again to their target of 300,000 homes a year and do more than that by actually building them. The Conservative Government’s failure over 12 years to build enough homes is a major cause of the housing crisis.

Draft Child Safeguarding Practice Review and Relevant Agency (England) Regulations 2018

Debate between Alex Cunningham and Lisa Nandy

Tuesday 8th May 2018 General Committees

[Alex Cunningham]

I had not intended to speak, and I will keep the Committee only a short time. The Minister spoke of receiving a positive response from the consultees, and that is fine. I do not have a problem with what is envisaged, but I worry about the implementation. The Minister said that he hoped during his speech to reassure us on the issues we raised in our interventions, but I am afraid that he has not reassured me—I do not know about my hon. Friends.

Where will the pool of expertise come from? I am not convinced that the people are out there who would be committed to doing the work. I gave the illustration earlier of trying to find chairs for local safeguarding boards. The people fishing in this pool, if I can put it like that, will face the same problems, so I ask the Minister again to address that. If he cannot do that today, I ask him at least to write to members of the Committee to tell us exactly where those people will come from.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan raised the issue of independent scrutiny of the pool, and that point was not adequately responded to either. Where is the provision to direct people to participate, and where is the resource commitment from the Minister? No dedicated new funding is being introduced for the delivery of what the Minister described as substantial reports. There is no detail on people being held to account for not participating. A letter from the Department, or even from the scary Secretary of State, is just not good enough. What will the Minister do to ensure that we do not need to send any such letters because people will know that they have a responsibility under the law to participate in the reviews?

[Lisa Nandy]

One of the concerns that my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields and I have raised is about the blame culture and the damage it does, particularly to frontline social workers who are trying to deal with very difficult issues, often with incomplete information, under pressure and in an era in which cuts have become the norm. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that one of the unintended consequences could be that the blame culture is exacerbated, because the pressure and the spotlight will be very much on the Minister?

It is not hard to envisage that something terrible happens, a review is commissioned, and the Minister is under pressure and seeks to apportion blame before the review has been completed, firing off letters to the local area to show that he or she is taking the matter seriously. Would my hon. Friend welcome as much as I would a commitment from the Minister that that is not what is intended and, explicitly, that the Department intends to take a different approach from now on? That is not a party political point; we have seen instances of that under different parties over the years. It does huge damage and it should stop.

[Alex Cunningham]

I certainly would welcome a commitment from the Minister to ensure that we do not end up in a blame culture. Last week I was given the honour of starting to chair the all-party parliamentary group on social work, and the first presentation was about the stresses that social services departments are already under in delivering children’s services. In my own local authority, we spend 57% of our entire council budget on social care issues—on children’s services and adult services. They are feeling the strain, and people are looking elsewhere to see how on earth they can get out of some of the corners they are in, particularly when things go wrong.

Warm words are great, and I know that the Minister is a sincere man, but we need guarantees. We need to that people will participate, that the reviews will be done, that we will learn from them and, most importantly of all, that they can happen in the first place by being properly resourced.

Youth Service Provision

Debate between Alex Cunningham and Lisa Nandy

Wednesday 3rd December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Lisa Nandy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight that, and it is one of the reasons why I congratulated my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North for situating this debate in the wider context of what is happening to young people. Transport costs are the key thing that young people always raise with me and, I am sure, many other Members, and it is important that we think about that when we consider services for young people.

There are some other startling examples of local authorities doing something really exciting. The hon. Member for Brigg and Goole is right to acknowledge the impact that the cuts have had but also to say that this is not just about funding. For example, I think that many Members will be aware of a project in Lambeth that I have heard about and seen for myself. Lambeth took the huge amounts that it was spending on young people through various budgets and put it into a trust, which anyone in the community over the age of 12 could join. It was weighted towards young people, so that they retained control, and it gave the community the power to take real decisions about how services were commissioned and delivered and what they looked like. My understanding is that that project has been a remarkable success. It points to a key feature of successful youth services; the most successful ones are those that involve young people in commissioning, designing and delivering them, where possible.

However, we know from our experience of looking at youth services that what works in Lambeth does not necessarily work in Liverpool. That is why I have said that there needs to be a clear minimum offer from this Government. Labour is clearly committed to that, but not to prescription about on how it should be delivered. Labour Members have previously said that we are open to strengthening the statutory duty to provide youth services, and I have listened carefully to the contributions by hon. Members on that point, but I think we must recognise that, on its own, a statutory duty is not enough. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West said, we already have a statutory duty, limited though it is, and it is not being fulfilled around the country. Labour is very attracted by the possibility of introducing a duty to ensure that young people are involved from the outset in designing and commissioning youth services, and we wonder whether the Minister might share that aspiration; if he does, perhaps he will say something about it today.

There is also a clear need to ensure that young people can hold the people who make these decisions to account. That is one of the reasons why Labour is committed to introducing votes at 16. I hope that the Minister will listen to that argument and consider carefully how young people can hold their elected politicians to account for their decisions if they do not have the vote.

I should also mention briefly concerns about the work force. I want to be fair to the Minister, so I will say that some of the problems in the youth service work force predate the coalition. In 2008, a survey by the National Youth Agency found that a third of councils were not investing at all in the professional development of youth workers. That was really worrying then, but I dread to think what the figure is now, several years after the huge cuts that we have had. Can the Minister tell us? There is a real risk that we will run down the quality of our services and then turn around and say to young people that those services are not worth saving in any case.

There is no question that the last four years have been absolutely horrendous for this sector, and I do not want to lose sight of that. We have lost good, skilled staff, and many more are under significant strain, dealing with low pay, job insecurity and the prospect of redundancies. This really matters, because as my hon. Friends the Members for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) and for Stockton North said, behind the loss of all those youth workers—2,000 of them during the last few years—is a story of broken relationships. I once worked with a young person who had grown up in and out of care. He was 18 when I first came across him and he told me that the only consistent adult in his life since he was 11 had been his youth worker. When we lose good, skilled staff, we break that link and that bond, and the damage is irreparable.

Regarding the National Citizen Service, I say to the Minister that although I support many of the things that my hon. Friends have said, and I myself have also had a parmo with some of the young people from Redcar who have taken part in NCS, it is no substitute for long-term, ongoing youth services provided all year round. It is a short-term intervention and it is very expensive. If we come to power in May next year, we are not planning to make the same mistake that this Government did with the v scheme, and simply tear something up because another party has established it, but we are very concerned about the cost of NCS. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North drew a parallel between the amount of money that the German Federal Government spend on year-round youth work and the money that this Government spend on short-term interventions.

The other thing to say is that young people spend 85% of their time out of school, yet each year local authorities spend 55 times more on formal education than they do on providing services for young people outside the school day. We need to get a bit of a grip on this, because when this Government agreed to protect ring-fencing for school funding they did not do the same for additional activities. They abolished ring-fenced grants for—

[Alex Cunningham]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Lisa Nandy]

If my hon. Friend does not mind, I will not give way, as I have only a couple of minutes left and I wanted to make some last points.

As I was saying, the Government abolished the ring-fenced grants for additional activities. They inherited spending of £350 million per year on those activities, which equated to about £77 per young person aged between 13 and 19. A previous Minister responsible for this area said that that equated to

“large slugs of public money”.

I hope that the current Minister will take the opportunity to reject that view and tell us that he thinks young people are worth at least £77 of our money per head.

Over the past four years, Ministers have passed on responsibility to the very same local authorities that they are hammering with budget cuts. Frankly there was only ever going to be one result, because at the same time the money that helped to sustain youth services was put into an early intervention grant, which was also used to fund Sure Starts and services dealing with teen pregnancy, substance misuse and mental health, before being cut again by up to 40%. I say to the Minister: what sort of message does that send to young people about our commitment to them? If my hon. Friend the former Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East were here, he would say that this approach is so short-sighted, particularly given all the issues about child protection and children in the criminal justice system that we have discussed.

I also wanted to say to the Minister that some local authorities have cut way beyond the average. Have he or any of his colleagues ever considered using the powers that they have under the Education Act 2006 to intervene where they see youth services being cut disproportionately and the statutory duty that exists in that Act not being met?

In 2011, the Minister’s predecessor as Minister for Civil Society said,

“we are working with our strategic partners to gather information about what is happening on the ground”.

Has that happened and has it been published? What discussions has he had with local authorities?

This is not simply a question of money; it is about priorities. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West said, quite rightly, that the emergence of a significant youth service can be traced back to post-world war two and “In the Service of Youth”. It was a time when the country was facing the most significant financial challenge in its history. This is not just a question of what we say to our young people; it is about what sort of country we want to be. Do we want to be forward-looking, confident, ambitious and invest in our young people, their talent and energy, or do we want to watch the sad disintegration of the services that they rely on over the next few years? I know what our answer is.