Oral Answers to Questions

Anas Sarwar Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and it is striking that the previous shadow Chancellor and the previous shadow Health Secretary said that it was madness to ring-fence the NHS. That is not the view of this Government.

[Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)]

13. What assessment he has made of the effect on road fuel prices of the increase in the standard rate of value added tax.

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

How much of the rise in the standard rate of VAT is passed on to consumers is a commercial decision for retailers.

[Anas Sarwar]

I thank the Minister for that answer. Treasury Ministers are very wrong to suggest that the calls to scrap the VAT increase on fuel is illegal and unworkable. There is precedent for it: the French President recently got a derogation from EU laws for French restaurants. Will this Government stand up for UK families who have been hard hit by the rise in fuel costs and look for derogation powers on fuel duty?

[Mr Gauke]

A week ago, the shadow Chancellor was saying that we needed an immediate cut in the tax on fuel and now the Labour party is saying that we should start a process that will take about seven years. That does not strike me as being terribly helpful.

Economic Regeneration (Glasgow)

Anas Sarwar Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)]

I join my colleagues in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) on securing the debate. During 12 years as an elected Member of both this House and the Scottish Parliament, she has demonstrated her commitment to the city of Glasgow. I am delighted to stand side by side with her and every other Glasgow Member of Parliament to say that our first priority is and always will be to stand up for the great city of Glasgow, which we are all proud to be from and serve.

From the outset, it is important to recognise the huge amount of regeneration that has taken place in the city of Glasgow over the past 13 years. Within my constituency, we have seen tremendous regeneration next to the Clyde, involving the media Hub, the BBC, ITV, the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre development, the Clyde auditorium and the science centre. I am pleased to say that all that development is happening within my constituency. There has also been tremendous development in the city centre. Sauchiehall street and Buchanan street have the second highest footfall of any UK city centre, second only to Oxford street in London. There has also been a huge amount of housing regeneration right across the city. However, sadly, that has stalled through the recession and as a result of these difficult times.

As the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) rightly pointed out, the 2014 Commonwealth games will provide a great opportunity to sell Glasgow not only nationally but globally, and will bring opportunity for the east end of the city. It is important to recognise that Glasgow has had a tumultuous economic history, and that the growth and development seen in recent years is extremely fragile, particularly in such a tough economic climate. All hon. Members present today understand that regeneration is driven by economic growth, be it a particular area or the nation as a whole. The regeneration that Glasgow enjoyed under 13 years of a Labour Government is at threat at its roots as a result of inaction from the Scottish Government and a new UK Government policy. However, as with all development and regeneration, cutting off support too early means cutting the lifeline to projects, which will end before they have begun, squandering the initial investment and leaving communities back where they started.

Therefore, in spite of the current climate, it is important that we ask the Government to remember fragile areas such as Glasgow when they make cuts and choose where to invest. That includes cuts to initiatives such as employment zones, and investment in projects such as high-speed rail. The people of Glasgow have been forgotten in the past, when the closure of the shipyards left generations unemployed, and I hope this debate will help to ensure that Glasgow is not forgotten again.

It is important to remember that regeneration is not only about the physical development of new areas through Government and developers investing large amounts of capital, but giving renewed energy to existing systems and supporting the local economy and local people, so that Glasgow can regenerate itself from within. One way that the previous Government began to achieve that was by supporting unemployed people back into work—an essential step to bring growth back into deprived areas is to increase employment.

Despite investment in Glasgow in the last decade, which has improved prospects for thousands of people, the city still has one of the highest unemployment rates in Scotland and has been hit hard by the recession. The announcement by the Government that they will scrap the future jobs fund, which created more than 1,100 jobs for Glasgow and 15,500 jobs across Scotland, is devastating. The Government insist that their replacement back to work programme—when it eventually appears—will provide a more effective system for getting people back to work. However, in the news just yesterday, we heard that the number of people expected to benefit from the scheme in 2012-13 will be down by almost 300,000 on the number who benefited from the previous Government’s programme nationwide.

Labour’s employment zones, which were due to be scrapped six months before the new work programme, were also of great benefit to the city of Glasgow. I am pleased that the Government have done a U-turn on scrapping them six months before the new work programme had begun. It is a shame that it took Labour party pressure from the Opposition Benches and Glasgow Labour MPs having to fight with the Government to make them do that U-turn. The Government should have seen sense in the first place.

We have to recognise that with regeneration and unemployment, one size does not fit all. The Government need to demonstrate that they are paying attention to areas with serious long-term unemployment problems through plans to provide focused support to get people in those areas back to work, particularly given their plan to penalise the long-term unemployed with policies such as a 10% cut in their housing benefit.

Poverty and a lack of opportunity are huge problems in my constituency, and the cuts to regeneration projects such as the Glasgow airport rail link and the Clyde Gateway, coupled with cuts in employment programmes, only threaten to compound the situation. It is important to recognise that the people are willing to work, but jobs must be available for them to fill. It is the growth of Scottish business that will ultimately drive the creation of the economy that Glasgow requires to regenerate itself. Therefore, in addition to supporting work programmes and investing capital in Glasgow itself, the Government must be mindful of longer-term policy decisions that will affect Glasgow’s independent growth. That includes supporting Glasgow’s growing sectors and ensuring that it remains well connected.

The Glasgow to Edinburgh improvement project will go a long way toward supporting Glasgow’s growth by improving connectivity between the two cities, reducing travel times and costs to businesses, and creating one central hub. Although strengthening Scotland’s internal links is important, Glasgow will struggle to present itself as a viable place for start-ups, or to maintain a good environment for growth, if it is not adequately connected to the rest of the UK. The Scottish market alone is not large enough to support very large businesses, particularly those in manufacturing, and international businesses will require strong links with London and the rest of the UK market before they will be attracted to settling in Glasgow. That is why it is such a concern that the plans for High Speed 2 do not currently include an extension to Scotland. Under the present proposals, journey times between London and Glasgow will be reduced by only half an hour if High Speed 2 terminates in Manchester. With current proposals planned for completion as far off as 2025, that prompts the question of how long Glasgow, and indeed the rest of Scotland, will have to wait before they benefit from an adequate rail connection to the rest of the UK.

Britain is already behind our European counterparts in providing proper high-speed connections—the French TGV began operating more than 25 years ago. Scotland’s growth will be actively disadvantaged if there is not even a longer-term plan to link Scotland with the rest of Europe. When we add to that the recent announcement that British Midlands International is to stop its Glasgow to London service, we can understand the deep concerns the Scottish business community will have when it finds competing in the international market increasingly challenging. Both Glasgow and Edinburgh city councils have come together on this. I can assure you, Mr Gale, that Glasgow and Edinburgh do not come together on many issues, but they have on high-speed rail. Independent research conducted for both councils has shown that a high-speed link could be worth up to £7 billion to the Scottish economy. What Glasgow needs in order to grow is a long-term commitment from the Government that high-speed rail for Scotland is a top priority, and that they will endeavour to make it happen at the same time it happens for the north of England.

Glasgow is a vibrant city and a great place to live, and I wholeheartedly believe that it will continue to grow if we can create opportunities for the people living there. There is no real reason why, given the right support, Glasgow cannot become an economic hub in its own right and help to drive growth for the rest of Scotland. What Glasgow needs is continued commitment from the Government to ensure that those opportunities will begin to appear, and evidence to show that Glasgow has not been forgotten, as it sadly was in the past.

Banking

Anas Sarwar Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

When I next talk to the banking chiefs, I will certainly communicate to them, or my office will do so, the specific issues that my hon. Friend raises about the two banks in his constituency. One of the challenges we have at the moment is that RBS and Lloyds are trying to de-lever because of the enormous mess they got into under the previous Government. More generally, he makes a very good point about the importance of community banking. The four banks that have reached this settlement today are committed to extending that and thereby, to a degree, rolling back what happened in recent years. There are also those who want to enter the banking sector. Of course, they have to comply with the FSA requirements, but I know that some of them are offering a return to the kind of community banking that he talked about.

[Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)]

The Chancellor compares the funding given to the Labour party by trade unionists with the 50% of donations to his party from the City, but I remind him that it was the bankers who caused this crisis, not millions of hard-working trade unionists.

An FSA report found that RBS had 1.1 million customer complaints, more than 50% of which were not dealt with appropriately, resulting in a £2.8 million fine. Does the Chancellor think it is right to reward failure with lavish bonuses, whether in cash or in shares?

[Mr Osborne]

It was the last Labour Government who were responsible for the economic mess that we got ourselves into, and the sooner Labour Members face up to that, the better. One example of that was the arrangements put in place regarding RBS, to which the hon. Gentleman referred. That is the contract that we inherited from Labour; this is what the then Ministers who now sit on the shadow Front Bench signed up to: they explicitly told RBS that from 2010 it should pay in line with the market rate. We have now got it to be at the back of the market, not the front.

Basic Bank Accounts (Scotland)

Anas Sarwar Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Sheila Gilmore]

I certainly agree. I shall speak later about how we can move this forward, and one way is by improving the practices of some banks in that regard.

There are several main reasons why people cannot access basic bank accounts, of which that may well be one. Another is having a poor credit history or, indeed, no credit history. I shall quote one example from the CAS survey:

“I had a full driving licence but never had a bill in my name as I live with my mum and dad. I am 28 years old and can’t get a bank account.”

There are people who have not taken any credit in the past and do not have a record.

[Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. I was a dentist in a previous life—I am a glutton for punishment, perhaps. I have a similar story. We employed a new dental nurse who had no credit history at all. She did not have a driving licence—she was straight out of school—or her birth certificate, which had been lost in her parents’ messy separation, so she was not able to open a bank account. Instead, every week she had to take her cheques to one of the local pawnshops and pay £3.50 to get her money. That is a simple story, but the situation affects thousands of people across the UK.

[Sheila Gilmore]

I thank my hon. Friend for that example. It is important to understand that these things do still happen in this day and age, although it might be surprising to some people.

On the inability to meet some of the identity requirements, the Financial Services Authority permits use of a wide range of identification, but local advice agencies in my constituency have told me that meeting the requirements can be problematic. Not all banks operate to the FSA guidelines. They demand either a passport or a driving licence, which not everyone has. Such things as a letter from a housing association or benefit entitlement documents are not accepted, so the whole process takes a long time.

Other people are in a situation where they owe money to a bank. Sometimes it is appropriate that they open up a basic bank account elsewhere to enable them to function while they are dealing with previous debts. There is a growing difficulty with the consolidation of banks, in that there are too few banks in many places. In some small towns in Scotland, there is very little choice.

Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill

Anas Sarwar Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Williams]

I shall try to be brief so that the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) can get in. The right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), who leads for the Labour party, said that there had been more than 20 Divisions during deliberations on the Bill, but I think that only two principles have been at stake. The first is deficit reduction, and that has been dealt with comprehensively by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) and the Minister. The second is a matter of dogma, to use the right hon. Gentleman’s word, and that is what I want to talk about.

What is the role of the state in ensuring that people can make a journey out of the poverty into which they were born into more successful adult lives? The Opposition say that it is to give out dollops of free money, which will somehow transform people’s life circumstances even if that free money will not be available until they are 18, which might be a decade away for some. It has been the contention of my party since the run-up to the election, and it is now the contention of the coalition Government, that the role of the state is to enable people, for themselves, to achieve while they are at school and then have successful careers in their adult lives, thereby generating surplus funds. That will contribute to the culture of saving far more effectively than any Government incentive. The biggest barrier to someone saving is having an income that enables them to save. The biggest barrier to someone having an income that enables them to save is lack of educational achievement and inability to find a job that transforms their long-term work prospects.

The comprehensive spending review is a package of measures, the main concentration of which is the reduction of expenditure over four years, but that is a net reduction and there are increases within it as well. One of those increases is one of the four main pledges that my party made during the election: the funding of the pupil premium. It is to be funded, as we laid out in the run-up to the election, specifically by the abolition of the child trust fund, which we opposed when the previous Government introduced it and opposed during the general election. That pledge has been carried forward into the coalition agreement.

[Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)]

It is amazing to listen to the hon. Gentleman: the people of Bristol West voted for a Liberal and ended up with a Tory. Does he not recognise that there is no extra money in the pupil premium, that the Budget was about choices and that the choice that the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives made is to hammer families, children and parents right across the country?

Oral Answers to Questions

Anas Sarwar Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

In the coalition agreement, we say that we recognise the concerns raised by the Holtham commission, but the priority must be to reduce the deficit. We also said that once the forthcoming referendum has taken place, there will be a Calman commission-like process. The Calman commission looked at greater financial accountability for the Scottish Parliament, and a similar process for Wales might help to address some of my hon. Friend’s concerns.

[Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)]

Will the Chief Secretary please tell us why his party campaigned throughout the election against immediate spending cuts, but is now, in return for jobs in the Cabinet, willing to risk tens of thousands of jobs across the country?