Menopause (Support and Services) Bill

Debate between Carolyn Harris and Stephen Kinnock

2nd reading
Friday 29th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Carolyn Harris]

I certainly do. Very many businesses—really big players in their fields—have contacted me and asked for advice on how they can move forward. What I say to them all is, “Don’t have a policy that is left in a filing cabinet that reflects a tick box. Have a policy that reflects your workforce and what women need and is intended to help them.” I visited several big companies that are really good employers and I have seen the all-singing, all-dancing menopause policy that does all but make a cup of tea, but when I asked the staff, “How is the menopause policy working for you?”, their response was, “I didn’t know we had one.” It cannot be a tick box; it has to be relevant.

Other employers need to take heed of the likes of Timpson—I repeat that James Timpson walks on water, as I said in this Chamber last week—in prioritising the welfare of its staff who are experiencing symptoms of the perimenopause or menopause. There are other big companies, such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, Bristol Myers Squibb and Tesco, that do good work—I could go on, but I know that the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), who chairs the Women and Equalities Committee, will talk about that.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the amazing campaign that my hon. Friend is running. The Bill is making such an important contribution; I think we all sign up to being menopause warriors and menopause revolutionaries. To add to the point about employers, does she see a role for trade unions in promoting the excellent ideas that are in the Bill? Can she give some examples of how we as MPs and menopause warriors could do more in our constituencies to encourage employers and trade unions to take these ideas forward?

[Carolyn Harris]

I have always thought of my hon. Friend as being Amazonian in his warrior status. I am sure that when he has his photograph taken later today with the lovely Penny Lancaster, he will prove to be Amazonian. In his constituency, the Community union is doing fantastic work with Tata Steel, which has welcomed in the union to hold menopause coffee mornings with the women in its workforce, who, let us not forget, are working in a very male-dominated arena. If they can do it, so many others can. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) has the Llanwern steelworks in her area, and it, too, is welcoming the Community union’s coffee mornings. I urge both my colleagues to attend one of those to share experience and listen.

Almost 80% of menopausal women are in work, with most planning to work for many more years. However, three quarters report that they are considering reducing their hours and one in four are giving up their jobs because they are finding it too difficult to balance their work life with their symptoms. Our careers should not stop when our periods stop. Whether our jobs are physically or mentally demanding, small adjustments could make all the difference. My hope is that employers listening to this debate will make those adjustments and take pride in the fact that they are menopause-friendly workplaces.

Wales: Regional Development Funding

Debate between Carolyn Harris and Stephen Kinnock

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of regional development funding in Wales.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I take this opportunity to welcome the Minister to his place. I have lost count of how many have preceded him. I have not counted how many days he needs to get through to exceed his predecessor, but I am sure that one of my colleagues will work that out as we speak. We wish him well and we wish him good luck—he is going to need it.

Regional development funding has been absolutely critical in boosting less prosperous areas across the United Kingdom, including in Wales. It is crucial in an era in which the divides in terms of wealth and prosperity in British society are so evident for all to see. We are witnessing a growing trend whereby our cities attract investment, create wealth and offer high-quality jobs, whereas our smaller towns are left behind or, worse still, buffeted by the winds of globalisation without any real support from the UK Government.

That has been the story of the last 40 years. UK Governments have stood by and watched the forces of globalisation and new technology destroy our industrial base and decimate our high streets, and they have been intensely relaxed about the impact of those changes on the pride, identity and prosperity of constituencies such as mine and others across Wales and the United Kingdom. First, Margaret Thatcher sold out the miners across south Wales, the English midlands and northern England, offering no state support to those who needed it to retrain in other fields. Then, although new Labour injected much-needed investment into our public services, it did not manage to deliver fundamental structural reform through a bold, radical industrial strategy. Then came Osborne-omics, which inflicted utterly self-defeating austerity on the areas that could handle it least.

As a result of this triple whammy, manufacturing has collapsed, from 30% of UK GDP to just 10%, since the 1970s. In comparison, Germany’s manufacturing base has remained stable, at 23% or above. The vast differences between the UK and German experiences of the last 40 years demonstrate conclusively that globalisation is not an unstoppable force of nature; it is a man-made phenomenon. The repeated failure to harness globalisation and make it work for our communities was caused not by force majeure but by repeated failures of political leadership.

The collapse of our manufacturing base has of course led inexorably to our skills and productivity crises. No recent Prime Minister has come up with any kind of half-decent strategy to support the so-called forgotten 50% who do not go to university or get good jobs and training. For those graduates living in the big cities, the last 40 years have delivered wealth, opportunity, diversity and the excitement of technological change, but non-graduates who live in our towns and villages have simply been ignored and left behind. Younger, diverse cities full of graduates continue to thrive; older, smaller towns with close-knit communities of non-graduates continue to suffer. Wales is a case in point. Despite the efforts of the Welsh Government—I will come to the vital support the Welsh Government have delivered for constituencies such as mine—many parts of our great country have experienced hardship due to inept government at the UK level.

The gap in GDP between Wales and London makes the UK the most unbalanced EU member state in terms of regional economic disparities—a truly shocking statistic that shows the size of the challenge we face if we are to reduce inequality and spread opportunity. In Aberavon, we have had absolutely no regional development support from Westminster. The Swansea bay tidal lagoon would have put south Wales at the forefront of a 21st-century industry, marrying our desperate need to produce more green energy with the creation of genuinely high-quality jobs across the region.

Wales was the cradle of the first industrial revolution, and we could have been the cradle of a new, green revolution, but the Tory Government ran scared, spending £1 billion to buy the votes of each Democratic Unionist party Member but not a single penny for a long-term strategic infrastructure project that could have boosted wealth and opportunity for my constituents and so many across south Wales. I cannot help wondering whether that £1 billion would pass a value for money audit, given the voting behaviour of the DUP over recent months, but I digress.

The tidal lagoon decision followed hot on the heels of another broken promise: to electrify our railway lines. That promise made it only as far as Cardiff, with the line down to Port Talbot and Swansea still firmly embedded in the 20th century. With everything the Transport Secretary has achieved in his quite remarkable tenure, it feels that too little attention has been paid to this kick in the teeth for Welsh commuters and travellers and for the Welsh economy. Maybe handing a £50 million ferry contract to a company with no ferries was in fact a cunning plan to distract us from the fact that the Government he represents were holding Wales in contempt.

Thankfully, where the UK Government have failed, other tiers of governance have stepped in to give the Welsh economy a much-needed boost. The Welsh Government and local councils have combined to deliver so many crucial projects, but many have relied on the funding that we receive from the European Union—the EU structural fund.

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

Although the Swansea bay campus is in my hon. Friend’s constituency, the £60 million EU investment in it has benefited my constituency incredibly. Does he agree that, given that we have missed out on the tidal lagoon and electrification, we now deserve assurances from the Government that structural funding will come to our region and to our communities?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I agree with every word. As I will come on to, the key point is that we must not receive a penny less; there must not be any sleight of hand in the shift from EU structural funding to the shared prosperity fund.

EU structural funds are distributed to regions throughout the European Union based on their relative GDP. Areas where GDP per capita falls below 75% of EU GDP are placed in the first tier, and therefore receive the maximum funding. The poorer the region, the higher its priority and the more funding it receives. West Wales and the valleys is ranked as a region of the highest priority, and therefore received £2 billion for the 2014-20 cohort. No other area of the UK received more than £750 million, showing the scale of the challenge for the economy in that area of Wales. We are talking about a serious amount of funding here.

Like much of Wales, my Aberavon constituency has benefited hugely from European money, and from the strong vision and partnership working formed between the Welsh Government and our local Neath Port Talbot Council. Take, for instance, the new integrated transport hub—a Neath Port Talbot Council project in partnership with the Welsh Government, using EU money—or the sunken gardens and toddlers’ play area on Aberavon beach, which is a Neath Port Talbot Council project using EU funding granted by the Welsh Government.

There are more, from the bay campus, as my hon. Friend mentioned, to the Croeserw community enterprise centre, to the Cognation mountain bike trails in the Afan valley, to the Port Talbot magistrates court regeneration project. Those projects would not have been possible without European funding and strong political leadership of a type we see consistently from the Welsh Government and our local councils, but too rarely from Westminster. That is why Brexit raises a number of concerns regarding the future of regional development funding.

Leaving the EU: Wales

Debate between Carolyn Harris and Stephen Kinnock

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank my hon. Friend. One of the huge risks to Wales of Brexit is that we will see a power grab by the Westminster Government. We will start to see the Westminster Government using the opportunity to claw back funding. We know that the £350 million was a lie. The figure was far more like £190 million, but where will that money go? Will it just disappear into the black hole of the Treasury in Westminster, never to be seen again in Wales? That is a huge risk for Wales in light of Brexit.

Now that all the bluff and bluster of the referendum campaign is behind us, it is all about what the Prime Minister’s Government actually do. So far on that score, the signs have not been positive. Despite repeated requests from the First Minister for a commitment to full continued funding, so far the Government have pledged only to continue funding agreed EU-funded projects until 2020.

That is not as powerful a pledge as it may first seem, for a number of reasons. First, it is for only one additional year after we are scheduled to leave the European Union in March 2019. The Government have made zero assurances that funding will be retained after 2020. Secondly, the Chancellor made clear in his statement on 13 August that the pledge applied only to projects signed before this year’s autumn statement. Apparently, any projects signed after that will be assessed by a method that is yet to be revealed to us—a mystery method. Funding is therefore not guaranteed for multi-year projects signed after next month, even if they are in the current EU 2014 to 2020 funding round.

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He is making an excellent case. Does he agree that uncertainty is the enemy of business? The Government have made no commitment on funding post-2020, and that could have devastating consequences for attracting investment to Wales.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I absolutely agree. We have seen in all the feedback since the Brexit vote that businesses are in a holding pattern. Many companies, both outside and within the UK and the EU, are waiting to see how things develop in the wake of Brexit. We have no idea what the Government’s top-level negotiating position will be in terms of hard or soft Brexit, and we have no idea what the plan is on the budgetary side in terms of replacing EU funding. That double whammy causes massive uncertainty for business. It relates back to the point on the multiplier effect. EU funding opens the door for other businesses coming in, and that uncertainty is the enemy of business, as my hon. Friend says.

Welsh Affairs

Debate between Carolyn Harris and Stephen Kinnock

Thursday 3rd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

I agree absolutely. The Energy and Climate Change Committee has just produced a compelling report that clearly demonstrates that we are losing investment and jobs precisely because of the mixed messages and signals that this Government send to investors. Business abhors a vacuum. Business needs stability. It needs to know whether there will be a return on its investments, and at present it sees no evidence whatever of that in the United Kingdom.

Wales, and south-west Wales in particular, can also be at the forefront of an internet revolution. Swansea Bay city region has based its city deal proposal on the concept of an “internet coast” to drive the digital future of energy, health and economic acceleration. All eyes are on the Chancellor. If he really wants a “march of the makers”, he must give his full backing to that exciting vision. The Swansea University bay campus, which, I emphasise, is based in my Aberavon constituency, has a huge role to play in the development of the internet coast. I look at my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for verification of that.

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

indicated assent.

[Stephen Kinnock]

This outstanding project, made possible by EU and European Investment Bank funding, is one of the largest and most important knowledge economy projects in Europe, producing cutting-edge research focusing on science and innovation.

The “internet coast” is a plan for the future. It is a pity the same cannot be said of the Government’s draft Wales Bill, which does not provide anything like the lasting settlement that it was intended to create. Instead, it has thrown up more uncertainties around the legislative process, and succeeds only in generating reams of constitutional red tape. Just this week the Welsh Affairs Committee, under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies), called on the Government to pause the proposed timetable for the Bill so that there is opportunity to reflect fully. That is the least that is needed. My specific concern is about ministerial consent and the risk that the process is seen as tantamount to an English veto, but my more general concern is that the Bill has been drafted in a bubble, isolated from the broader debate about the constitutional reform that our country so desperately needs.

The UK is more centralised than any other leading industrialised economy, and the Scottish referendum demonstrated that the constitutional foundations of the UK are cracking beneath our feet. The British people need and deserve better. The piecemeal, make-do and muddle-through approach that is epitomised by this Wales Bill is simply not going to get the job done. We must, therefore, have a full constitutional convention that would formulate a bold, radical, rational, root-and-branch reform of our constitution. The convention would develop a written constitution that is anchored in a confederal UK, an elected senate, a more proportional electoral system, and properly defined devolution of powers to the nations and regions of the United Kingdom.

We have also seen the results of government by muddle in Wales with the Trade Union Bill. Having taken a sledgehammer to crack a nut, the Government have found that the nut is not entirely theirs to crack in the first place. I am delighted that my Labour colleagues have stood eyeball to eyeball with the Government, and it was the Government who blinked first. The Trade Union Bill, coupled with the changes in voter registration and the alterations in constituency boundaries, are blatant and disgraceful attempts to turn the UK into a one-party state, the thinly veiled agenda being to eradicate parliamentary opposition altogether. Vladimir Putin would be proud of such fixing. Wales is disproportionately hit by the boundary changes, losing around a quarter of our MPs, reducing Wales’s voice in the House and marginalising the Welsh people.

There is great potential in Wales, but we will realise that potential only with bold leadership. There is vision and willingness in Cardiff Bay, but we find those qualities abysmally lacking on the Government Benches. As we go into elections in May, we should remember all that we have to be proud of in Wales: a Labour Government delivering for working people, creating 50,000 apprenticeships and getting 15,000 young people back to work with Jobs Growth Wales; ground-breaking legislation on violence against women; a Labour Government who have improved the cancer survival rate faster than anywhere in the UK, and who are training more nurses than ever before; a Labour Government who stood up to Westminster to protect farm workers’ wages; a Labour Government who stood by Remploy, while the Tories were shutting it down across the rest of the UK.

Let us remember that it is the work of the Welsh Labour Government under the leadership of First Minister Carwyn Jones that has enabled the creation of 750 jobs at Aston Martin in St Athan. Under Carwyn, Labour will make use of the Welsh Government’s new powers by cutting business rates for small businesses and supporting entrepreneurship, growth and jobs. That is the kind of leadership we need in Wales.