Disability Equality Training (Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Drivers) Bill

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and George Howarth

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 18th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne]

Absolutely. I thank the hon. Gentleman for sponsoring my Bill; his support is greatly appreciated. He is absolutely right to suggest that there is a lot more on the enforcement side that local authorities could and should be doing. At the moment, taxi licence holders who are brought before the licensing panel can plead ignorance and say that they did not appreciate that this was the law. However, if they have to have training as part of their licence requirements in the first place, or as part of their renewal requirements, they will no longer have that excuse.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, welcome though it is that local authorities are taking more seriously their responsibilities for training and enforcement, the only way to guarantee that people get the respect they deserve and that taxi drivers abide by the law is to put this requirement on to a statutory footing?

[Andrew Gwynne]

I absolutely agree. Best practice is in place in many areas across the country, but unless there is a statutory requirement for training as part of the licensing regime, we will never be able to weed out any bad practice that still exists.

The Economy and Work

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and George Howarth

Thursday 26th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I begin by thanking the Chancellor for the £5 million he earmarked in the Budget for Shakespeare North. May I press him a little further and ask him to waive the VAT on the construction costs?

I want to talk today about the link between poverty, economic progress and education. Before doing so, however, I should perhaps say a word about my position on the EU referendum. In the previous referendum, in 1975, I chaired the “Huyton says no” campaign. That merry band of naysayers was a fairly eclectic group consisting of Labour party Young Socialists, the Communist party of Great Britain and two Tories who ran a ballroom dancing academy. Fortunately, the people of Huyton sensibly listened to our local MP at the time, Harold Wilson, and voted to stay in.

The argument that I want to advance today takes its inspiration—fittingly, in the centenary year of his birth—from Harold Wilson’s “white heat of technology” speech. Key to his argument in 1963 was that we needed to adapt to changing economic realities by embracing the challenges presented in science and technology. It also included an element about the importance of education as a pathway out of poverty. My argument is that we now face a similar challenge. How do we compete in a rapidly changing global economy? Do we, as some international corporations would suggest, adopt zero-hours contracts and other insecure forms of employment, or do we incentivise innovation and educate and train our workforce to take advantage of the opportunities that innovation creates? The first option is, in my view, a self-defeating race to the bottom.

However, we have to face up to some uncomfortable truths, one of which is the decline in manufacturing in the UK. In 1972, 32% of the UK’s GDP came from manufacturing. By 1997, that percentage was down to 14.5%, and by 2013 it had dropped further to 10.4%. The economic levers available to the Chancellor and the Government need to be remorselessly focused on creating incentives for innovation, using not only the taxation system but the export guarantee system and everything else available to ensure that the opportunities that exist in the world are brought within the reach of our country.

We also need to talk about education. We have serious problems with education in Knowsley. I do not want to go into too much detail, but we have a serious problem of under-attainment at GCSE level.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I just wonder how many secondary schools in Knowsley are academies.

[Mr Howarth]

That is the point. Out of the six secondary schools in Knowsley, four are already academies, so that is clearly not the solution to the problems we face. My own belief is that we need to start from scratch and completely rebuild the education system. Nothing should be protected from proper scrutiny or from modernisation. The curriculum, the public examination system, educational institutions and even the underlying philosophy behind education need rigorous questioning and frankly need to be radically redesigned to meet the real challenges that we face in the world. If we do not do that, areas such as Knowsley will continue to lag behind. We can, however, make bigger and bolder choices to meet the challenges and harness innovation and education as the twin engines of tackling inequality, deprivation and the random economic effects associated with where people live. Surely there is only one choice, and that choice must be progress.

Contaminated Blood

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and George Howarth

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Commons Chamber

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

I start by paying tribute to the 21 hon. and right hon. Members who have today provided a strong voice for the victims of contaminated blood. In particular, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), who has been tireless in her pursuit of justice. I remember her forceful arguments when she asked an urgent question on the subject about a year ago, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) responded on the Opposition’s behalf, and when she asked her urgent question in December, to which I responded for the Opposition. She does real credit to the cause of those who are suffering as a result of this scandal. We must never ever forget the personal tragedies behind scandals such as this one, and I want to pay tribute to the families who have travelled down here today to listen to the debate. They deserve their day in Parliament, and I hope that the Minister will carefully consider the points that have been raised by all Members and by the families of the victims.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I apologise for not being here throughout the debate; I was chairing a Committee elsewhere in the building. Would my hon. Friend accept that one of the defining characteristics of the modern world is that we have an expectation that an individual, a company or a Government will accept responsibility when things go wrong, and that they will accept the consequences of taking that responsibility? Does he agree that it is high time the Government accepted responsibility in this case?

[Andrew Gwynne]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I will come on to that point later. We owe it to the victims and their families to find some kind of justice for them.

I am not frequently on the same side as the editorial line taken by the Sunday Express, but I congratulate that newspaper on its tireless campaign for justice. This scandal has seen families torn apart through death and illness caused by the negligence of public bodies. I am willing to accept that, over the years, the response of Governments of all colours has just not been good enough. When the consultation was published in January, I was clear that while no amount of money could ever make up for the impact that this tragedy has had on people’s lives, the victims deserved some form of justice. We have three days until the consultation closes and I want to use my remarks to push the Minister on four points relating to the current proposals.

First, in the 1970s and 1980s, around 7,500 people were infected with hepatitis C or HIV as a result of this scandal. Many of those people were being treated for haemophilia. The viruses have had a devastating impact on their lives and those of their families, not least through loss of earnings and the cost of treatment. The failure of successive Governments to accept liability for this issue means that many of the victims have lost financial security through no fault of their own.