Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the deputy Leader of the Opposition.

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

First, may I share the Deputy Prime Minister’s comments regarding our Jewish community and wish them a happy Passover? I wish to acknowledge the loss of David Marquand and Baroness Massey, both of whom made historic contributions in Parliament, politics and wider life. I also send my condolences, following today’s news, to the family of Lord Frank Field, who was a good friend of mine and a colleague. He was a tireless campaigner against poverty and a champion for his constituents.

Mr Speaker, I know that the Conservative party is desperate to talk about my living arrangements, but the public wants to know what this Government will do about theirs. Natalie from Brighton has been served with two no-fault eviction notices in 18 months. She joins nearly a million families at risk of homelessness due to the Deputy Prime Minister’s failure to ban this cruel practice. Instead of obsessing over my house, when will he get a grip and show the same obsession with ending no-fault evictions?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

To begin with, it is a pleasure to have another exchange with the right hon. Lady in this House—our fifth in 12 months. Any more of these and she will be claiming it as her principal residence.

On the issue of no-fault evictions, it may have escaped the right hon. Lady’s attention, but we will be voting on exactly that matter later today. This is the Conservative Government taking action.

[Angela Rayner]

The Deputy Prime Minister clearly thought that he could spend all week obsessing over my living arrangements and did not even bother to read up on his own Government’s Bill this afternoon. The reality is that he caved in to vested interest on his Back Benches and delayed justice for people like Natalie. This week, the Housing Minister said that there is no solid date for banning no-fault evictions. The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities now says that it will not happen before an election. If the Deputy Prime Minister can give us a date, will he name it now?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I can name the date for the right hon. Lady: today. It is today that the House will vote on it, and I am confident that, in line with our manifesto, we will deliver on that commitment.

[Angela Rayner]

The Deputy Prime Minister clearly has not been looking up his own Government Bills. Let me turn to another Tory housing failure. Leaseholds are a rip off and a con, but the Government’s proposed ban on new leaseholds applies only to houses. The majority of leaseholds are in flats. What is the point of a ban on new leaseholds if it will not apply to flats?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Again, the right hon. Lady is talking about legislation introduced by this Government that the Labour party totally failed to introduce in its entire time in office. It is no surprise, because it is this Government who have brought social housing waiting lists down by nearly half a million, and delivered more affordable homes in the last 12 years than Labour delivered when it was in office. Of course, all this can only be paid for by ensuring that we have a strong economy. Her policy to repeal every single Conservative trade union law in the first 100 days would open the door to French-style wildcat strikes, sweeping away the reforms that made this country great. We all know, though, the one reform by Margaret Thatcher that the right hon. Lady would not abolish: the right to buy your council house.

[Angela Rayner]

I was expecting a little bit better from the Deputy Prime Minister. He seems to be a bit worn out. Maybe it is the 3 am calls from the “bad men” that have been keeping him up at night. He talks about strikes and the unions. We have had more strikes under this Government’s watch than at any time before. Once again, he has not read his own Bill. Their ban on leasehold will not apply to the majority of people. It is like banning non-doms but exempting Tory Prime Ministers. He speaks about affordable homes. Families are trapped in temporary accommodation and stuck on waiting lists, and in the west midlands the Conservative Mayor has used his multi-million pound housing budget to build just 46 social homes in eight years. That is almost as many as in the Chancellor’s property portfolio. The British people know that the Conservative party will not build the homes that this country needs, so when will they get a chance to vote for a Government who will?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am surprised that the right hon. Lady raises the west midlands when Labour-controlled Birmingham has virtually bankrupted the council and is hiking up council tax by 21%, while in the meantime—I am sure that this would please her—continuing to hand out £1.8 million to the trade unions. By contrast, Andy Street, our brilliant Mayor of the wider west midlands, has delivered £6.1 billion of investment to improve transport. There you have it: the contrast between the Conservative party and the Labour party, and the usual political opportunism from her, failing to ask about the issues that really matter. If you want more bin collections, more potholes filled, lower debt and lower council tax, vote Conservative, because whether it is Ben Houchen in the Tees Valley or Andy Street in the west midlands, it is only the Conservative Mayors who deliver more for less.

[Angela Rayner]

It is pretty revealing that the Deputy Prime Minister thinks that housing is not an issue for the British people; I think it really is. People in glass houses should not throw stones, because in Birmingham and across the whole country, councils are facing black holes because of his Government’s austerity programme. I warn the Deputy Prime Minister that Tory councils have also faced section 114 notices, and Birmingham City Council has had over £1 billion taken from its budget—from some of the poorest people. More than 16,000 families face losing their home after the Tory party’s mini-Budget, and mortgage bills continue to soar. Meanwhile, the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), parades around the world in a twisted victory lap promoting her new book, saying that the mini-Budget was her proudest moment. Since she will not apologise to those families losing their home, will he?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

What the Prime Minister has done since he has taken office, with the Chancellor, is to restore stability to our economy, with inflation halved and more, down to 3%. As a result of that, in an increasingly dangerous world, the Prime Minister was able to announce his plan for the biggest strengthening of defence spending in a generation. But it should come as no surprise that the Labour party refused to say whether it backs that, because this comes from the right hon. Lady who voted to scrap Trident and to install in Downing Street someone who wanted to change the Army into a peace corps. There you have it.

[Angela Rayner]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about defence. We all want to see 2.5%; the difference is that we have not cut the Army to its smallest size since Napoleon. Never mind some secretive deep state, it is the state of the Tory party that is the problem. The Tories are in a deep state of sewage. After 14 years they have failed renters, they have failed leaseholders and they have failed mortgage holders. I read with interest that the right hon. Gentleman has been urging his neighbour in No. 10 to call an election, because he is worried they might get wiped out. Has he finally realised that when he stabbed Boris Johnson in the back to get his mate into No. 10, he was ditching their biggest election winner for a pint-sized loser?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I think the whole House will have heard, despite all the bluster from the right hon. Lady, not a single word on whether she would actually back our plans to invest in our armed forces. No plans, in a dangerous world. Of course, as ever, the deputy Labour leader is always looking to attack others’ failures, but never one to take responsibility for her own. She once said, “You shouldn’t be waiting for the police to bang on your door. If you did it, then you shouldn’t be doing your job.” The right hon. landlady should forget her tax advice and follow her own advice.

Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the deputy Leader of the Opposition.

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

I know you are a keen historian, Mr Speaker, so I looked up the last time a Prime Minister missed two sessions in a row for other engagements. It was March 1996. I am very proud to be filling the boots of Lord John Prescott, but I think it is safe to say that the Deputy Prime Minister is no Heseltine. John Prescott asked, why is it that in Tory Britain, tens of thousands of families are facing repossession, negative equity and homelessness? Can the Deputy Prime Minister tell us, 27 years later, why I am having to ask the same question?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Clearly, the right hon. Lady did not listen to my previous comments. The Prime Minister is at NATO. Of course, that would not be a problem if she had had her way. Her old boss wanted to abandon Ukraine, abolish the Army and withdraw from NATO, and he certainly would not be going to any summit. When it comes to house building, I will take no lectures from the Labour party on home ownership. My parents would not have been able to buy their own home if it were not for Margaret Thatcher and the reforms introduced by her Government, and this Government are building on those with record house building.

[Angela Rayner]

I think the right hon. Gentleman is taking lessons from the former Prime Minister on telling the facts. The last Labour Government worked hard to dramatically reduce the number of children in temporary accommodation, but under the Tories the number of homeless children has risen by 75%. I am proud of our record on tackling child poverty. Does the right hon. Gentleman feel ashamed of his?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I will tell the right hon. Lady what this Government have done: we have lifted 400,000 children out of child poverty; we have introduced the national living wage, something the Labour party totally failed to do; and we have increased the national living wage by the largest amount ever, meaning £1,800 for working people and cutting their taxes by doubling the personal allowance. That is the surest way to ensure we lift people out of poverty, and it would never have happened under the Labour party.

[Angela Rayner]

It is like the ghost of Prime Minister past. I tell the right hon. Gentleman that he should be careful about the stats he uses, because the Children’s Commissioner warned the other Prime Minister about peddling false narratives on child poverty around those figures. The truth is that rising bills, soaring mortgages and plummeting real wages are pushing more and more families to the brink. Those already struggling are being hit hardest by the Tory mortgage bombshell and rising food costs, so can the right hon. Gentleman tell us how many primary school children have been pushed into poverty since his Government took power?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I say to the right hon. Lady that it was this Conservative party, not the Labour party, that extended free school meals to all five, six and seven-year-olds—something the Labour party failed to do—and that sits alongside many measures we are taking to help people with the cost of living. We paid half of families’ energy bills last winter, funded by our 75% windfall tax, and we are freezing fuel duty, helping families with childcare and delivering on our pledge to reduce the debt. It may come as a surprise to her, but balancing the books means more than working out how many more millions to take from her union paymasters.

[Angela Rayner]

Once again, the right hon. Gentleman talks about balancing the books. His party crashed the economy and he seems to be completely oblivious to what it is like for working people in this country at the moment. New research out today shows that 400,000 more primary school-age children are growing up in poverty since his Government came to office. Why does he think that is?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I will take absolutely no lectures whatsoever from the Labour party about how we help children in the most need. It is record investment from this Government in education—£2 billion more this year, £2 billion next year—which is giving those very children the best possible start in life, ensuring that we have the highest reading standards in the western world. I have to say to the right hon. Lady, her leader says he hates tree huggers, but they seem very keen on hugging that magic money tree.

[Angela Rayner]

The right hon. Gentleman does not even acknowledge that child poverty is rising, let alone explain why. What hope has he got of solving it? Let me try a simpler question: how many kids do not have a permanent address today compared with when Labour left office in 2010?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We can exchange all these numbers across the Dispatch Boxes, but these are the numbers that matter. There are 1.7 million fewer people in absolute poverty under this Government, 400,000 fewer children, 200,000 fewer pensioners and 1 million fewer people of working age, because the single best route out of poverty is a job, and record numbers of people—4 million more under this Government—have got a job. That is the difference between this Conservative party and the Labour party, which always leaves office with unemployment higher.

[Angela Rayner]

What matters is what people feel every single day at the moment—going to work yet they cannot afford their mortgage, their rent or their Bills, because of this Conservative Government. There are 55,000 more children without a permanent address today compared with when the Tories took office 13 years ago. We have gone from a Labour Cabinet focused on tackling child poverty to Tory Ministers who will not even admit the problem. Just as in March 1996, they can offer only excuses, not answers. John Prescott asked Michael Heseltine that day:

“How can the right hon. Gentleman be so complacent in the face of the sheer misery created by the Government’s policies?”—[Official Report, 5 March 1996; Vol. 273, c. 147.]

Twenty-seven years on, why are we asking the exact same thing?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I know there is an Opposition reshuffle coming up, but this audition for John Prescott’s old job is getting a little bit hackneyed. It is this Government who have lifted 400,000 children out of poverty. I hear the right hon. Lady claiming that Labour is the party of working people, but under their policies people cannot even get to work. They support Just Stop Oil protesters blocking our roads, they support their union paymasters stopping our trains, and of course they support the hated ultra-low emission zone stopping cars across our capital. While Conservatives get Britain moving, Labour stands in everyone’s way.

Prime Minister

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Ministerial Corrections

The following are extracts from Prime Minister’s questions on 7 June 2023.

[Angela Rayner]

I know that for the last couple of years the Deputy Prime Minister has been trying to prep Prime Ministers for PMQs, but these punchlines are dire—he really needs to go back to school himself. Speaking of school, thousands of children are missing from school; absence has nearly doubled since before the pandemic. The Prime Minister says that he has maxed out on his support for school pupils, but why did the Government abandon their plans for a register of missing children?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

On the specifics of the right hon. Lady’s question, that is not the case: we continue to keep the policy under review. I am very proud of this Government’s record on funding and support for schools: £4 billion more this year, £4 billion next year, and the result of all that investment is that we have the highest standards of reading in the entire western world. What a contrast from when the Labour party was in power.

[Official Report, 7 June 2023, Vol. 733, c. 725.]

Letter of correction from the Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Hertsmere (Oliver Dowden):

An error has been identified in my response to the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner).

The correct response should have been:

Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Angela Rayner.

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and can I associate myself with and thank you for your opening comments regarding our NHS? I thank all those staff who have worked and continue to work in our NHS today.

I am sure Members across the whole House will join me in paying tribute to Lord Bob Kerslake, a decent and kind man who accomplished so much in both local and national Government during a lifetime of public service. Our heartfelt condolences go to his family.

I am glad to see the right hon. Gentleman here today. I think I am right in saying that I have the pleasure again next week—two weeks on the trot. The Government really have given up. Every day, 4,000 families’ mortgage deals expire, with 100,000 more since we last met and millions more next year. Families are sick with worry about the cost of the Tory mortgage bombshell. Do the Tories still claim to be the party of home ownership?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

May I begin by associating myself with the right hon. Lady’s remarks about Lord Bob Kerslake? I knew him from my time in Downing Street. He was a stalwart public servant and he will be missed by many on both sides of this House.

It may come as a surprise to the right hon. Lady, but some leaders trust their deputies to stand in for them. When it comes to mortgage rates, I support the independence of the Bank of England in taking the necessary measures to control inflation. Just ask the International Monetary Fund what we have done to support them. It has said that we have taken “decisive and responsible action” to bring down inflation and we will continue to do so. But what is Labour’s plan? It is to borrow £28 billion a year, pushing up inflation; to cut our domestic energy supply, pushing up inflation; and to penalise workers saving into their pensions, pushing up inflation. There we have it from Labour—endless borrowing and higher prices.

[Angela Rayner]

We have had 13 years of Conservative failures. Homeowners watching that pathetic answer will be cringing: they are not celebrating the Government’s success; they are counting the cost of their failures. The only thing that is not soaring in price at the moment is the right hon. Gentleman’s gags, which are getting cheaper by the minute. It is not just homeowners who are suffering. Security of renters has been ripped away too, with higher mortgage costs handed directly to them. Given most renters live in homes with a buy-to-let mortgage, can he tell us: are buy-to-let properties included in the mortgage support package—yes or no?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Actually, under this Government, thanks to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, we have introduced legislation for the first time to support renters and to give them greater security of tenure. Of course, the Chancellor will take all necessary measures to stand behind mortgage holders and take necessary measures for renters.

We have a choice in this country, and the choice that we have made is to invest in our economy, giving us the fastest growing economy in the G7 for the past two years, creating jobs, with record low unemployment, and increasing people’s wages by providing the national living wage—£1,600—into everyone’s pockets. That is how this Government are supporting people.

[Angela Rayner]

I know that the Deputy Prime Minister is not very good on facts, but the Tory party did crash the economy. He will know that, according to his own Government’s data, over 2 million buy-to-let properties are missing out on support. No-fault evictions are up by 116% this year. So will he tell us if the Prime Minister has the spine now to stand up to the vested interests in his own party and finally deliver its promise to ban no-fault evictions?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I do not think the Prime Minister is going to take any lectures on weakness from the Labour party. There is a lot of talk about reshuffle in the air from the Labour party. The last time the leader of the Labour party tried to sack the right hon. Lady, she walked out with a promotion. We will continue to stand behind renters and to support them, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will take all necessary steps.

[Angela Rayner]

That answer is pathetic for all those people who are facing homelessness on the right hon. Gentleman’s watch. We will ban no-fault evictions—unlike the Conservative party. Jessica and her four children from Plymouth were evicted from their home in April. They are temporarily living with Jessica’s mother in a cramped house where the two eldest children are sleeping on blow-up beds in the front room, surrounded by their belongings—hardly the decent, secure life that the right hon. Gentleman’s Government promised. Do families like Jessica’s not deserve better?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I will tell the right hon. Lady what we are doing for families like Jessica’s: we are increasing the national living wage. It was the Conservative party that introduced the national living wage, not the Labour party. It is this party that has doubled—doubled—the personal allowance, cutting taxes for those people, and it is this party that has lifted a million people out of unemployment. I am immensely proud of the record of this Government. That is why people will not trust the Labour party not to crash the economy again.

[Angela Rayner]

I asked a question about no-fault evictions; I was very clear on what the Labour party would do, but I cannot see us getting through a single one of these encounters without the Deputy Prime Minister blaming the Opposition for his Government’s own record.

When asked yesterday about the record low number of council houses being built, the Housing Minister said she did not recognise that statistic. When asked about support for people in temporary accommodation, she said it was not her brief—the brief of the Housing Minister. If council housing is not her responsibility, whose is it?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The Labour party may have failed to notice that it is actually under this Government that more council houses have been built than when they were in office; it is under this party that we have record levels of housing being built. We stand very proudly on the record of this Government.

But let us look at what we have done more broadly: inflation and waiting lists coming down, growth forecasts up, Albanian crossings down. While we are delivering on our priorities, what have we seen from the Labour party? It has U-turned five times in the last month already. The record is clear: the only thing we can rely on the party opposite to deliver is broken promises.

[Angela Rayner]

Talking about broken promises, house building is set to collapse to its lowest level since the war, rents and mortgages are soaring, home ownership is plummeting and over a million people are trapped waiting for a council house. There is one simple solution to this problem, and everyone knows it, so when will the right hon. Gentleman finally stand up for the national interest instead of the Tory party’s interests and build more houses?

Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call shadow the Secretary of State.

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

Thank you; good morning, Mr Speaker.

I frequently stand at this Dispatch Box and ask the Minister about value for taxpayers’ money, because his Department is responsible for making sure that every penny is treated with the respect it deserves, especially during the cost of living crisis. With that in mind, can he give us an official estimate of the total cost of fraud to the UK across all sectors in 2022?

[Alex Burghart]

We are engaged in a constant battle against fraud. We do so with colleagues across Whitehall, and particularly in the Department for Work and Pensions and the Treasury. I look forward to the right hon. Lady’s next question.

[Angela Rayner]

I thank the Minister for that non-answer, but the public deserve to know. While he ducks and dives the question, I have discovered the answer. At a conference in Portsmouth last week, the UK fraud costs measurement committee distributed hard copies of its new report with a fresh new estimate: £219 billion is lost each year as a result of fraud. That is equivalent to this year’s entire central Government running costs budget for health, defence and policing put together. The figure does not even include covid fraud. Can he tell me how much of that money he has clawed back?

[Alex Burghart]

We have established the Public Sector Fraud Authority to clamp down on fraud. As a former DWP Minister, I assure the right hon. Lady that this Government go after fraud wherever it is found. Every time we find new opportunities for fraud, we come forward with new means of clamping down on them. We are a Government committed to efficiency, which we are delivering. As the right hon. Lady will have heard me say in answer to the first question this morning, the Cabinet Office, in the most recent financial year for which figures are available, delivered £3.4 billion-worth of savings to the British taxpayer. That is work we will continue to do.

Procurement Bill [Lords]

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 13th June 2023 Commons Chamber

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

I start where the right hon. Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) left off, by saying thank you to all right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken today, in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) for her contributions throughout the stages of the Bill. I also thank the brilliant Clerks and the House staff, and everyone who has been involved and on hand to support every step of the Bill.

It has been a long and complex process, and I know the Cabinet Office has been very busy in recent weeks, so I welcome the opportunity to debate something of more substance today. Unfortunately, the substance of the Bill, while necessary, is a little bit of tinkering around the edges of a broken system. I understand the need for a new Procurement Bill, to consolidate the patchwork of former EU rules and to bring the spaghetti of procurement regulations into one place, but it seems this distracted Government are more concerned with the civil war than writing good legislation.

Britain faces huge economic challenges—challenges made worse by years of economic incompetence, a disastrous kamikaze Budget and a Government on the side of vested interests. Wages have flatlined, prosperity has turned to stagnation and Britain has the highest forecast inflation in the G7. Procurement is one of the biggest and most effective tools available to Government to drive up standards across the economy and create world-class, affordable and effective public services.

As the Minister said in his response, we are talking about £300 billion of public money a year, a third of public spending and more than the NHS budget. What we should be debating this evening is a bold new set of rules to direct investment to the places that need it most. We should be discussing how we can clear the pipes and flush out the system with transparency after years of cronyism and waste. We should be debating legislation that pumps money back into the pockets of local communities, creates decent jobs and skills in our towns and cities, and hands wealth back to the people who built Britain.

Instead, what we have before us today is a damp squib. This Bill fails to close the loopholes that saw obscene waste of taxpayers’ money through the VIP lane, it fails to mandate social value to secure investment in good British business, and it fails to create robust protections for workers. Labour recognises the need for a new procurement Bill, and for that reason we will not oppose this one, but surely we can do better than this.

This evening the Government chose to vote against a Labour amendment that would have blocked VIP lanes, for the third time. They have had three opportunities to show that they have learnt from the waste and the cronyism that we saw during the pandemic, and on all three occasions they have refused. In fact, loopholes included in this Bill will make it easier for Ministers to bypass existing transparency rules. The Tory VIP lane is at the heart of why we need a procurement Bill. It exposed the true weaknesses in the system and showed us why we desperately need a more agile and transparent procurement system.

[Jeremy Quin]

It is a bit late in our proceedings, but I really would encourage the right hon. Lady to read the Bill, even at this late stage.

[Angela Rayner]

I think the Minister knows full well that I have read the Bill, and it is a real shame that in the conversations that my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and I have had with him and his team, they have refused to help stop this loophole. The Tory cronyism on the VIP lane is still there in this legislation. The VIP lane enabled a shameful waste of taxpayers’ money and profiteering by unfit and unqualified providers, and as a result the Government have written off £10 billion of public funds spent on personal protective equipment that was unusable, overpriced or undelivered.

While I welcome the moves in the Bill to issue “transparency notices” before awarding a contract, these are just baby steps; they barely scratch the surface. We must see end-to-end transparency. And it is not just me who thinks that. The amendment that the Government voted down today is a proposal by the National Audit Office, a totally independent body calling for the Government to end their murky practices that saw taxpayers’ money wasted at eye-watering rates.

This Bill also gave us an opportunity to reimagine the way we spend public money in order to promote decent work across the economy, to reward businesses that treat their workers right, and to use procurement to raise the floor on working conditions for all. Any suppliers given taxpayers’ money should provide their workers with decent pay, respect, dignity and fairness, as well as access to a trade union. Economies across the world expect that from their employers. In France, Germany and the Netherlands, for example, more collective bargaining, stronger workers’ rights and a fair share of wealth lead to higher growth, productivity and staff retention. President Biden’s Government direct investment to companies with a track record of treating their workers with respect, so why can’t we?

But over the last 13 years, the Tories have failed to use the levers of government to drive up standards for working people. In fact, things have got worse. I am disappointed but not surprised that the Government today voted down our amendment, which would have held suppliers to account when they repeatedly abuse workers’ rights. Taxpayers do not expect their money to be handed to suppliers with a track record like that. They want to see their money going to suppliers who pay their staff properly and who uphold fair conditions, job security and union access. That is the bare minimum.

I also want to take this moment to welcome the Government’s last-minute amendments on national security. I could not help but recognise some of those amendments. I would also like to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), whom I worked closely with to highlight the need for change in managing the risk in procurement. I welcome the Minister’s recognition that the current system leaves the door open for foreign threats to enter our supply chain and for taxpayers’ money to be spent with no oversight on whether they are properly vetted. That said, I hope the Minister can tell us what criteria his Government will use to identify suppliers who pose a risk to national security, and I hope he will consider the inclusion of cyber-security criteria in that assessment.

In closing, I would like to once again thank all hon. and right hon. Members for their contributions today. While procurement might seem a dry topic, it is absolutely central to the way that our country works, and when Ministers abuse the procurement system, it is taxpayers who suffer. As we saw during the pandemic, the VIP lane for PPE contracts was a scandal of epic proportions that allowed the shameful waste of taxpayers’ money and inexcusable profiteering, yet instead of learning the lessons of this failure, this evening Ministers voted for a third time to protect the loophole that allows the VIP lanes to exist. The Government have a duty to learn the lessons from the pandemic and, quite frankly, Ministers have abdicated that duty here today. While the Tories are too distracted to govern, Labour in power would flush cronyism out of the system and protect taxpayers, to ensure that every pound is spent in the national interest.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, with amendments.

Energy Bill [Lords]: Ways and Means

Resolved,

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Energy Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise—

(1) the imposition, by virtue of the Act, of charges or payments under licences issued under the Gas Act 1986;

(2) the making of provision under the Act requiring electricity suppliers to make payments, or to provide financial collateral, to the Secretary of State;

(3) the making of provision under the Act in relation to income tax, corporation tax, capital gains tax, stamp duty, stamp duty reserve tax, stamp duty land tax or value added tax in connection with a transfer of property, rights or liabilities by a scheme under the Act.—(Andrew Bowie.)

Electronic Trade Documents Bill [Lords]: Second Reading

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order Nos. 59(3) and 90(5)), That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Question agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).

Electronic Trade Documents Bill [Lords] Committee

Ordered,

That the Electronic Trade Documents Bill [Lords] Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it shall meet.—(Robert Largan.)

Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the deputy Leader of the Opposition.

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

Speaking of the last election, the Tory manifesto promised to end the abuse of the judicial review. How is it going?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I welcome the much shorter question from the right hon. Lady. Let me remind her of a few facts about the covid inquiry. We set it up, we have provided it with more than 55,000 documents so far, and we have given it all the financial resources it needs so that we can learn the lessons from the pandemic. However, in Wales they also had a pandemic, and what have the Labour-run Wales authorities done there? No independent inquiry in Wales. As ever, it is one rule for Labour and another for everyone else.

[Angela Rayner]

The Deputy Prime Minister pretends that it is complicated, but it is simple: the Government set up the inquiry to get to the truth, then blocked that inquiry from getting the information that it asked for, and now they are taking it to court. I know that he considers himself a man of the people, so using his vast knowledge of working-class Britain, does he think that working people will thank him for spending hundreds of thousands of pounds of their money on loophole lawyers so that the Government can obstruct the covid inquiry?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We will provide the inquiry with each and every document related to covid, including all internal discussions in any form, as requested, while, crucially, protecting what is wholly and unambiguously irrelevant. Essentially, the right hon. Lady is calling for years’ worth of documents and messages between named individuals to be in scope. That could cover anything from civil servants’ medical conditions to intimate details about their families.

I find it extraordinary that the right hon. Lady should lecture us on value for money for the taxpayer, when I understand that she has now purchased two pairs of noise-cancelling headphones on expenses. I will be fair to her: if I had to attend shadow Cabinet meetings, I think I would want to tune them out, too.

[Mr Speaker]

The Deputy Prime Minister was very good in saying that he welcomed short questions. I would also welcome shorter answers.

[Angela Rayner]

All we are asking for is what the covid inquiry has asked for. Across the world, covid inquiries are well under way, while this Government hide information and shell out public money on legal bills for the Uxbridge One—the former Prime Minister is now demanding another £1 million to pay for his new lawyers. I know that the Deputy Prime Minister and his former boss have fallen out, and maybe he wants to patch things up, but can he seriously say that that is a good use of taxpayers’ money?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

If we want to talk about relationships between different people, I do not think that we need to search the right hon. Lady’s WhatsApp messages to know that there is no communication between her and the leader of her party. I will happily stand up for our record on covid. When she and her party were carping from the sidelines, calling for longer lockdowns, I was working as Culture Secretary to keep our football clubs running, protect our theatres and museums, and deliver the largest cultural recovery package in the western world. That is the difference between her and me: while she was collecting titles, I was getting on with the job.

[Angela Rayner]

I know that for the last couple of years the Deputy Prime Minister has been trying to prep Prime Ministers for PMQs, but these punchlines are dire—he really needs to go back to school himself. Speaking of school, thousands of children are missing from school; absence has nearly doubled since before the pandemic. The Prime Minister says that he has maxed out on his support for school pupils, but why did the Government abandon their plans for a register of missing children?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

On the specifics of the right hon. Lady’s question, that is not the case: we continue to keep the policy under review. I am very proud of this Government’s record on funding and support for schools: £4 billion more this year, £4 billion next year, and the result of all that investment is that we have the highest standards of reading in the entire western world. What a contrast from when the Labour party was in power.

[Angela Rayner]

There we have it: thousands of children missing; policy “under review” still. Let me ask the Deputy Prime Minister about something else that has gone missing. The Public Accounts Committee this week revealed that Government fraud has increased fourfold, with Ministers overseeing the loss of £21 billion of taxpayers’ money in the last two years. Can he tell us how much of our money they expect to recover?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We are working tirelessly to recover those funds, and we have made huge progress already. The Labour party talks about good use of taxpayers’ money, but what do we have from it? Plans for an unfunded, £28 billion spending spree. What would that do? Drive up borrowing and push up interest rates, adding £1,000 to everyone’s mortgage. I know that the Opposition are out of touch, but even the right hon. Lady must realise that Britain cannot afford Labour.

[Angela Rayner]

Britain cannot afford any more of the Conservatives. The right hon. Gentleman seems to have lost count: the answer is that only a quarter of the billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money lost to fraud is expected to be clawed back. If the Government cannot get that public money back, they cannot be trusted with anything else. It has become a pattern of behaviour from the Conservatives—an inquiry missing evidence, schools missing pupils, taxpayers missing money and Ministers missing in action. All the while, working people pay the price for their mistakes. This week, the Public Accounts Committee also warned that this epic fraud and waste could happen all over again because Ministers are living in denial of the facts. If the Government cannot admit the truth, how on earth can they learn the lessons?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We are actually putting more resources in throughout this year to tackle fraud and error, and we continue to make real progress with it. This is quite extraordinary from the Labour party: while we work to drive down inflation and energy bills, the right hon. Lady is receiving £10,000 from Just Stop Oil backers, adopting their policies, backing protesters, blocking new production and forcing us to import more foreign oil and gas. For once, I find myself in agreement with the GMB union, which said that that is “naive”, has a “lack of intellectual rigour” and could decimate communities. Just like Labour.

Ministerial Code: Investigation of Potential Breach

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 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 criteria for launching an investigation into a potential breach of the ministerial code.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Jeremy Quin)]

The ministerial code sets out the standards of conduct expected of Ministers in how they discharge their duties. The code is the Prime Minister’s document, but Ministers are personally responsible for deciding how to act and conduct themselves in the light of the code and for justifying their actions and conduct to Parliament and the public. The Prime Minister is the ultimate judge of the standards of behaviour expected of a Minister and of the appropriate consequences of a breach of those standards. Ministers remain in office only for so long as they can retain the confidence of the Prime Minister.

The Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests is appointed by the Prime Minister to advise on matters relating to the ministerial code and, as hon. Members will be aware, that may include considering matters of ministerial conduct. The independent adviser has published terms of reference, which state that if

“there is an allegation about a breach of the Code, and the Prime Minister, having consulted the Cabinet Secretary, feels that it warrants further investigation, the Prime Minister may ask the Cabinet Office to investigate the facts of the case and/or refer the matter to the independent adviser on Ministers’ interests.”

With regard to the matter concerning the Home Secretary, which has been the subject of recent coverage, the Prime Minister made it clear to the House yesterday that he is receiving information on the issues raised. Since returning from the G7, the Prime Minister has met both the independent adviser and the Home Secretary and asked for further information. It is right that the Prime Minister, as the head of the Executive and the arbiter of the ministerial code, be allowed time to receive relevant information on this matter. Hon. Members will be updated on this in due course.

[Angela Rayner]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. This is an urgent matter, because our constituents expect those who make the rules to follow the rules, especially the Minister responsible for upholding the law. There are serious questions to answer following reports that the Home Secretary asked civil servants to organise a private speeding course. Will the Minister start by confirming whether the Home Secretary did or did not ask civil servants for help in this matter?

After days of dither and delay, and as the Minister just pointed out again, the Prime Minister still has not decided whether his ethics adviser should investigate. When can we expect to know what the Prime Minister is thinking on this matter? Was the Prime Minister made aware of the issue when he appointed the Home Secretary?

The ministerial code is clear that Ministers must not use their position for personal gain or ask civil servants to help them in a private matter. Does the Minister condone attempts to use the civil service for personal matters, or does he think that any potential breach of that principle should result in an investigation? Reports suggest that officials raised concerns about the Home Secretary’s conduct in emails sent to the Cabinet Office, with the full awareness of the permanent secretary. Officials are said to have been instructed to disregard the request. Was that the case, and if so, on what basis? Furthermore, if the Home Secretary did authorise her special adviser to tell journalists that there was no speeding penalty, that would surely be classified as a Minister asking officials to breach the civil service code. Does the Minister agree that that amounts to the breach of the ministerial code?

As the Minister knows, the Home Secretary already admitted to breaching the code by using personal emails to share sensitive Government information. How many strikes before she is out?

[Jeremy Quin]

The right hon. Lady has made a number of contentions there, and I will not get into speculation about the events in question. She will have heard the Prime Minister being clear yesterday that he was informed of the issue while on the service of the country at the G7 in Japan. He has returned from the G7 and is gathering information, but what we know of the Prime Minister is that he will deal with these issues properly and professionally. The first part of that is to gather the information required on which he can take a view, and that is what he is doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Thursday 11th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

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

First, may I offer my congratulations to the right hon. Gentleman, who is proving that being ginger is no barrier to becoming Deputy Prime Minister? I hope to take his example with me very soon one day, and in the meantime I look forward to facing him at Deputy PMQs to a bigger crowd in the future. I also want to offer my heartfelt commiserations to the right hon. Gentleman, who lost his local Conservative council this week. Those privet hedges of freedom were not quite as secure as he once boasted. Does he think that result is a reflection of the failure of his own local Tory party councillors or the failure of his Government and their Ministers?

[Oliver Dowden]

The right hon. Lady started off so nicely—you never know, one day the Labour party might even allow a woman to lead it. In Hertsmere and nationally it is the same picture: while we in the Conservative party are focusing on delivering for the British people, Labour is working out grubby, dodgy deals with other parties. We are focused on the British people; they are focused on their own political interests.

[Angela Rayner]

The only grubbiness that I have seen over the last few years has been about dodgy personal protective equipment contracts. I hope the Deputy Prime Minister will start to get a grip of that, because the local elections last Thursday revealed a lot about not only the British public’s rejection of the mess created by the Conservatives over the last 13 years, but the impact of the Government’s new voter ID regulations, which caused chaos and confusion at polling stations.

Oona Preece, a 93-year-old cancer sufferer, was excluded from voting in the local elections last week. She first voted in 1950 and had voted in every local and general election since. Given that not a single person—not one —was prosecuted for voter personation last year, was the Deputy Prime Minister’s policy worth denying people like Oona her say?

[Oliver Dowden]

Of course, I will look into Oona’s case, but I am not quite sure where the right hon. Lady and Labour Members have been, because I did not find any of the scenes that she describes in my constituency and nor did colleagues across the country. It was competently done, and actually it has aligned us with many other countries around the world such as Canada. It is a perfectly sensible reform.

As for the other invective thrown this way, I say to the right hon. Lady that she should perhaps take the log out of her own eye so that she can see more clearly to criticise us. Until the Labour party publishes the list of meetings that took place between it and Sue Gray, we will take absolutely no lectures whatsoever from it.

Prime Minister

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from Prime Minister’s Questions on 29 March 2023:

[Angela Rayner]

The right hon. Gentleman says that rape conviction has gone up. What he really means is that 300 women will be raped today while he boasts about an increase of 0.5%. He has not answered my question, because he is too ashamed of the answer: 1.6% of rapists face being charged for their crime—1.6%. Let that sink in. A woman goes through the worst experience of her life. She summons up the courage to relive that horrendous experience to tell the police in detail about her assault, but she only has a 1.6% chance of action being taken. Over 98% of rapists will never see the inside of a courtroom, let alone a prison. And the rest of those brave women? They keep looking over their shoulders and hope the perpetrator does not choose tonight to take their revenge for reporting the incident to the police.

In the last 13 years of the Tory Government, more than half a million cases of rape have been recorded by the police, but the charge rate for those attacks has collapsed. He has served under five Tory Prime Ministers and had three years as Justice Minister, and on his watch rapists are left to roam the streets. Will he apologise to those victims who will never get justice because of his failures?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

First of all, the conviction rate measured by the Crown Prosecution Service—the leader of the Labour party used to be in charge of the CPS, so he might want to point this out—has gone up. It is now at 69%. We are doing much more to support victims of rape when they come forward.

[Official Report, 29 March 2023, Vol. 730, c. 1008.]

Letter of correction from the Deputy Prime Minister:

An error has been identified in my response to the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner).

The correct response should have been: