Public Sector Pay 2024-25

Apsana Begum Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

The impact of the staffing crisis in the Department for Work and Pensions is creating an

“epidemic of mental ill health”.

That is according to emails received by the Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents civil servants. Does my hon. Friend agree that the situation requires urgent interventions from the Government and that one of those urgent interventions needs to be to raise the pay of the 25% of PCS union members in the DWP who are currently paid below the real living wage?

[Beth Winter]

I totally agree. The PCS union has produced a number of very comprehensive reports outlining the devastating impact that the cost of living crisis is having on the mental health and wellbeing of its staff. I recommend that the Minister and those on the Benches opposite read those reports.

This comes after a two-year pay freeze between 2011 and 2013 and the four-year pay cap of 1% from 2013 to 2017, which preceded the obliteration of pay awards by inflation over the past two years. The TUC has estimated that the average public sector worker is earning £177 a month less in real terms compared with 2010. That is based on ONS pay statistics. Unison and the NEU have briefed me on the real-terms reduction in the value of wages for their members. Teachers are getting £12,000 less in real terms since 2010; social workers £15,000 less; and paramedics £16,000 less. The key workers that keep this country going are being driven into poverty by this Government. Putting money in workers’ pockets is the way out of the cost of living crisis.

The Governor of the Bank of England repeatedly warned last year that pay rises were inflationary, but provided no evidence. Some organisations have challenged that statement. For instance, the Institute for Public Policy Research said,

“Tax-funded…public sector pay restoration…is not significantly inflationary”—

again, I recommend that the Government Minister reads the documents. That is why in the past two years we have seen the most significant period of industrial action in 40 years.

The ONS states that over 5 million days of work have been lost to industrial action since the start of the current cost of living crisis. The Government’s response has been not to address the retention and recruitment crisis, but to curtail trade union freedoms by bringing in the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023. In Wales we have seen junior doctors on strike this week because of public sector pay cuts. Yes, they are administered by the Welsh Government, but the purse strings remain here in Westminster, which is responsible. I joined those junior doctors this week, as I have joined all public sector workers, as have all Labour Members here. Our solidarity remains strong with those workers.

Public Sector Pay: Proposed Strike Action

Apsana Begum Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) on securing this important debate. She is a powerful advocate for her Welsh constituents.

It is important that we recognise that the below-inflation pay rises announced by the Government over the summer, which have prompted a series of strike ballots, have come on top of a brutal decade of pay cuts for key workers in the public sector. Under successive Conservative Governments, nurses, teachers, refuse workers and millions of other public servants have seen their living standards decimated.

Research by the Trades Union Congress released in August 2022 showed that one in five key worker households has children living in poverty and that the number of children growing up in poverty in key worker households has increased by 65,000 over the past two years, to nearly 1 million this year. How can that be right? What a shameful indictment of any Government.

Despite now facing the biggest squeeze on household finances since comparable records began, the Government continue to knowingly drive families, children, pensioners and the most vulnerable in our society into desperate poverty, with real-terms cuts in social security payments made earlier this year. Austerity is and always has been a political choice. The challenges we now face do not come out of the blue. There is a reason why a key component of Labour’s 2019 manifesto was its green new deal, driven by public ownership of the energy sector, and making sure that taxpayers got real value for money.

It is important to be clear that any failure to deliver pay awards in line with inflation means that this Government are choosing—deliberately and knowingly—to allow key workers in the public sectors to face even more hardship, after a brutal decade of pay freezes and cuts. Not only that, but given that our public services are already at breaking point, it would be an act of national vandalism to slash vital services to fund tax cuts for the super-rich.

Since being elected to this House, I have listened to tributes to the tireless work of our public sector workers, who go above and beyond the call of duty. However, they need more than warm words; they need action, so there is extra poignancy to this debate. It is particularly important to have in the forefront of our minds the enormous contributions that workers have made during the pandemic, despite the failures at all levels that contributed to thousands of staff dying all across various workforces.

If there is large-scale public sector strike action in the months ahead, the Government have only themselves to blame. They have chosen to hold down public servants’ pay while giving bankers unlimited bonuses. They have chosen to foster inequality and injustice while serving the super-rich. Public sector pay restraint disproportionately affects women and ethnic minority communities, so I ask the Minister whether a detailed and comprehensive equalities impact assessment of the Government’s plan is available.

I will always stand in solidarity with the trade union movement in Parliament and on the picket lines. It is amazing to see courageous Barnet Unison members in the Public Gallery. I will always oppose the Government’s cynical attacks on working people.

Lockdown: Economic Support

Apsana Begum Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

For reasons I set out some time ago to the Treasury Committee, and for the reasons set out by the Chancellor, operationally the concern is that while there will of course be many legitimate circumstances where people wish to make a claim, unfortunately there will also be significant risk of fraud. I pointed to the fact that within the House itself part of the challenge is how we ensure we have the right balance between the speed of delivery—we move quickly to get schemes to people—with the operational controls we put in place. That is why we have taken the position we have.

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

Since the previous lockdown was lifted, two leisure centres in my constituency have not reopened. Both facilities were outsourced by my council due in part to the lack of funding to local authorities. Leisure centres such as these are vital to the mental health and wellbeing of the communities they serve. Indeed, I believe they should be defined as an essential service. What will be done to ensure that that essential service and leisure centres such as St George’s and Tiller in my constituency do not face permanent closure as a result of the forthcoming, and any future, lockdown?

[Steve Barclay]

The hon. Lady is right to point to the pivotal nature of leisure centres in our constituencies. I think all Members would agree with that. I draw her attention to the £4.7 billion of additional funding we have given to local authorities as part of our response to covid, and to the discretion we have given local authorities so that they can apply that funding with the local knowledge they have and target it in the most effective way.

Public Health Restrictions: Government Economic Support

Apsana Begum Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

In part, it is our winter plan to support those businesses in terms of the staff they are able to bring back. There is no gap between the end of the furlough scheme, which has run for eight months—by international standards, an extremely generous measure—and the start of the job support scheme. On top of that, there are the measures that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced on the extension of loans to help with cash flow, and on top of that there are the measures that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor announced yesterday—the extra £1 billion, the extra £500 million to local authorities, to help those businesses to control those things. That is ultimately why, collectively, we all have a responsibility to keep the virus down in order that those businesses in tier 2 are able to trade and come down into tier 1 as soon as possible.

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab) [V]]

Local lockdowns will undoubtedly affect small businesses that have already struggled due to the initial lockdown earlier this year. In my constituency, traders at Chrisp Street market and Watney market were impacted by the lack of Government support earlier in the year. Some of those traders operate from rented lock-ups, where their goods are stored, and business rates for those properties are paid for by the leaseholder, meaning that market traders did not benefit from business rates relief and therefore suffered financial hardship. May I ask the Chief Secretary to the Treasury what further financial support can be provided for those local businesses that are not covered by business rates relief in the event of a local lockdown?

[Steve Barclay]

The hon. Lady is right to point to the fact that when the Government put in place the £10,000 and £25,000 grants of support linked to premises, market traders fell outside of that scheme because it was based on property. The specific issue of market traders was raised with us, and in response we put in place a further support scheme giving discretionary grants to local authorities in order that they could tailor that additional funding to local circumstances. I think she could raise this issue with her local council and ask why it has not used the discretionary grants to support those traders to whom she refers.

Finance Bill

Apsana Begum Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution
Monday 27th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab) [V]]

I begin by saying that my thoughts are with the loved ones of those individuals who have sadly died in the UK, and with those who have contracted covid-19.

People in my constituency are worried about their security, their income, their job, their home and the wellbeing of their families, children and elderly relatives. The job of Government is to provide reassurance, especially at this most worrying of times, yet this Finance Bill fails to do so. With the economy necessarily being shut down in an unprecedented way, it is urgent that the Government act to protect jobs and incomes. It is now becoming clear that there are severe problems with the design and performance of many of the programmes that the Government have introduced to deal with the current crisis, and that these are reducing their take-up. This Finance Bill does not resolve those problems.

Due to time constraints, I will raise just a few specific examples today. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out, the self-employed are more likely than employees to be in relative poverty and are more likely to work in sectors currently seeing large falls in demand. This Finance Bill offers such people little, if anything. I have been contacted by local nurseries regarding recent information stating that nurseries would not be able to claim furlough payments for all employees while also receiving local authority funding. They have argued that, as a result of the Government’s approach, they will probably have to make staff redundant. Basing eligibility on receipt of relief on business rates means that some businesses in need of support have been left behind. Many businesses in my constituency have contacted me with concerns that they are not eligible for this crucial lifeline, because they are not registered for business rates as they are renting a small space within a larger property, paying a proportion of business rates to the landlord.

On the wider economy, this Finance Bill does not properly address the fact that, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, public health restrictions and social distancing mean lower incomes, less spending and weaker asset prices, which all reduce tax revenues, while job losses require more public spending. We already know that the covid-19 crisis is causing serious financial suffering for people and their families, and that while coronavirus can affect everyone, it does not affect everyone in the same way. It differs depending on class and status, and this Finance Bill does nothing to address that inherent systemic imbalance. This is of particular relevance to my constituency, Poplar and Limehouse, which already suffers from the highest rate of child poverty in the entire country. After a decade of austerity, too many people remain trapped in low-paid, insecure work, and they are invariably failed by the social security system.

After all our lobbying, the Government are now launching a review of the impact of covid-19 on BAME communities, which is to be welcomed, but for any review to be meaningful it must address the underlying economic system and the fact that years of austerity have had an utterly devastating impact on ethnic minority communities. I am hoping, therefore, that the Chancellor and his Department will accordingly carry out and publish a review of the Bill’s effect on equality.

This pandemic has exposed the fact that the Tories’ economy for the few is not fit for purpose, and it is fundamentally unfair and unequal. For example, Care England has today published a paper calling for greater financial support for the care sector, yet CareTech, which runs a large number of established residential care homes in the UK, has seen its shares rise by 12% in the last five days since announcing, in its words, “stronger” revenues and margins. Is it not obscene that as the coronavirus outbreak streaks across our care homes, with the death toll rising, profits are being pocketed by a rich few? The truth is that our social care system is a national scandal. Nearly £8 billion has been taken from councils’ social care budgets since 2010. At the same time, many big care providers have developed highly complex corporate structures involving offshore tax havens.

There have been emerging discussions about the need for new forms of progressive taxation as opposed to spending cuts, yet the Bill does not include an immediate windfall tax on the banks and finance sector, combined with a wealth tax on the richest in our society—policies proposed by my Labour colleagues that would ensure that there were enough resources to pay for our public services in a fair and just way.

Although this crisis is exposing the weakness in our economy and society, I have been inspired by the number of people who have organised to protect their communities. We need a Government who follow their lead and ensure that our economy is defined by solidarity and compassion, rather than by insecurity, fear and inequality. Unfortunately, this Finance Bill is further evidence that the Conservative party is unable or unwilling to be such a Government.

Economic Update

Apsana Begum Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

Those in the leisure and hospitality and the retail sectors are of course particularly impacted by what we are experiencing, which is why the package of measures announced today builds on what was announced last week and goes to the heart of that industry to provide direct cash support and business rate relief. The measures we announced last week also provide support to those who are self-employed.

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I, like many others in this House, have been contacted by constituents who are extremely anxious and worried about the uncertainty and disruption in the months ahead. This includes constituents who are self-isolating, especially those who are expected to self-isolate for extended periods, who may face loneliness and other mental health challenges. Is the Chancellor planning to allocate any funding to address this?

[Rishi Sunak]

I very much appreciate people’s anxiety at this difficult time. With regard to those who are self-isolating, we have already made changes to our welfare system to ensure that those people qualify for the support that they deserve. With regard to public services support, as I have said, the Communities Secretary and the Health Secretary are actively engaging with those sectors to understand whether there is extra support that is required.