Business of the House

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

I pay tribute to Chris and the work of volunteers in my hon. Friend’s constituency. Sefton Council should be supporting their valuable work. Volunteers and community groups work incredibly hard to improve parks and green spaces, including the botanic gardens, Lord Street, Bedford park and Ainsdale village. Volunteers deserve to be celebrated for their work in the community, so I encourage my hon. Friend to apply for an Adjournment debate or a Backbench Business debate.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I think that the Leader of the House meant to say to my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) that we now have the highest tax burden in modern history, even after the Chancellor’s plan yesterday. People are really struggling. They are engulfed in a cost of living crisis, yet the Chancellor has written off £4.3 billion of covid loans to fraudsters and wasted £8.7 billion on duff personal protective equipment that was so useless it had to be burnt. So may we have a debate on fraud and waste in the public finances?