Government PPE Contracts

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House –

(a) notes that the Department for Health and Social Care purchased more than £12 billion of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in 2020-21;

(b) regrets that the Government has now written £8.7 billion off the value of this £12 billion, including £4 billion that was spent on PPE which did not meet NHS standards and was unusable;

(c) is extremely concerned that the Government’s high priority lane for procurement during the pandemic appears to have resulted in contracts being awarded without due diligence and wasted taxpayer money;

(d) considers there should be examination of the process by which contracts were awarded through the high priority lane; and

(e) accordingly resolves that an Humble Address be presented to His Majesty, that he will be graciously pleased to give direction that all papers, advice and correspondence involving Ministers and Special Advisers, including submissions and electronic communications, relating to the Government contracts for garments for biological or chemical protection, awarded to PPE Medpro by the Department for Health and Social Care, references CF-0029900D0O000000rwimUAA1 and 547578, be provided to the Committee of Public Accounts.

The motion before the House is simple: this is a plea for answers, clarity and the truth. The choice that the House makes today is also simple. Our demand is clear: end the cover-up and begin the clean-up. We already know that the so-called VIP lane for personal protective equipment enabled the shameful waste of taxpayers’ money and inexcusable profiteering by unfit and unqualified providers. We know the Government have already written off £10 billion of public funds spent on personal protective equipment that was either unusable, overpriced or undelivered. Ministers have admitted that they are still paying £770,000 a day of taxpayers’ cash to store gloves, goggles and gowns. That is enough to pay for 75,000 spaces in after-school clubs, or 19,000 places in full-time nursery care. Every day, £106,000 of that money is sent to China to pay for storage costs alone.

We already know that £4 billion-worth of unusable PPE was burned to generate power after 70 million PPE items were sold off for just £400,000. What we do not yet know is what was said in correspondence between the key participants on the Government Benches and their unqualified cronies on the make and on the take. We do not even know exactly where our money ended up, but we do know that, if Ministers get their way, the system could be used again and the scandal repeated, enriching fraudsters at the expense of the taxpayer and creating a new mountain of waste.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that this is a scandalous waste of public money. Equally important is that our care sector and health sector were desperate for PPE during the pandemic. Specialised Canvas in my constituency changed all its manufacturing to be able to make PPE and got a large number of contracts from individual trusts, but it was completely unable to get any contracts out of the Department of Health and Social Care. So alongside the public money wastage, we also had nurses and carers unable to access PPE at the height of the pandemic when they desperately needed it.

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He made two points, which I will come to in greater detail in my speech, but one was the lack of PPE for those on the frontline, as well as the total disrespect in the way that contracts were handed out through the VIP lane, at the expense of businesses up and down the UK that had experience and could have helped during the pandemic, but which were not party to WhatsApps or whatever else got them to Ministers and access to the VIP lane.

Take the mystery of a PPE company with links to a Tory politician. While it is for the authorities to decide whether any law is broken, and I will not comment on the ongoing investigations, we do know that PPE Medpro was referred to the VIP lane by a sitting member of the Cabinet after lobbying from another Tory politician five days before it was even legally registered as a company. The House may recall that that particular company was subsequently awarded two contracts worth £203 million to supply PPE, with £81 million to supply 210 million face masks awarded in May 2020 and a £122 million contract to supply 25 million surgical gowns awarded in June 2020. The face masks were bought by the Government from PPE Medpro for more than twice the price of identical items from other suppliers, and the surgical gowns were rejected for use in the NHS after a technical inspection. All of them were never even used. It points to a total failure of due diligence and the rotten stench of cronyism.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

During the early months of the pandemic, I was contacted by PPE suppliers known to the NHS—they were long-term suppliers—who told me that their offers of help were being rejected. One wrote to me and said that before April 2020

“there was a degree of total incompetence about government handling of PPE purchases. However, by the way they scrutinised our own offers, thereafter, we believe they knew, at least specification-wise, exactly what they were doing and that senior managers were taking steps to use ‘preferred suppliers’, even though they were aware these suppliers had neither the track record nor the level of competence to produce compliant goods”.

What does my right hon. Friend think about that?

[Angela Rayner]

I think it absolutely stinks, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right, in that the public can see through it, as can those businesses, who are pretty angry. They knew that Britain faced a situation with a global pandemic that it had not faced before and they wanted to do the right thing by doing their bit. The frustration—my hon. Friend is right to quote her business—is that there is no question that the specifications should have been known. Therefore, why was all this PPE bought knowing full well it could not be used?

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the mood in her constituency, as in mine, apposite these dealings is one of faith being completely shaken in the good governance and process of this nation? At the very least, people are saying that moneys obtained and goods not properly utilised have to be returned and, if circumstances so dictate, there should be criminal prosecutions long before an inquiry can progress.

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend is right to capture the mood of the public on this. At a time when the public are told that we have to show restraint, at a time when they can see the finances—not least because the Government’s former Prime Minister and former Chancellor crashed the economy—it absolutely galls them to think that Ministers were not doing the due diligence that was required with the funds we needed. Now we have a situation where we are spending billions of pounds on wasted PPE and we also have thousands of pounds every single day being wasted on storage for PPE.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

Obviously in government you have to get on and make decisions, and we do not often get to see what the Labour party would do in our place. On this occasion, we did have an insight because the Labour party recommended a whole series of people who could supply vital supplies for us during the pandemic, including a football agent supplying ventilators. What assessment has the right hon. Lady made of the quality and credibility of the Labour party’s own suggestions for supplies during the pandemic?

[Angela Rayner]

I thank the hon. Member for his comments, but I ask him: how many Members from across the House who were not Conservative Members got access to the VIP lanes? I can give him the answer: none, zilch, zero. That is the problem. The due diligence was not done on those contracts and it was his Government’s problem, his Government’s responsibility and his Government’s failure.

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that there is a huge contrast in the comments of the National Audit Office on the way the Welsh Government procured PPE, in that they did not waste public money and they did get value for money. They did not end up having to explain to the House how they gave contracts to various people. Does she not agree that that is the way a Labour Government in action really works?

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree. This was a global pandemic, yet it is the UK Government who are constantly criticised about these contracts and the way in which they were doled out and given. All the motion today asks for is transparency. What have they got to hide?

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way; she is making a powerful speech. Today has been a really important day, because we have met members of the Fire Brigades Union from across the country who have come down to stand up for a decent salary. That is all we are asking for. What this debate illustrates is that the Government can find billions of pounds to hand over in a crisis to well-connected supporters. If the allegations about the Member from the other place are true, enough money from that alleged dividend would have settled the firefighters’ settlement in Scotland in totality—one person against every firefighter. Will the right hon. Lady confirm that an incoming Labour Government will investigate this matter thoroughly and transparently, and hold anyone who has bent the rules—however they have done so—to justice?

[Angela Rayner]

I thank the hon. Member for his point, and he is absolutely right. The Fire Brigades Union members were in Parliament and outside it today. They are frustrated, like many others who have been told that there is not money to give them a pay rise and that, actually, they are going to get a real-terms pay cut. But at the same time, billions of pounds has been wasted. As I said in my opening remarks, £770,000 a day has gone on storing this equipment. It is not acceptable to most people and most members of the public.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend has highlighted one particular legal situation, but I am sure she is aware that the Department of Health and Social Care remains in dispute on 176 contracts for PPE worth £2.7 billion. I wonder whether she has any thoughts about that.

[Angela Rayner]

The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee is absolutely right. It is absolutely eye-watering and astonishing that 176 contracts remain in this situation. The public can see that and they are frustrated, because it is not acceptable and not okay to govern in that way. The public rightly want answers, and they want them now.

The links between the company Medpro and the Tory peer in question were never publicly disclosed. In fact, they were denied repeatedly by the lawyers acting for those involved. We now know that the money ended up in offshore accounts directly linked to those individuals. By their own admission, this was for so-called tax efficiency. It seems that they even dodged paying their own taxes on the profits they made from ours. Only after a long legal battle was it revealed that there was active lobbying from ministerial colleagues for access to the VIP lane and substantial contracts were won by those companies. They said that the peer in question did not benefit from these contracts. That denial has been rather undermined by the latest revelations of The Guardian, rather than any disclosure of Ministers. It was only some time after The Guardian exposed those links that a Minister, the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), finally told me in answer to a parliamentary question:

“Departmental records reflect that a link between Baroness Mone and PPE Medpro was clear prior to contracts being awarded.”

But Ministers have, for months, refused to show us those records or tell us the nature of that link and whether it was declared or discovered in due diligence.

This was the subject of an investigation by the Standards Commissioners in the other place, yet it appears that Ministers sat on the information that they had. The question is very simple: what have Ministers got to hide? Did they know all along who was behind PPE Medpro, or was due diligence so poor that they did not realise the problem? If they had nothing to hide and no rules or laws were broken, Ministers will surely be happy to make the details of the meetings and correspondence available. While they are at it, will the Minister give us clarity about allegations made by the former Health Secretary in his new book about a separate bid for business connected to Baroness Mone?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The right hon. Lady is venturing rather too far into the territory that I urged her to avoid. I am afraid that those are the rules, so I have to pull her up if she is actively criticising a Member of the other place. I am sorry about that, but those are the rules.

[Angela Rayner]

I was not criticising Members from the other place. I am just quoting what a Member from this place, who was a Health Minister at the time, said. I am asking this Minister today if he can give us clarity on what was said, because that is now on the public record. That is all I am asking the Minister for. I have not said that about any person from the other place—that is what a former Minister said in his diaries, so it would be nice if this Minister can give us some light on this whole murky affair.

Let us turn to the numbers because, as they say, the numbers don’t lie. Ten: how many times more likely to get a contract a company was if it was in the VIP lane. One in five: the proportion of emergency contracts handed out by the Government that have been flagged for corruption. Three and a half billion: the value, in pounds, of contracts given to the Tory party’s mates—that we know of. Three billion: the value, in pounds, of contracts awarded that warrant further investigation. None, zilch, zero: the number of times this Government have come clean about this dodgy Medpro scandal. A cover-up, a whitewash, events swept under the carpet—and now they have been dragged kicking and screaming to the House today to give an honest account of their shameful dealings. The public are sick of being ripped off and taken for fools. They want to know the truth.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is it not now clear to the public that the Conservative party believes in one thing only: how much money it can grab from the public purse, give to its cronies and friends, and steal from the pockets of hard-working people in this country?

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend captures the mood of the public. They want answers—they want to know what happened to their money and what happened with these contracts at the time they most needed the Government to act responsibly—so we have tabled today’s motion and will put it to a vote.

Let me be clear. We are not asking the Government to do anything that would undermine any chance of recovering our money or anything that would conflict with any police investigation, but for 10 months they have told us that they are in mediation. What progress has been made? When will they conclude that the mediation has failed and take action? Can they actually get our money back or are they just kicking the can down the road?

Our motion asks Ministers to hand the records over to the Public Accounts Committee—a body that this House relies on to hold them to account for public spending—because the only logical conclusion is that they do indeed have something to hide. The public deserve answers on whether the dodgy lobbying at the heart of this scandal played a part in how vast sums of taxpayers’ cash have been wasted and whether shameful profiteering has been enabled by this Government.

That leads me to my second simple question for the House today: will Conservative Members—the few who are in—now vote for a clean-up or for yet another cover-up? Just last week, the Government led Tory Members in the other place through the Not Content Lobby to block amendment 72 to their Procurement Bill, which would have banned VIP lanes in future procurement decisions. They voted it down. They voted to protect unlawful VIP access instead of protecting taxpayers’ money.

The Prime Minister, fresh from writing off the billions he carelessly lost to covid fraud, is peddling legislation full of loopholes that would give Tory Ministers free rein to do it all over again. The question for the House is whether to act to prevent a repeat. Today, I say to Conservative right hon. and hon. Members: “Learn your lesson. Don’t let this shameful episode be repeated.”

The loss and trauma of the pandemic were immense. Millions of families lost loved ones—some only got to say goodbye via an iPad as mothers, fathers, husbands, wives and friends slipped away—and then we learned that throughout that trauma, companies with WhatsApp links to Ministers were given special VIP access to contracts that have seen billions poured down the drain.

This Government have done untold damage to the public’s faith in politics. The first step in restoring trust is publishing these documents today. The public need answers about how this happened and they need them now, but they also deserve reassurances that it will never, ever be allowed to happen again. Taxpayers’ money must be treated with respect, not handed out in backroom deals to cronies or used as a passport to profiteering.

PPE Medpro is just the tip of the iceberg in this scandal. We now know that companies that got into the VIP lane were 10 times more likely to win a contract. We now know that many did not go through the so-called eight-stage process of due diligence, as Ministers have now admitted, and we now know that this left dozens of experienced British businesses out in the cold—businesses that had the expertise to procure PPE and ventilators precisely and fast; businesses that offered their help in our darkest hour; businesses whose only mistake was to play by the rules.

Not a single one of the companies referred to the VIP lane was referred by a politician of any political party other than the Conservative party. The then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove)—the Cabinet member who oversaw the entire emergency procurement programme —reportedly fast-tracked a bid from one of his own personal friends and donors, who went on to win hundreds of millions of pounds of public money. Last week, he said he had simply referred the bid from PPE Medpro to officials; but we also know that he passed it on directly to his ministerial colleague Lord Agnew.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making a thoughtful speech which puts every Conservative Member to shame. Is she as shocked as I was to learn that a company was put into the VIP lane by mistake, and still received a £1 million contract?

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Rayner]

It is absolute negligence and neglect of due diligence in the whole process. We now know that the issue of the VIP access lane and what it did and did not do has been tested in the High Court, but we also know that there is serious concern among members of the public, and that is what the motion is about. It is about getting to the bottom of it, and I think the public deserve no less than that.

As I was saying, the Minister passed the bid directly on to Lord Agnew. Some time later, officials discussed the fact that the Ministers’ offices were still being furiously lobbied. The former Health Secretary has also described being lobbied in words that I cannot quote in the Chamber—you have made that clear, Madam Deputy Speaker—but without giving any dates or details, so we do not know exactly what conversations or contacts happened behind the scenes. However, we do know that £3.5 billion of contracts have been handed out by this Government to their political donors and Ministers’ mates, so yes, we need an investigation into that as well. In fact, we need an investigation into every pound and penny that has been handed out, and to learn the lessons so that public money is not wasted again.

We should not forget that Ministers had previously denied the existence of a VIP lane. Well, it existed all right. It allowed Conservative politicians to “open doors” for anyone with connections to Ministers. It was the WhatsApp highway express, and earlier this year the High Court declared it unlawful.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith) said earlier, it did not have to be this way. Governments across the world responded to the covid emergency without wasting billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money and relying on dodgy backroom deals. According to the watchdog, the Welsh Labour Government managed to prevent health and care bodies from running out of PPE. The watchdog said:

“In contrast to the position described by the…National Audit Office in England, we saw no evidence of a priority being given to potential suppliers depending on who referred them.”

The Welsh Government created an open and transparent PPE supply chain, which is in stark contrast with the approach that the Conservatives took in England.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. With the benefit of hindsight, does she agree that the House would not have allowed the Government to have the emergency procurement powers that it granted at the beginning of the pandemic if we had known that they would be used in this corrupt manner?

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I would go further. I know from the correspondence I have been receiving that the public feel that way, and that many Conservative voters are absolutely shocked by what they have seen this Conservative Government do. They do not believe that the Government speak to their values, yet this has happened and we have a Procurement Bill going forward where this could happen again. So for today at least, the question before the House is simple: clean-up or cover-up?

I know that Members across this House care about our democracy, and although we disagree on many things, I hope we agree on the importance of trust in politics, the values of integrity, professionalism and accountability in public office and the public’s wish for more transparency and accountability within these four walls. Put simply, a vote for this motion is a vote in favour of the truth. This Government have presided over scandal after scandal engulfing their party. They appear to have benefited from dodgy lobbying, left, right and centre. Voting today for yet another cover-up will send another clear message to the public that this Prime Minister cares more about protecting vested interests than putting things right, and that his own promise of “integrity, professionalism and accountability” is just more hot air. After what they have put the British people through, this surely cannot be the message that Conservative Members want to send.

Labour has a plan to turn this procurement racket on its head and tackle the obscene waste with an office for value for money, to ensure that public money is spent with the respect that it deserves. It is about time that Conservative Members got with that programme. So I say today—I hope Conservative Members are listening—let us end the cover-up and begin the clean-up, and let us start it now. I commend this motion to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I know that hon. and right hon. Members heard what I said previously. I just want to add that while these matters are not sub judice, they are under investigation by law enforcement agencies and the Lords Commissioners for Standards, and nothing should be said to prejudge or prejudice any investigations. I am sure that that will be borne in mind.

--- Later in debate ---

[Will Quince]

I promise I will come to the hon. Lady.

Those 400 civil servants working on PPE and a senior accounting officer took decisions at pace and under huge pressure, as lives depended on them. Did they get everything right? No, they did not. But they did try their best in a highly competitive global market, with significant challenges in sourcing, procuring and distributing PPE. [Interruption.] Yes, they absolutely did. I gently say to the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne that her implied criticism of their professionalism, integrity and independence at a time of crisis, with the convenience and luxury now of hindsight, is deeply regrettable.

[Angela Rayner]

The Minister is being disingenuous to say that. I have never suggested for one moment that civil servants do not do an excellent job and work diligently. But why will he not publish the documents and emails about what Ministers, Tory peers and Tory MPs have been up to during the pandemic and these contracts?

[Will Quince]

I will come to that. As I said, due diligence was carried out on all companies. Procurement decisions were taken by civil servants. Financial accountability sat with a senior civil servant. I thank and applaud our hard-working civil servants, and I humbly suggest that someone aspiring to be our Deputy Prime Minister should do the same and not seek to throw them under the metaphorical bus.

Covid-19: PPE Procurement

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make a statement on the due diligence and performance management performed on the public procurement of personal protective equipment during the covid-19 pandemic.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will try to stay in my lane.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O’Brien)]

Sourcing, producing and distributing PPE is, even in normal times, a uniquely complex challenge. However, the efforts to do so during a pandemic, at a time when global demand was never higher, were truly extraordinary. Early on in that pandemic, our priority was clear: to get PPE to the frontline as quickly as possible. All of us in this House will remember that moment, and how desperate we all were to see PPE delivered to the frontline.

During the course of the pandemic—nearly at its peak—400 staff were working on sourcing protective equipment, and tens of billions of items were sourced. We worked at pace to source new deals from around the globe, and we always buy PPE of the highest standard and quality, and at the best value for money. Over the course of the programme, due diligence was done for over 19,000 companies, and over 2,600 companies made it through that initial due diligence process.

With huge demand for PPE all across the world, and with many countries introducing export bans, our risk appetite had to change. We had to throw everything behind our effort to protect those who protect us and those who needed it most. We had to balance the risk of contracts not performing and supplies being priced at a premium against the crucial risk to the health of frontline care workers, the NHS and the public if we failed to get the PPE that we so desperately needed.

As well as due diligence checks, there was systematic price benchmarking. Prices were evaluated against the need for a product, the quantity available, how soon it was available and the specification. Many deals were rejected or renegotiated because the prices initially offered were not acceptable.

There are always lessons that we can learn from any crisis, but we must not lose sight of the huge national effort that took place—I thank the officials who worked on it—to protect the most vulnerable while we tackled one of the greatest threats to our public health that this nation has ever seen.

[Angela Rayner]

Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker. I welcome the Minister to his place—I think this is the first time we have met at the Dispatch Box—but to be honest, to his defence of due diligence I would say, “What due diligence?” Last night, documents seen by The Guardian revealed yet another case of taxpayers’ money being wasted, with a total failure of due diligence and a conflict of interest at the heart of Government procurement.

In May 2020, PPE Medpro was set up and given £203 million in Government contracts after a referral from a Tory peer. It now appears that tens of millions of pounds of that money ended up in offshore accounts connected to the individuals involved—profits made possible through the company’s personal connections to Ministers and the Tories’ VIP lane, which was declared illegal by the High Court. Yet Ministers are still refusing to publish correspondence relating to the award of the Medpro contract, because they say that the Department is engaged in a mediation process. Can the Minister tell us today whether that mediation process has reached any outcome, and what public funds have been recovered, if any? Will he commit to releasing all the records, both to the covid-19 public inquiry and to this House, once the process is completed?

Rightly, there are separate investigations into Baroness Mone’s conduct, but the questions that this case raises are far wider. It took a motion from the Opposition to force the Government to release records over the Randox scandal. Will they agree today to do the same in this case without being forced to do so by the House? Can the Minister say now what due diligence was performed when awarding the Medpro contract?

Today’s reports concern just one single case, but this Government have written off £10 billion just on PPE that was deemed unfit for use, unusable, overpriced or undelivered. Worse, Ministers appear to have learned no lessons and to have no shame. As families struggle to make ends meet, taxpayers spend £700,000 a day on the storage of inadequate PPE. Can the Minister confirm whether the Government’s new Procurement Bill will still give Ministers free rein to hand out billions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash all over again?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Can we please stick to the rules of the House on time limits? I do not make the rules; the rules are meant for us all. This is happening too often.

Randox Covid Contracts

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, that she will be graciously pleased to give directions that there be laid before this House the minutes from or any notes of the meeting of 9 April 2020 between Lord Bethell, Owen Paterson and Randox representatives, and all correspondence, including submissions and electronic communications, addressed or copied to, or written by or on behalf of, any or all of the following:

(a) a Minister or former Minister of the Crown,

(b) a Special Adviser of such a Minister or former Minister, or

(c) a Member or former Member of this House

relating to the Government contracts for services provided by medical laboratories, awarded to Randox Laboratories Ltd. by the Department for Health and Social Care, reference tender_237869/856165 and CF-0053400D0O000000rwimUAA1, valued at £133,000,000 and £334,300,000-£346,500,000 respectively.

At the heart of this debate are two very simple questions. Do the Government have anything to hide? And will Members opposite now vote for a clean-up or a cover-up? I say “Members opposite,” but there are not many Members opposite to say it to.

The Prime Minister, just minutes ago, said in answer to my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition:

“I am very happy to publish all the details of the Randox contracts”.

If that is the case, the Prime Minister should vote for our motion and publish all the documents and correspondence related to the Randox contracts and the dodgy lobbying that went on around them.

The motion before the House is very simple. We already know that the former Member for North Shropshire broke the rules on lobbying. We already know that Randox was awarded nearly £600 million of taxpayers’ money without a tender. We already know that Randox was awarded a second £347 million contract having failed to deliver on a previous £133 million contract. And we already know the decision was made after a conference call involving the then Member for North Shropshire and the then Health Minister, Lord Bethell.

What we do not know is what happened in those meetings, who else was present, what was discussed and what was decided.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend makes an interesting point about who was at the meetings. It is not just a convention but an absolute necessity that, when a Minister meets a Member of Parliament or, indeed, an outside body, they are accompanied by civil servants who make a record of the meeting. Can we be certain as to whether the Minister was accompanied by civil servants who took those notes?

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. He has been a Member for a long time, and he is aware these conventions and procedures are there to ensure that process is followed and recorded, but we do not know what was said in any of the correspondence before or after, including from private email accounts and phones. We do not know why or how these contracts were awarded. I hope the Minister for Care and Mental Health can give us some insight. We do not know what rules might have been broken and what role the lobbying of the former Member for North Shropshire played in the Government’s decision.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

We all know about the failures of the Government’s dodgy crony contracts, which have wasted taxpayers’ money by the billion. Does my right hon. Friend agree that not only should the Government come clean but they should get the cash back to spend on projects like a new hospital for Stockton to help deal with our huge health inequalities?

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend makes a crucial point, and it is why the public are so frustrated. We know there has been waste in some of these contracts, and that money is needed in many parts of our country and in many areas of our constituencies. We know that money could have been better spent, and we know the cost of not doing it properly.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it speaks volumes that Conservative Members cannot be bothered to turn up to defend the Government’s position? Does she agree that the reason they have not turned up is because they know what they are doing is wrong? The country deserves so much better than what the Tories are delivering for them.

[Angela Rayner]

I do not think I have ever seen the Government Benches so empty when I have been at the Dispatch Box. It is quite novel. It is not just about respect for this House; it is about respect for the public who are watching and who want to know the answers. They want to know what elected Members on both sides of the House think.

The Government have refused to provide answers to the freedom of information requests on these points, and this is far from the only time that they have swerved scrutiny on their decisions. Take the mystery of Lord Bethell’s mobile, for example. The House may recall that the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson categorically denied that Ministers ever use private accounts for Government business, only for that denial to fall apart. The Government have now admitted in court that Lord Bethell corresponded about public contracts via WhatsApp or text message, and searches of his three private email accounts using covid contract keywords unearthed tens of thousands of messages and documents.

In December 2020, Lord Bethell was told his mobile phone would be searched for documents. Just weeks later, he said he had replaced his phone. First, he claimed his phone had been lost, then he said it was broken and then he said he had given it away to a family member. Finally, nearly a year on, he remembered that he had his phone all along, but that unfortunately he was in the habit of deleting his entire WhatsApp history and, sadly, the relevant messages may have been lost. He said the problem—I am not making this up—was exacerbated by having two phones, a personal phone and an official phone. I can at least agree with him on that; I am not kidding.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the Good Law Project, which started to close the net on Lord Bethell by unearthing all his burner, drug dealer-type actions?

[Angela Rayner]

I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning the Good Law Project. Over the past couple of weeks we have been talking about the sleaze and corruption we have seen. The Prime Minister spoke at Prime Minister’s questions about how sleaze and corruption affect the UK. I say to him and to Conservative Members that it is not the UK that is sleazy and corrupt, as we have seen in how the UK has responded to the sleaze and corruption; it is this Government who are sleazy and corrupt.

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

The problem is that the Government are rotting from the head down. The Prime Minister has to get a grip on his own actions, bearing in mind he has appeared before the sleaze watchdog three times and he had a corrupt track record as London Mayor. We cannot stand on a global stage and say we are not a corrupt country until he is cleaner than clean.

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This goes to the nub of the problem. The Prime Minister—even when asked to apologise by the Leader of the Opposition; even when his Ministers have already apologised; and even when Conservative Members will not attend this debate because they are embarrassed by their Government’s actions—refuses to accept his responsibility. That is why we are calling for transparency today.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

I would like the Minister to think for a moment about the companies that were not awarded contracts. Arco, in my constituency, is known for being the UK’s leader in safety equipment. It had a warehouse full of personal protective equipment that it would have been willing to give to the NHS but, for some reason, it could not find its way through the maze of bureaucracy involved in awarding Government contracts. We hear about companies being awarded contracts that had no record of expertise or knowledge, yet companies such as Arco were denied. How can that be right?

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We have heard about this distinction from other companies and organisations that have experience in the field; they feel as though they were blocked and there was not a transparent process for them to go through. We have seen concerns about how procurement decisions were being made for companies such as Randox, with the lack of any paper trail showing that they were made properly. How is that fair? The question is very simple: what are Ministers hiding?

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

Is that not the nub of the point: the fact that Ministers are using WhatsApp messages to make contracts is a way of circumventing the procurement process, which is there to protect the probity of Government spending? That is why we should be challenging these things as firmly as we can.

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend makes a good point on probity. If Ministers have nothing to hide and no rules were broken, surely they would be happy to publish the details of these meetings and the correspondence. But they have refused time and time again to do so. So today we have tabled this motion and we will put it to a vote, because the only logical conclusion is that there is something to hide—that the dodgy lobbying at the heart of this scandal has played a part in how vast sums of taxpayers’ cash have been spent.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making a strong case indeed for reforming this rotten process. Does she agree that when this House granted the Government the powers under emergency legislation to handle the procurement of important medical supplies, it did not expect for one second this orgy of procurement outrages, this feeding frenzy of money for their friends and donors, and the ransacking of public money to help their own that we have seen?

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend makes a crucial point. I say it again: in all my time in Parliament, I have never seen the Benches opposite so empty. I will be gracious to a number of Conservative Members who have expressed, both in public and in private, their concerns about this issue. I urge Members from across the House to look at this issue not in a party political sense, but by examining the damage it has done. The Prime Minister talks in PMQs about the UK and sleaze and corruption, but he has brought that to the UK and has undermined—[Interruption.] Even former Conservative Prime Ministers have raised concerns about the Prime Minister’s conduct. So I do not want to make it too party political, because I can see from the sparseness on the Benches opposite that many Conservative Members absolutely agree with us.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am listening with great interest to the very good speech my right hon. Friend is making. I have been in the House a bit longer than her. I came here in 1979 and I have never seen anything like this. It is an honourable thing for every Member to champion firms in their constituency. I tried to help businesses in my constituency to get orders at this time but I could not get through; it was not a level playing field. May I also remind the deputy leader of my party that I have been here all this time and I have never seen this determined boycotting of an important debate on an Opposition day in all my years in the House?

[Angela Rayner]

I thank my hon. Friend for that, and I remind him that I was born in 1980, so I am definitely going to—[Laughter.] I also remind him that I am a grandma and my granddaughter is four next week. He has considerably more experience than this granny, so I will bow to his better judgment on that. It is a shame that so many are not here for this very important debate. It is important because it goes to the heart of what we are here for. People want to see that we are really taking these issues seriously. The public have an interest in making sure that the rules and the transparency that they expect from our Government are upheld.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that many of our constituents are extremely angry about this, not just because there is cronyism and corruption, but, worse still, because there has been a massive waste of taxpayers’ money? Many of the contracts that the Government let for PPE did not even result in the PPE being provided? What was provided was substandard and therefore it has been a massive waste of our money, which could have been better spent on services in our constituencies.

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right on that, which leads me to my second simple question for the House today. Two weeks ago, the Government led Conservative Members through the Lobby for a stitch-up and a cover-up. Many of those Members have publicly and privately expressed their regret at voting in favour of that motion, and I have no doubt that their regret is sincere. They surely must now look with fresh eyes at those who led them through the Lobby. The Prime Minister brought shame on our democracy and on this House. That vote undermined trust in our democracy and the integrity of public office. So today I say to right hon. and hon. Members opposite: learn the lesson; do not vote for another cover-up.

The first step in restoring trust is publishing these documents today. Taxpayers’ money must be treated with respect, not handed out in backhand deals to companies that pay Conservative MPs to lobby on their behalf. Randox is just the tip of the iceberg in this scandal. Just yesterday, we finally found out the list of the favoured suppliers referred to—the so-called VIP lane for PPE procurement. This is the information that Ministers have failed to release of their own accord, despite a ruling from the Information Commissioner; we found out only because of a leak. No wonder they did not want to publish it. We already knew that those companies that got to the VIP lane were 10 times more likely to win a contract than anyone else. As Ministers have belatedly admitted, many of these did not go through the so-called “eight-stage process” of diligence. We now know how these companies got into the VIP lane in the first place. Not a single one of them had been referred by a politician of any political party other than the Conservative party. Of the 47 successful companies revealed yesterday, the original source of referral was a Conservative politician or adviser in 19 cases. The then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the Cabinet member who oversaw the entire emergency procurement programme, fast-tracked a bid from one of his own personal friends and donors, who went on to win hundreds of millions of pounds of public money.

[Dawn Butler]

My right hon. Friend might also reference an article by Sam Bright from Byline Times, who talks about the fact that £1 billion of contracts have been awarded to Conservative donors.

[Angela Rayner]

And £3.5 billion of contracts have been handed out by this Government to their political donors and Ministers’ mates. Almost £3 billion more has been wasted on unusable PPE, which is costing British taxpayers £1 million a day just to store. So, yes, we need an investigation into that, too. We need an investigation into every pound and penny that has been handed out, and to learn the lessons so that public money is not wasted again. But the question before the House today is very simple: do we choose to clean up or to cover up?

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. There is one point about the contracts as they stand and another about the situation going forward. Just last week, I had to get a flight back into the UK. I filled in the England passenger locator form and there was a drop-down menu for the day 2 lateral flow test with 15 companies listed. Of those 15, three were Randox. I chose another; it turned out to be Randox. Is this part of a wider scam?

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The general public are also asking these questions. That is why the question is: do we clean up or cover up? Are we going to have the transparency that the public deserve and that Members from all parties deserve?

I know that Members throughout this House care about our democracy. Although we disagree on many things, I hope we can agree on the importance of trust in our politics and the values of honesty and integrity in public office. A vote for our motion today is simply a vote for the truth, to tackle the dodgy lobbying that has brought shame on this House. The Prime Minister has created a corruption scandal that has engulfed his Government and his party. I have to say that voting for another cover-up today would send a very clear message to the electorate: that the Prime Minister cares more about covering up dodgy lobbying than putting things right—that he cares more about his self-interest than the public interest. After the last two weeks, that cannot be the message that Government Members want to send. I hope they are listening; let us end the cover-up and begin the clean-up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gillian Keegan]

I do not need any help on the procurement process.

I can confirm that no exception was made for Randox. Of course, Ministers have a role in understanding what is happening with contracts. We have calls and meetings with our commercial partners to find out what challenges they are facing, to drive them to go as fast as they can and to hold them to the commitments that they have made. Such meetings are only natural, but they are nothing to do with the actual contracts; they are to do with delivery and holding our partners to account on their commitments, as is only natural. We have behaved exactly as hon. Members would expect from a responsible Government operating in a national crisis.

The Government do not intend to vote against this Humble Address. We will review what information we hold in scope and—in answer to the question from the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) —we will define the scope. We will come back to Parliament and deposit the information in the Libraries, in line with the Government’s established stance on responses to Humble Addresses.

[Angela Rayner]

I welcome the Minister’s comments and hope that that transparency comes forward, but may I just remind her that part of the reason we tabled this motion was that the process was not followed, and there are questions about the process and how Ministers were able to fast-track through a VIP lane.

Covid Vaccine Passports

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has made his view clear to me on many occasions. It pains me to have to take a step like this, which we do not take lightly, but the flipside to that is that if we do not and the virus causes super-spreader events in nightclubs and I have to stand at the Dispatch Box and announce to the House that we have to close the sector, that would be much more painful to me.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for bringing this important topic to the House.

I associate myself with the Minister’s opening remarks regarding vaccine uptake. It is incredibly important that people take up the vaccine where possible, and I reiterate that from the Opposition Dispatch Box.

We are weeks away from implementation, but while Ministers were relaxing over the summer, there was no clarity from the Government about these plans. Businesses remain anxious. Our priorities are clear: to protect the NHS and our economy. We absolutely cannot be faced with an unmanageable winter crisis for both. My first question to the Minister is really simple: what does he think this will achieve? How and when will the UK Government decide which businesses must implement vaccine certification, and will they rely on low-paid staff at venues to act as public health officials, and what support will they be getting?

The NHS covid pass application currently allows individuals in England to either input a negative test result or complete a vaccine record. That is important for those who cannot, for legitimate medical reasons, take the vaccine. Will the Minister explain why the Government plan to drop the negative test option? Will they improve and keep available the NHS covid pass application or will it be replaced or outsourced?

Let me be crystal clear: we cannot support any potential covid pass scheme for access to everyday services. Can the Minister categorically assure me that no one will be required to have a covid vaccination pass to access essential services?

This Government have dithered, dawdled, and, as some have said, dad danced away the summer. They have not planned or prepared, and they have not provided the reassurances or presented a clear path forward. UK businesses have had a hell of an 18 months during this difficult pandemic. They need a proactive, supportive Government, and it is about time that Ministers worked towards that aim.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her opening words and for urging those who have not had a vaccine to come forward and be protected. She asked a number of important questions relating to this measure, including what it will achieve. She will know that double vaccination was important for people to be able to travel, and the implementation of that was largely successful. We need to go further to make sure that we recognise other vaccines from other countries around the world. Those vaccines need to be recognised by the WHO, our regulator and other regulators to make it even easier for people who are double vaccinated to travel to the United Kingdom. The NHS in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland stands ready to continue that joint work, as does NHSX in terms of the technology.

The hon. Lady asked about people’s access to essential settings, which is incredibly important. I can assure her that some essential services will not require people to show covid vaccine certification. They include settings that have stayed open throughout the pandemic, such as public sector buildings, essential retail, essential services and, of course, public transport.

She also asked what certification will achieve domestically. I hope that, combined with the vaccination programme, the booster programme and all the work that we have done around education, we will be able to transition this virus, post winter, from pandemic to endemic status. The reason for this very difficult decision is that it allows us to sustain the opening of the economy, including the nightclub sector, without having to flip-flop, go backwards and close down sectors because of super-spreader events. The chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, tells us that in absolute terms. As I said earlier, if people are double jabbed, only 60% will not be infected by the virus and therefore not spread it, but 40% could be infected. In relative terms, putting that downward pressure on infection rates is important in that journey towards transition from pandemic to endemic.

A Plan for the NHS and Social Care

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to close today’s debate and to hear from many hon. Members across the House, including two excellent maiden speeches. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Anum Qaisar-Javed) was a teacher of politics, and I am sure that she will continue to give us all a schooling in the Chamber when she stands up for her constituents as she did today. Even as a granny, I cannot match the lifetime of commitment to politics shown by the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar). We have been on opposite sides of the many campaigns that he has fought, but his love of Wales and the beautiful coastline of his constituency are sentiments that I am sure the whole House will share.

Let me add my voice to those of hon. Members on both sides of the House who have reflected on the role that key workers have played throughout this crisis. I want especially to mention those who work now—as I once did myself—in social care. They have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic. Too often, they became ill themselves, and some tragically paid with their lives for keeping our public services running.

When the Prime Minister took office, he told us that he had already prepared a plan for social care. Two years later, this Queen’s Speech offered just nine words and the promise that proposals would be “brought forward”. So much for that prepared plan. For the 11 years that the Conservative party has been in power, care workers have been given only the promise of jam tomorrow, and tomorrow never comes. In the meantime, the problems facing the sector have only been worsened by the crisis that our health and social care services face.

As a union rep in social care, I saw at first hand the success of the then Labour Government’s delivering the workforce programme. By working together, we improved the quality of care, increased pay for staff, and reduced hospitalisation and ultimately, therefore, the cost to the taxpayer. It is a false economy not to ensure that people can live as independently as possible in their own homes, with the right support at the right time and in the right place.

Today, however, the workers who were praised by everyone in this Chamber are underpaid and overworked, and that has consequences for us all. If only this Queen’s Speech had contained more than a vague promise of proposals and had a Bill to address that issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) even tabled such a Bill in the last Session. Like other private Members’ Bills in the last Session, it fell not because the House rejected it, but because the Government removed parliamentary time.

If the Minister listens to just one thing I say tonight, I hope it will be my plea to make time in this Session for another such Bill, because the low-paid and insecure nature of employment in social care meant that many carers were not entitled to sick pay. That issue is at the heart of our response to the pandemic. There is simply no substitute for raising the level of sick pay and expanding coverage so that all carers can afford to self-isolate.

A healthier country rests on a healthier economy. That goes not just for workers in health and social care, but all workers. That is why we would have legislated for an immediate £10 an hour minimum wage, banned zero-hours contracts and granted full rights from day one, with entitlements to sick pay and annual leave.

We all remember the disgraceful scenes over the past year, when carers did not receive basic protection during the pandemic. Care workers had significantly higher rates of death, but there has not been a single prosecution of a single employer. The promised employment Bill was supposed to create a single enforcement body to protect health and safety and tackle exploitation at work. Perhaps the Minister can tell us why, in the face of a pandemic, tackling that has not been a priority.

The right hon. Members for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) and for Ashford (Damian Green) both spoke of the challenges of integrating social care and health. Let me remind them and others on the Government Benches that they have no mandate to privatise our NHS. The Conservatives have administered an £8 billion cut to social care budgets since 2010, yet they have made millions of pounds available to enforce voter ID as part of this Gracious Speech. If politics is the language of priorities, that says a lot. There was one case of voter personation fraud in 2019, out of the 59 million votes cast that year. The odds of me winning the national lottery are better, so why would the Government think that this crime is more urgent for new legislation than, for example, violence against women? My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) touched on that issue with her usual passion. I urge Ministers and Government Members to accept her amendment. We will support her in the Lobby if not.

Voting is safe and secure in Britain. Ministers should be ensuring confidence, instead of spreading baseless scare stories. The fact is that this measure will price some voters out of democracy. Millions of people lack voter ID in this country—in particular, older voters, low-income voters and black, Asian and ethnic minority voters. The Conservatives are reversing decades of democratic progress and urgently need to rethink the policy, because it is yet another example of a Government too focused on gimmicks and slogans, rather than real action.

The so-called levelling-up agenda is another such case. When the Prime Minister set up a business council in January, he promised it would level up opportunity for people and businesses across the UK, but just one of its 30 council members was based in the north of England and two in the midlands, while 25 were in London or its commuter zone. In March, the Industrial Strategy Council warned that the levelling-up agenda was unlikely to succeed because there was too much control from the centre. So what did the Prime Minister do? He set up another unit in Whitehall. A senior Cabinet Office official told the Financial Times that there was “widespread cluelessness” about what levelling up actually meant.

The Prime Minister promised that the Queen’s Speech would put “rocket fuel” into the levelling-up agenda, but no one seems to have told the Housing Minister or the Business Minister, who yesterday could not answer even the basic questions. They did not even know that a levelling-up taskforce existed—not so much a flagship as a ghost ship or, as one of the Prime Minister’s own advisers put it, a “slogan without a purpose”. If only the Government had looked over the Atlantic and drawn inspiration from this President and not the last. The Queen’s Speech could have included the £30 billion stimulus package proposed by the shadow Business Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), creating 400,000 new jobs in the industries of the future. It could have built on the lessons of a vaccine roll-out driven by an active interventionist state. Instead, the Government’s investment plan is absolutely tiny in comparison with that of President Biden.

The Queen’s Speech has no employment Bill, and the country will instead face an unemployment bill. Yesterday, the Paymaster General, the right hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), told the House that any criticism of Ministers’ many dodgy deals was anti-business, but I am afraid it is the Prime Minister who famously said exactly what he would like to do to business, and that is one promise that he has kept in the Gracious Address, because he has left business high and dry.

Across the country, small and medium-sized enterprises face a long road to recovery. For months, we have called for a comprehensive plan for British business with debt restructuring at its heart. Instead, we have a Bill that tinkers with state aid and that will leave us investing a fraction of the support that countries such as Germany or Denmark give to their industry.

Many Members across the House have mentioned mental health. We know that the pandemic has left our nation needing more support, and I hope that the Government will take inspiration from the Welsh Labour Government, who have put wellbeing at the heart of their nation.

We face a critical moment as a country. As life begins to return to normal, we are left asking if business as usual is really what we aim to return to. The pandemic has exposed the millions of insecure jobs, the key workers who are underpaid and undervalued even as we applaud them in the streets, the services that they provide collapsing under the strain and an economy that does not work for working people. Last October, the Prime Minister rightly summoned the spirit of our greatest post-war Government and promised to echo Attlee’s plan for a post-war new Jerusalem, but I am afraid he is no Clement Attlee.

This was the moment for our new economic and social settlement to tackle insecurity at work, to meet the climate crisis head-on, to rebuild our public services, to support our businesses and to share wealth and power fairly among our citizens and communities. The British people deserved a Queen’s Speech that met those challenges of the moment, but it has fallen short on every count. This granny knows that it is our grandchildren who will still be paying off the debt that has mounted up over this period. We owe it to them to offer them better-paid jobs, better real affordable homes and a better Government.

Education (Student Support)

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Education (Student Support) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2018 (S.I., 2018, No. 443), dated 28 March 2018, a copy of which was laid before this House on 28 March, be annulled.

I thank the Leader of the House for scheduling this debate, which marks an important moment. In this Parliament, Members have had to assert our right to decide the law of the land—a right that some Ministers have tried to avoid by denying us votes on statutory instruments. In this case, the Government let the 40-day period lapse without providing time. They have now agreed to the step, which I think may be unprecedented, of revoking their own regulations and relaying them to allow us a binding vote. Whatever the decision tonight, I hope that we have established the right of the Opposition to secure votes on the Floor of the House. The Government cannot simply legislate by the back door.

On the regulations, the Government’s actions once again seem to defy basic sense. Just last week, they rejected our motion to implement their own guarantee and manifesto commitment on school funding. Now, they are ploughing ahead with their plan to scrap bursaries for yet more nursing students, despite knowing full well the disastrous consequences that will follow.

Two years ago, the Government ignored the Opposition and those who work in the health sector when they scrapped the undergraduate bursary. The results were predictable. In 2016, before the abolition, there were more than 47,000 nursing applicants in England. In 2018, the figure fell to about 31,000—a fall of over 15,000. It is clear that this is the reason why we have seen the sharpest ever decline in nursing applications. I know what the Minister will say. He will say that the number of applications is less important than the number of acceptances; he will say that the Government have committed to create more trainee places for nurses. They promised an increase of 5,000 nursing places and said that the nursing bursary had to be scrapped to make that possible, but what have they delivered? Seven hundred fewer students training to be nurses.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that what is important is that we train more nurses and that there are more applicants than the number we need to train, so that there is good competition that ensures we get the best candidates? It is not necessary to have masses more than we need; we just need enough.

[Angela Rayner]

I agree with the hon. Lady that we need to ensure that we have not only more applicants, but more people in training. However, 700 fewer students have been training to be nurses since 2017.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Once again it is women who are being hurt, particularly adult women who have brought up a family and want to take up a new career in nursing. They are being denied that opportunity or being forced into debt.

[Angela Rayner]

Forced debt for students and nurses of whatever gender is a really important issue, which I will come on to. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight that we need to encourage both genders to see nursing as a legitimate career.

I mentioned that there are 700 fewer students training to be nurses. That is the first fall in close to a decade.

[Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the bottom line is that without applications we cannot train nurses? That is just all there is to it.

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I congratulate her on her outstanding dedication to nursing.

The Government said that they can fill the gap with nursing apprentices. They promised 1,000 of them, yet it has now been revealed that just 30 apprentice nurses have started the course. To miss a target may be unfortunate, but to miss it by 97% and carry on regardless just seems reckless. The shortfall is not the only problem with relying entirely on apprenticeships. A nursing apprentice will take four years to become a registered nurse. Even if there is a miraculous surge in apprentices starting this summer, we would not see any new qualified nurses on our wards until 2022.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

I am not sure the hon. Lady understands what life is like on a bursary as a student nurse. There is just £400 a month to live on. Apprentice nurses are paid. They are a member of a team and they have a guaranteed job at the end of it. That is a very different system, which is a step forward in progress towards getting more nurses into the profession.

[Angela Rayner]

I respect the hon. Lady and I pay tribute to her for her work in the NHS as a nurse, but the figures show that not only is this change making it difficult for trainee nurses, who do an excellent job on our wards, it is contrary to what we need. Applications fell by 33%, with a 42% drop in mature students. In contrast, an undergraduate nursing course can take three years and postgraduate courses, referred to in the regulations, can take two years, making them some of the quickest ways to tackle the shortfall in numbers.

The same is true with the nursing associates suggested by the Government as another solution. The Government’s policy is not only unfair, it is failing completely on their own terms. They have pushed ahead with a policy that has reduced the number of people training to work in our NHS and now they are trying to do it again. I should add that trainee nurses in any of these routes have to do the day job as well. I pay tribute to our nurses for the fantastic job they do every single day in our NHS. Trainee nurses do not get paid the going rate. Those affected by the regulations actually have to borrow money for the privilege.

I hope the Government are clear that simply having more trainees on wards is not a solution to staff shortages. They are there to learn their job, not to do someone else’s. There is clear evidence that using support workers or trainees as replacements for qualified nurses has potentially disastrous consequences for care. I hope the Minister will confirm that that is not the Government’s intention.

This measure does not make any financial sense. Tuition and a bursary for a postgraduate or diploma student could cost less than the average premium the NHS pays for an agency nurse for a single year. Providers have suggested that they could expand their courses by up to 50% if funding was available. This comes at a time when there are 40,000 nursing vacancies in the NHS. The Government’s failure to fill vacancies is so severe that the Migration Advisory Committee has placed nursing on the shortage occupation list, even as potential recruits in our constituencies are denied the support that they need to serve in the NHS.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that in the end, the only people we must care about are the patients? In Oxfordshire, in the John Radcliffe Hospital, 170 beds were closed primarily because there was a staff nursing shortage. These measures are not going to fix the immediate problem. Why are the Government continuing to do something that is not evidence-based and will not work?

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. She is absolutely right to point out that all our focus has to be on making sure that the jewel in Britain’s crown—the national health service—has the qualified staff to do the job and keep our patients and loved ones safe.

I have talked about the failure to fill the vacancies in the NHS at the moment, and that is even before we consider the impact of Brexit on the 21,000 brilliant nurses who have come from EU countries to serve in our national health service. Only two months ago, the Health Secretary said that the winter crisis in our NHS was “probably…the worst ever”, but if he carries on like this, there will be worse to come.

It is one thing for Ministers to push ahead with policies against the warning of the Opposition. It is quite another for them to ignore their Departments’ impact assessments, yet that is precisely what Ministers have done. The Department for Education’s assessment of the changes to the bursary said that it would disproportionately affect women and ethnic minority students, yet Ministers have wilfully pressed ahead. Then the Department of Health and Social Care found that the change could make women, older students and students with lower incomes less likely to participate in postgraduate nursing courses. Again, Ministers pressed ahead, and we have seen the consequences not just in the number of applications, but in who has applied. Just as they were warned, the profile of our future nurses has become less representative. In particular, there has been a 42% fall in applications from mature students.

This is not simply a matter of fairness or even just about the benefit of a diverse workforce providing frontline care to a diverse population. Older nursing graduates are more likely to stay longer in the NHS and are more likely to choose areas such as mental health or learning disability nursing, which are facing severe staff shortages. Just yesterday, campaigners warned of the impact that the abolition of the bursary has had on those areas.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a very powerful point, but we need to be very focused with our intervention. I represent an area that has a nursing school. Although applications have dropped, we still have five applicants for every place and 30% more qualified applicants for every place, so if we are to take measures, we need to make sure that they are very targeted in the areas in which we intervene.

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree that we have to make sure that we target interventions and make sure that they work, but part of the reason I have brought the motion before the House today is that the interventions are simply not working. Since 2017, we have 700 fewer students training to be nurses, so the impact is absolutely clear, and I hope that Government Members will support our motion.

Some universities are even looking at closing down specialist courses entirely. If today’s regulations pass, there is every reason to believe that this will get worse. Nearly two thirds of postgraduate nursing students are over 25, more than a quarter are from ethnic minorities and 80% are women, so the impact of today’s regulations will surely be even worse than the previous cuts. Even if the Government are determined to make the change, there are good reasons not to make it now. This policy would move postgraduate nursing students over to the main student finance system, which means dealing with the Student Loans Company.

There is every reason to believe that the Student Loans Company is not yet ready. In recent weeks, the Government have been dealing with an error by the company that has led to 793 nurses being hit with unexpected demands to repay accidental overpayments they were unaware of. The Government’s response was a hardship fund of up to £1,000 per student, yet the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), admitted in a written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden) that the majority of students were overpaid by more than £1,000 and will be left short. Perhaps when he responds, the Minister will tell us how he can possibly expect nursing students affected by this policy to have any faith in the system they will be stuck in.

With the Government finally embarking on their flagship review of higher education, they could have allowed this issue to be considered as part of the review before going ahead with this change today. Ministers have insisted that this change is necessary now to make how we fund training sustainable, yet there is little reason to believe that it will achieve this. The average NHS nurse earns just over £31,000 a year and the average graduate now leaves university with £50,000 of debt. A new nurse with a postgraduate qualification will take 86 years to repay their undergraduate debt on the average NHS salary—that is before we add interest—which is nearly triple the current repayment period before debt is written off, meaning they will not even begin to repay the debt. How many postgraduate students affected by this policy will repay any of, let alone all, their additional loan, and how much of that debt will simply be written off by the taxpayer in decades to come?

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady not agree it is completely wrong to talk about debt in the way she is—in this place—as though it is some sort of credit card debt? It completely misrepresents the situation for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds thinking about going to university. Her words will be putting them off.

[Angela Rayner]

I am not sure it is my words that are putting people off; I would say the thought of having £50,000 of debt hanging over them for a very long time is putting people off going into education.

[Karen Lee]

I started my nurse training in 2000 as a single mum. When I finished, I had £15,000 of debt—and that was with a bursary. It took me five years to pay it off. People say we should not talk about debt, but we have to talk about it—debt is debt. Students come out with debate. I came out with debt. I sit here listening to people who know nothing about this talking as if they do. It simply is not true.

[Angela Rayner]

The passion from my hon. Friend reflects how people feel up and down the country. It is funny because we all know what happened at the general election—and the verdict was clear on the Government’s position on education and student debt and tuition. [Hon. Members: “You lost!”] And of course the Government lost their majority at the same time, and the weak and wobbly Prime Minister has done nothing to make anyone in the country feel more confident about her future—but I digress.

How many postgraduate students affected by this policy repay any of, let alone all, their additional loan? Will the Minister explain how this is sustainable? How much will really be saved in the long run? Or is this another example of what the Treasury Select Committee has called the fiscal illusion—in this case, of a student finance system that allows the Government to pretend they have made a saving when they are simply passing the bill down to the next generation? It is no wonder that all the devolved nations have maintained their own NHS bursaries.

[Dr Caroline Johnson]

The hon. Lady talked about the general election and promises on education and education funding. Will the Labour party be keeping its education promises to repay the debts of students who have already incurred them?

[Angela Rayner]

I should have thought that Conservative Members would have read what was a great manifesto. They have hidden theirs now—I cannot see it, because it is hard to find—but ours was absolutely clear, and we continue to be clear about the fact that we would abolish tuition fees. The debt that our students face at the moment is the result of a tripling of student debt on the Conservatives’ watch.

I hope that Conservative Members will support our motion, not least given the financial consequences of Government cuts for their own budgets, but also because I believe that we should welcome nursing students from all over the United Kingdom. If we do so, the whole country will benefit. If the House votes for the motion, that vote will be a clear call for the Government to rethink the cuts, restore the bursary, and respect the will of the House.

A few months ago, the Health Secretary said that the NHS was “nothing without its nurses”. I support that sentiment tonight, but the sentiment without substance is not enough. I am sure that there is not a single Member in the Chamber who would not acknowledge the urgent need for us to recruit more nurses, so I ask all Members to put their votes where their voices are. I commend the motion to the House.

NHS Pay

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

The point of order is well made. It is not for me to judge, but I am sure many people will make a judgment, whatever side of the House they may be on.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. You may be aware of press reports that have circulated during the day that the Government are abandoning their manifesto commitment to ensure that private schools take concrete steps to earn their charitable status. Once again, this appears to be an announcement made to the media rather than this House, and with only one sitting day remaining for us to pursue it. One of the ways you may advise us that we can do that is through an urgent question, but given that the Secretary of State should be here for the next debate, would it be helpful to you and the House for her to respond to this point of order, clarifying whether these reports are accurate and whether we can expect a statement to be made?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

What I can say is that Mr Speaker has always made it very clear that any announcements should be made to this House first. That is a clear line that is still held, and nothing has changed from that. I am sure that Ministers will have taken that on board, and the point is well made.

Dietary Advice and Childhood Obesity Strategy

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman. He was not on my accumulator, so it has gone down. What he is calling for is exactly what the strategy does. It is designed to be quite wide and to take into account the possibility of other action in other places. He is absolutely correct about that.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

Far from raising the nanny state, I welcome the Government’s proposals regarding sugar. There is a difficult issue not only about childhood obesity but about dentistry and the shocking evidence showing that young children today are having to go through procedures that should not be necessary. Will the Minister reissue that guidance and warning to all parents? I have a son who is 19; I know many people will be shocked to hear that. When he was 16, he had not had a fizzy pop; by the age of 18, after he had had fizzy pop from 16 to 18, he had 12 fillings. Will the Minister reiterate the dangers of fizzy pop?

[Alistair Burt]

Now we are back on home territory, as I am the Minister responsible for dentistry and can thoroughly concur with what the hon. Lady has said, while sharing the House’s astonishment at her news. The issue of dental clearances and young children’s teeth is a scandal. I will be speaking about this because on Friday I am going to a British Dental Association conference in Manchester and it will form part of my speech. The question is how to reach the parents and carers who have charge of their children to make sure they have access to the sort of treatments that are available, and how we work through schools, and through dentistry itself, to try to make more provision available for those who can be reached so that we deal with this terrible problem. There are some good experiments going on, not least in Nottingham; I think that the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) is partly responsible for those. The hon. Lady is right: dental issues are a serious matter to be dealt with in the overall health strategy.

NHS Bursaries

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Wednesday 4th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and I shall make some remarks on that precise point later.

The Opposition’s purpose in calling today’s debate is that we hope the House can rally round what many would view as a straightforward and reasonable proposal— that the Government drop these plans and instead consult on how properly to fund and support the future healthcare workforce.

Let me set out why these plans are bad for students, bad for patients and bad for the NHS. The Government claim that these plans will leave healthcare students 25% better off. What they will not say is that, according to their own consultation, in order to be 25% better off, a student will have to take out a maximum maintenance and tuition fee loan for three years and would graduate with debts of between £48,000 and £59,000.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

Many Members will know that I had a son born at 23 weeks’ gestation who spent six months in intensive care with a neonatal nurse, Nicola Probert, who sadly died not long after my son came out of hospital. I am frightened, as many people watching this debate will be, that people like Nicola will no longer go into the profession because of the astronomical debts that they will have to take on. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is a regressive step, and that the Government should think again about it?

[Heidi Alexander]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. It seems that the Government’s argument is that students will be better off because they can borrow more. The simple truth is that loan repayments will hit nurses’ take-home pay—there are no two ways about it. The current starting salary for a nurse is £21,692—just above the student loan repayment threshold which, of course, has been frozen. This means that nurses will start paying off their loans as soon as they graduate. According to Unison, based on current salary levels nurses will be faced with an average pay cut of over £900 a year to meet their debt repayments. How can that possibly be justified? Even worse, the average age of a student nurse is 28, so the current 30-year repayment period means that many nurses will be paying off loans to within years of retirement. We Labour Members say it is wrong to burden the next generation of NHS staff with a lifetime of debt and wrong to expect tomorrow’s nurses to pay the price for this Government’s mis- management of the NHS.

Does the Minister not understand that student nurses, midwives and other allied health professionals are different from other students? Can he not see that it is dangerous to assume that just because application rates remain stable after the trebling of tuition fees in the last Parliament, the same will happen with his proposals? Assuming healthcare students will respond in the same way as other students to a tuition fees hike is one hell of an assumption and one hell of a risk.

Courses for nursing, midwifery and other allied health professions are substantially different from most other arts and science degrees. Courses are more onerous—there are fewer holidays, longer days and longer term times—while students are also required to spend about half their time in clinical practice. This means 2,300 hours in the case of a student nurse, including night and weekend shifts as a normal part of their studies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Cameron]

I want to see a widening of access to training schemes in the NHS, and I would hope that that would be properly funded and that we do not rely on NHS staff doing other jobs while dealing with the stress of training. We should invest in and fund them properly, letting them know that NHS staff are invaluable.

For many, loans may be higher due to the additional costs of longer courses or of courses within London. As I said, I am particularly concerned about postgraduate courses and doctorate trainees, who may not be able to afford further loans that will add to their debt. It is likely that debt could be considerably higher for the majority of healthcare students. It is naive to think that larger loans will not be a psychological deterrent, especially to those from poorer or non-university backgrounds or to mature students and career changers, who may have additional financial responsibilities or debts from first degrees or family life.

The demographic of students on nursing, midwifery and allied health professions courses tends to be different from other student populations, as we have heard. They are more likely to be women, from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, parents or mature students. It is therefore likely, and a real concern, that abolishing bursaries will reduce diversity, foster inequalities and discourage potentially high-quality applicants.

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Lady is making an important point. Returning to something the Minister said, the frustration for me is that I was a Unison rep in homecare before coming to this place, and we were able to give unqualified women access to a foundation degree when they were healthcare assistants. They could then do a vocational degree and get into hospitals in much the same way as what the Minister claims is not currently available. It is important that that route remains open and that its users, mature students in particular, do not get disadvantaged because of the thousands of pounds-worth of debt that they would take on at the end.

[Dr Cameron]

The hon. Lady makes her own point. It is important that people from all backgrounds are encouraged to enter our NHS. The UK has a diverse society and we must ensure that our healthcare staffing system reflects that and supports those from all backgrounds to enter it.

It is not enough just to increase numbers by creating an open market for training. In order to ensure a quality service, it is crucial that student placements are well planned, well supervised and well distributed between the various areas within the service, so much consultation is required. In response to the Government’s proposals, a former chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing commented:

“The last thing we need are disincentives to recruitment. We should be doing everything possible to attract applicants, as the country needs more nurses now than at any other time in its history.”

Junior Doctors Contracts

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Monday 18th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

It is true that the BMA rejected Saturday premium pay that was more generous than the Saturday premium pay offered to nurses, healthcare assistants or paramedics working in the same hospitals and operating theatres as those doctors. Many people will ask whether that was a reasonable position to take, given that the doctors’ overall pay was protected. I think they will also ask whether, even if the doctors disagreed with the Government on that point, it was appropriate or proportionate for them to withdraw life-saving emergency care from patients in the pursuance of their disagreement. I wonder whether that is something that will shape many people’s confidence in what the NHS stands for.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

I have been disappointed by the Secretary of State, and by his language and tone, during this urgent question. Looking at how he has responded here, we can understand why the discussions and talks have ended up as they have done. He asked how long we should do this for; I would say, “As long as it takes.” The problem with the negotiations so far has been the Government’s failure to respond to the BMA and to work with junior doctors, who do care about their patients and do want to provide a good quality of care.

[Mr Hunt]

I think that sums up the difference between the two parties. It is true that Labour would take “as long it as takes” to negotiate the changes, which is why we ended up with poor contracts in 1999, 2003 and 2004. After three years of trying to get reforms to contracts to make the NHS safer for patients and better for doctors, we need to proceed with a manifesto commitment. Ministers have to decide and act as well as talk. We did not choose this outcome and tried hard for a negotiated decision, but when the hon. Lady says that talks should go on for “as long as it takes”, she is actually saying that the other party has a veto over change. No one should have a veto over an elected Government’s manifesto commitments.