Digital ID
Debate between Alison Griffiths and Josh Simons(1 week, 3 days ago)
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Josh Simons
Those countries are placing their citizens’ consent at the centre of the system, and that is what we will build here in the UK.
That takes me to our third principle: it will be useful. I want to build a credential that our constituents want to have because having it makes their lives easier. In our economy and our society, technology has dramatically improved how we go about our daily life. I want Government to have the tools to move at the same pace. Whether it is applying for a new passport, accessing support for your children or proving who you are for a job, the state should be working as hard as possible to make these things easy for you, not making you do the hard work.
Our consultation will give the public the opportunity to have their say about how they would like to be able to use this credential, and what kind of future public services they would like to see. I want to build a system that helps people with the daily struggles they tell us about, not the system that Whitehall thinks is best.
There is also a lot of nonsense flying about in this debate, some myths that we have failed to rebut and some outright lies, so following a letter from my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash), the second thing that I would like to do this evening is briefly debunk some of those myths.
First, this programme will involve a massive digital inclusion drive, rejecting the status quo in which millions are excluded both digitally and from having IDs, and investing resources and time to ensure that everyone can access the online world and digital public services through post offices and libraries—physical spaces in communities up and down the United Kingdom.
Winter Fuel Payment
Debate between Alison Griffiths and Josh Simons(8 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Josh Simons
I will not.
The Conservatives knew that the winter fuel payment needed to change—they said so in their manifesto in 2017—but they did nothing about it. They knew that NHS England was duplicating, wasting taxpayers’ money and failing to drive up standards, but they did nothing about it. They knew that flooding was getting worse in places such as Platt Bridge, Ashton and Abram in my constituency, but they did nothing about it.
Let me give an even more egregious example from this week. The shadow Secretary of State for Justice, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), has stomped his feet and shaken his head about new guidance issued by the Sentencing Council. The Lord Chancellor has been clear that independent agencies should not make policy; this Chamber should. However, what the shadow Secretary of State for Justice is unwilling to confront is the fact that his party welcomed that guidance. The unequal treatment in the guidance has not changed, and he knows that. The shadow Secretary of State for Justice typifies what the Conservative party has become, and that has been exemplified in this debate. Conservative Members come to this Chamber shaking with outrage and spoiling for a spat, but they forget that they have been in charge.
Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Josh Simons
I will not give way, as I am coming to the end.
Today’s debate is another reminder that Conservative Members are growing comfortable with opposition. They prefer shouting, stomping and shaking with outrage to running the country, and that is the difference between us and them. We believe in calmly but doggedly driving the change this country voted for. We believe in standing alongside working people, and delivering change that benefits them. Conservative Members can put on their Britney mics and prophesise about abstractions, they can stomp their feet, they can wave bits of paper and they can get buzz cuts in a bid to convince working people that they have changed, but they have not. We are the party of working people and of change, and change is what we will continue to deliver.