Ministerial Severance: Reform
Catherine West Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Emily Thornberry
I am proud to say that my party is full of good ideas, but unfortunately we are unable to put them all into one motion. Let us have a little discipline today by concentrating on the motion at hand and the important issue we are raising. We believe that five particular problems were highlighted by the chaos in 2022-23. I will go through each of them, give an example and explain why the changes we want to put forward will solve those problems, and why we would therefore ask the House as a whole to seriously consider our proposal to ensure that we can pass legislation to change the situation, because it does need to be fixed.
First, let us look at what I call the short stayers problem. More than two dozen individuals occupied Front-Bench roles for just nine weeks at the fag end of the Johnson Government, or just seven weeks during the bedlam of the Truss experiment, all of whom walked away with three months of severance pay. Let us look at the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) as an example. Never a shrinking violet when it comes to calling out others, he served just 49 full days as a Minister in the Department for Education, earning less than £3,000 in wages, yet when he returned to the Back Benches he received almost double that in severance—three months’ severance for 49 days’ work. Perhaps the Minister for common sense will tell us whether that makes sense to her.
Secondly, we have the problem of the short-lived promotions: individuals who found themselves elevated from junior ministerial roles to more senior positions, and whose severance was therefore calculated not based on the salary they had earned for most of the year, but based on the much higher salary they had earned for only a few weeks. Let us think of the example of the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Sir Simon Clarke), who spent a year as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, earning a salary of almost £32,000, but then spent seven weeks as Levelling Up Secretary on a salary of more than double that amount. As a result of those seven weeks alone, the right hon. Gentleman received severance pay of almost £17,000. Again, I look forward to the Minister for common sense explaining where the sense is in that.
Thirdly, we have what I might call the quick returners—more than a dozen Ministers who claimed their three months’ severance pay after quitting the Johnson Government, or being sacked by his successor, but who ended up returning to the Front Bench a matter of weeks later while still enjoying the benefits of their severance payments. Take the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), who not only accepted three months in severance after only two months as Veterans Minister, but told Plymouth Live point-blank that he had not accepted a severance payment, and then had the sheer chutzpah to return to exactly the same job seven weeks later without repaying a single penny. Once again, I hope that the expert on these matters will tell us whether that sounds like common sense.
Fourthly, there is a much smaller category—I have decided it is best not to give them a name at all. We also saw severance payments awarded in 2022-23 to two individuals, Peter Bone and Chris Pincher, who left their Front-Bench jobs while under investigation at the time for acts of gross misconduct. The 1991 rules are silent on this issue, and we can only assume that it was thought that any individual forced to quit in those circumstances would have the basic decency not to accept a handout from the taxpayer. However, I am afraid what the Pincher and Bone cases have shown us is that we cannot rely on the decency of individuals like that.
Finally—perhaps most incredibly—five severance payments in the last financial year were made entirely by mistake because the Government forgot to apply the age limit that says no one over the age of 65 can receive one, which is how Peter Bone and Nadine Dorries received their payments. Before the current incumbents of the Cabinet Office tell themselves that they have brought order to all this chaos, it is worth noting that the largest of those mistaken payments, which was made to a Minister in the Lords, was made not during the chaos of the summer and autumn of 2022, but in what one might call the cold light of day in January 2023.
The proposed changes to the severance rules set out in Labour’s motion would address each of the five issues that I have set out.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that had any of our constituents been face to face with the Department for Work and Pensions in a similar situation to that which she describes, the results might have been different?
Emily Thornberry
Any of our constituents struggling to get to the end of the week on their wage packet, and who see the amount of money being handed out—essentially as payment for failure—would be astonished that it was allowed. That is why we are trying to change the rules today.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
When I saw the amounts being talked about in this debate, I could not help but think about an organisation called Haringey Giving, which does brilliant work in my constituency. It was set up and managed by residents, and it allows various groups to make applications to it. In the five years that Haringey Giving has been operating, it proudly boasts that it has been able to support 136 local grassroots organisations and help thousands of people in the community through the provision of £900,000 of funding. That is £900,000 of funding painstakingly raised and distributed over five years, and it is still not as much as the amount that this Government were able to spend on severance payments in the single year of 2022-23.
When I have been knocking on doors—in recent times I have done rather a lot of that, in really interesting parts of the country—one thing that people have fed back to me is that they do not like chop and change. The motion is not, as the right hon. and learned Member for Northampton North (Sir Michael Ellis) suggested, a critique of salaries for doing political work such as being an MP in general; it is criticising the chop and change of the various Governments since 2019.
At Christmas, Haringey Giving held its annual fundraising drive, with local residents and businesses all playing their part, and it managed to raise £17,000. That is about the average amount received by the 20 Cabinet Ministers who claimed severance payments in 2022-23. In fact, the right hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Sir Brandon Lewis), who has been mentioned many times today, could have kept one of his severance payments and donated the other to Haringey Giving—if he is listening to the debate, he still has a chance to do that. That would have been double the total it raised in December.
I say that because it highlights the difference with the real world and the lives of so many of our constituents. When we talk about these severance payments, it is vital to remember exactly what is happening in the country as a whole, which we see at our advice surgeries. Sometimes families come to the advice surgery and a child has no teeth; they have stubs for teeth because there have been no dental appointments. I have heard from a family who have had a pair of shoes that one child wears to the sixth-form one day and then they are available at the weekend for another child to wear to do a part-time job. This is the sort of child poverty we are talking about.
The headline 12-month inflation rate started the year at 9% and ended it at 10%, and peaked at 11% in October 2022, the month in which 38 Ministers claimed severance payments. Food prices rose especially fast, with ordinary families facing a 19% increase in the cost of their weekly shop from March 2022 to March 2023. These amounts of money really matter because they buy things like food and shoes, and they should not be going into the pockets of Ministers who have failed and who have been through the revolving doors and become Ministers again.
The average pump price for petrol and diesel hit an all-time high, with petrol rising to £1.91 per litre in the last week of June 2022 and diesel hitting almost £2 per litre in the first week of July 2022, the same week that 21 Ministers claimed severance payments after joining the coup against Boris Johnson.
Of course, there are also mortgage payments. The Bank of England base rate started the year in April 2022 at 0.75% and ended the year in March 2023 at 4.25%, with the biggest spike taking place in the wake of the kamikaze Budget. Millions of households saw their mortgage rates soar and millions more have felt the pain since their fixed-rate deals have come to an end. That pain has been made all the worse thanks to the direct actions of the Government.
So there we have it: 2022-23, a year when families across the country were struggling more than ever in the face of the cost of living crisis—struggling to put food on the table, struggling to fill up their cars, struggling to pay their mortgages and keep a roof over their heads, facing impossible choices and having to make incredible sacrifices. That is without even mentioning the record peacetime tax burden that the Government have also imposed on the country during that period.
What were Tory Members doing while all this was going on? They were fighting with each other, and scrabbling around for promotions, pay rises, severance payments and resignation honours like they were prizes in a game show. During that disastrous year for the country, their only priority was looking after their own backs and filling their own boots. I hope that this evening they will think about their constituents struggling to make ends meet, and all the charities in our constituencies who work for every penny they raise. They should think about people at the Haringey Giving scheme scraping and striving to raise a few thousand pounds. They should show a bit of contrition and vote to let these reforms proceed.
Justin Madders
I thank my hon. Friend for making that very good point. I am sure Peter Bone’s former constituents, many of whom will have had calls from the Department for Work and Pensions when benefits overpayments were made and they had to pay them back, will expect him to have done exactly the same as they had to do. It is clearly a matter of public interest.
Catherine West
Does my hon. Friend agree that people who have £1,000 to make a bet—on anything—may be a bit out of touch with how most people live their lives in this day and age?
Justin Madders
Yes, anyone who can afford to wager that sort of sum on anything, never mind a matter as important as national public policy, does not experience the lives most of our constituents live.
In the 2022-23 financial year, four Ministers left office after facing allegations of misconduct or for breaching the ministerial code. Two received the full severance payment, one selected a reduced payout, and another turned it down altogether, but regardless of the circumstances of their dismissal, they were entitled to those payments as a right. All those forced out of their position while facing allegations of misconduct or falling below expected standards were entitled to payments totalling tens of thousands of pounds. That only half of them took the money is immaterial; what is at issue is the principle that those individuals had an entitlement that no one outside Government has access to.
In any other workplace, an employee against whom gross misconduct allegations are upheld would surely expect to be dismissed immediately without pay. Likewise, if they had been found to have acted in a way that was below the standards expected of them, they would be liable to dismissal with no automatic right to compensation. In the real world, the only protection offered to an employee who has been dismissed for reasons other than gross misconduct is a statutory notice period, which that employee still has to work—unlike Ministers, who do not have to work a notice period—and the notice period is just one week until an employee has two years’ service. In stark contrast, Ministers have, from day one, minute one, an automatic entitlement on dismissal to a quarter of their salary without even having to work any notice period. Those are day one rights that most people can only dream of having.
The evidence is clear when we look at the eyewatering sums Ministers have gobbled up, in some cases qualifying for them after only a matter of weeks’ service. Our analysis finds that a total of 57 Ministers were in post for less than three months before taking their ministerial severance payment. To put it another way, they were able to cash in on their party’s chaos and receive more money in severance pay than they earned doing the job in the first place. I will say that again, because I find it absolutely staggering: 57 Ministers got paid more for leaving the job than they were paid for doing it. That sums up what a shambles the last few years have been.
The story does not end there though. There are now nine former Ministers who spent a grand total of just 37 days as a Minister in their whole career, all within that disastrous 44-day lettuce premiership, which we are still feeling the effects of. When they were effectively sacked by the current Prime Minister, they were all allowed to pocket £5,593—not far off three times the amount they earned actually doing the job. A Government who hit the pockets of millions of Britons with their unfunded tax cuts also hit the public purse with these giveaways.
In the real world, thanks to this Government’s lack of regard for workers’ rights, an employee has to be in a job for two years before they get any kind of compensation. That is an outrageously long period. In addition, for ordinary people, after two full years of continuous service, the redundancy payment is modest compared with what Ministers can expect. Depending on the age of the individual, between eight and 12 years of continuous service are required to entitle them to 12 weeks’ redundancy pay, which is the equivalent of what Ministers are entitled to no matter how long they have served. It is galling that Ministers who had served for a matter of weeks were able to claim a level of payment that it would take those relying on statutory protections up to 12 years to accrue—and let us not forget that if this is someone’s only wage, the commitments made on the back of it are likely to be substantial, which means that the sense of jeopardy if things go wrong is palpable and the consequences of failure are real. The deal offered to Ministers who are effectively made redundant has none of those strings attached.
I think it abundantly clear that the generosity of the 1991 Act has been tested beyond breaking point over the course of the past two years. I cannot believe that when the Major Government introduced the Act, they ever thought we would have such a rapid turnover of Ministers—it is hardly a basis for good government—but, as we know, many conventions have been tested to the limit in recent years.
At the time of its introduction, the condition in the rules that outgoing Ministers can only receive the payment if they do not return to the Government within three weeks was probably seen as an extremely unlikely scenario—after all, ministerial appointments are not meant to be a carousel—but we now know that 20 Ministers decided to take, and keep, their severance payments despite finding themselves returning to a Government role within three months of their initial departure, and some returned even more quickly than that. It just shows how much the Tories love fire and rehire, although in the real world the worker does not become thousands of pounds better off as a result. Perhaps Ministers think that everyone gets thousands of pounds for no reason when fire and rehire happens to ordinary people. That, I think, is the only possible explanation of why they allow that outrageous practice to continue.
This money merry-go-round is self-evidently against the spirit of the “loss of office” system and the original Act. The severance payment is designed to help an individual to make the financial transition after being in the Government, not to be effectively a bonus for Ministers who are temporarily out of the fray. Those who drew up the rules simply could not have foreseen the level of chaos to which the Government have subjected us. It is hard to escape the feeling that there is a profound injustice in the system and the way in which it was exploited in 2022. Nearly £1 million of public money was handed out in the form of severance payments during that year, a figure which, had the reforms that we are proposing today been in place, would have been reduced by 40% to just over £550,000.
I return to the question “What makes a Minister so special?” Are a couple of weeks of being a Minister equivalent to the eight or even 12 years’ service that our constituents would have to give to receive the same level of payment? I think we can all agree that that should not be the case. This is not just about levelling down Ministers’ payments; it is about improving workers’ rights, and our new deal for working people will transform working conditions for everyone in the country.
I want to make a point, which I think is important, about the lack of transparency surrounding these payments. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) has already mentioned the payment to the former Member of Parliament for Wellingborough. I accept that this has been the case for many years, but we only find out what payments have been made by a particular Department when it publishes its annual report for the preceding financial year, which Departments are not required to do until 31 January in the subsequent financial year. Anyone who has recently filed a self-assessment tax return will note that the annual reports work on exactly the same timetable. By 31 January, people must report on what their financial situation was at the end of March in the previous year—although I suspect that Departments do not experience the frustration experienced by my constituents who wait for hours on end to speak to someone at the end of the HMRC helpline.
The reason it is only today that we are debating the final severance bill of £933,000 is that we only learned about the final group of payments last week, when the Department of Health and Social Care published its report adding another £41,000 to the total. However, this also means that we are eight weeks away from the end of the 2023-24 financial year, and we do not yet know whether a single severance payment has been claimed by any of the Ministers who left their jobs in that year.
We know that several Cabinet Ministers have had to resign in disgrace or have been sacked, but we do not know whether their bad behaviour was rewarded in the same way as other Ministers’ actions. What we do know is that the last reshuffle, in November 2023, created a theoretical severance entitlement of £112,000, although we do not know how much of that was claimed or by whom—and here is the crucial point: as things stand, we are not entitled under law to be told any of the answers to those questions until 31 January 2025, which is, of course, beyond the final date by which a general election must be held. In other words, a number of former Ministers will be standing for re-election but taxpayers will not have the right to know what severance payments they received over the previous year. If we cannot even have transparency, we ought to at least have some reform.
The frequency of reshuffles over the past few years has taken the idea of Government instability to a new level—a level that frankly makes a mockery of us all—and when that absurdity not only has no negative consequences for those in charge but sees them rewarded for their misdemeanours, it is little wonder that so many members of the public look at this place and think it is inhabited by people who are totally out of touch with reality. A Minister losing their job has none of the risk attached to it that many of our constituents face every day, including the uncertainty of not knowing whether they will be given enough hours next week to put food on the table because they are on a zero-hours contract, the risk that because they are in bogus self-employment they have no comeback if they have a dispute with the company, and the fact that they have to be in a job for two years before they get any protection against unfair dismissal.
Precariousness, risk and uncertainty are the defining characteristics of work for too many, but the defining characteristic of Ministers’ jobs is reward, and this reward comes whatever the length of service and whatever the reason for their departure. That is why so many of my constituents feel that there is one rule for the elite and another for everyone else. We know that in most workplaces if you break the rules you are out, with no compensation. Here, if you break the rules, you might be out, but you might be back again a few weeks later, but either way you still win because you can expect a handsome payoff, no matter the reason for your departure. We have a Government who are literally rewarding bad behaviour. It is no wonder so many people look at this place and think politicians have no understanding of how the real world works. It is about time we refreshed the way we do politics and put the service of the public ahead of the service of ourselves.
Oral Answers to Questions
Catherine West Excerpts(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Chris Heaton-Harris)
It will not have escaped your notice, Mr Speaker, that four years ago, on 11 January, the Northern Ireland Assembly reformed. The First Minister effectively collapsed the institutions and power sharing by resigning on 3 February 2022.
Behind these questions is a desire for the return of power sharing and the Northern Ireland Executive—a desire that I very much share, hence my most recent discussions with the leaders of most of the political parties that took place in Hillsborough on Monday, when we discussed the very many matters relating to this goal.
Chris Heaton-Harris
I thank the hon. Lady both for her interest and for the sentiment behind her question. A huge amount is happening, including meetings galore with all the political parties in Northern Ireland, and especially the Democratic Unionist party, because it is the DUP that I need to get on board so that the Executive can be restored. The hon. Lady says “at pace”, and we will happily work at whatever pace we can, but it is slightly determined by our interlocutors.
Catherine West
The current industrial action is due to hard-pressed public servants feeling that they are at the end of their tether. Would it not be better if the Assembly were functioning normally, so that this could be resolved as soon as possible?
Chris Heaton-Harris
Yes, the hon. Lady is exactly right. There is a fair and generous £3.3 billion package on the table for a restored Executive to use for this purpose and many others. As everyone involved in Northern Ireland politics understands, there is a need to transform public services in Northern Ireland, and this package would help to do that too.
Debate on the Address
Catherine West Excerpts(5 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
May I extend my thoughts to my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum), who has been targeted, particularly in the last, very difficult, month? It reminds me very much of what my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) talked about as a Jewish MP when she was targeted. It seems to be even more intense for women MPs. I am grateful to the Speaker’s Office and the Speaker’s team, which have reached out more than once to MPs to re-engage with us over safety concerns. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse has taken the practical measures that the House has put in place. The Speaker has been exceptional in introducing many new measures to help MPs at this critical time, when foreign policy is sensitive. Organisations such as Tell MAMA UK, which looks at the number of attacks on Muslims, and the Community Security Trust, which records the alarming rise and increase in attacks on the Jewish community, underline the importance of security, taking a record and making sure that we are as safe as we can possibly be.
The theme of security came up in the King’s Speech, and I was pleased that the King mentioned the sensitive time that we are going through, as he has a record of interfaith work. One of the most helpful things I did during Prorogation was attend two synagogues in my constituency, where I took part in prayers for Israel. I also attended the London Islamic Cultural Society mosque in my constituency, as well as the interfaith group that meets every couple of months in the constituency, usually to discuss interfaith work, but in the context of the unfolding tragedy in Israel and Gaza, to talk about how we as a community can respond to the horror of the attacks that Hamas perpetrated in the south of Israel on 7 October, a month ago today, and the feelings of despair and sadness experienced by families whose loved ones are still in tunnels somewhere in Gaza, as well as the terrible television coverage and newspaper reports of the situation in Gaza. I think the Financial Times reported a week ago that people in Gaza were running out of shrouds in which to wrap the fatalities, and were having to build mass graves, which is a terrible moment for any humanitarian organisation.
I am pleased that tomorrow we will hear from the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), who will update the House on the UK’s role. It is good to see cross-party support for the UK’s role in humanitarian action that can be taken to try to save lives, even at this most intense and difficult time.
I now turn to a domestic concern that I have arising from the King’s Speech, and that is the housing question. Many Members have said in the debate this afternoon that the leasehold provisions do not go far enough, and I share those concerns. Since I was elected in 2015, I have had hundreds of emails from leaseholders about the lack of protection they feel with their housing tenure. I look forward to the Renters (Reform) Bill being amended in Committee to strengthen its provisions, so that leaseholders are not negatively affected financially in the coming years.
I want briefly to put on the record my concern about rough sleeping. In the last 24 hours, I have been approached by three beggars. One was on the Thameslink service, who has clearly had addiction issues; another was a 19-year-old girl who approached me at King’s Cross St Pancras, who had obviously been assaulted and was sleeping rough, and she was begging for help, and money of course; and the third was an autistic man, who approached me once again asking for money. I do feel that begging and rough sleeping have got quite extreme in the last couple of months. Many people will have read the newspaper coverage about how the United Nations has underlined the growing inequality we have in the UK and the need for us to act with much more energy in addressing it.
The food bank in my constituency has just written to give me the update that, in the three hours it was open last week—it is open just once a week—there were 369 requests for food parcels. That figure has gone up enormously. We all hoped back in 2010 that food banks would be needed just for a brief moment while the economy righted itself following the global financial crash. Sadly, it has become business as usual to have all these food banks, and we all live to see a world without food banks.
I want briefly to mention other housing tenures. On the rented sector, a constituent wrote to me to say that their landlord had decided to increase the monthly rent from £1,470 to £1,720 overnight. In a further email, they told me:
“We originally thought we’d be able to buy our own property around this time but with current interest rates…we definitely can’t afford it.”
A year ago, we had the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) as our Prime Minister, and unfortunately we still have not recovered financially from that period. A constituent in another rental property told me:
“My partner and I are looking to stay in our one-bedroom flat”,
but the letting agent wants to put up the rent by £500 a month. They already pay £1,900, and this
“is absolutely crazy. We are very good tenants; we fix things ourselves and keep the property in an excellent condition”.
Another constituent told me:
“I just wanted to say that today our rent was increased by 24%. The landlord’s agent would not accept any negotiation. Our phone, utility, etc bills go up annually by the rate of inflation +4%. I’ve been a tenant here for 20 years.”
That is obviously getting extremely serious.
Sadly, I have also noticed the impact on the high street in areas such as mine. Normally, a place such as Crouch End would be very vibrant, but I have noticed a number of high street shops closing just in the last two months. What was once an area with a very vibrant villagey feel has one shop closing almost every two or three weeks, because people are so exposed to high mortgage payments and high rent payments that they are not able to keep the high street going. To give just one example, a constituent told me:
“Our mortgage has increased from £1,950 to £3,000 a month and this has clearly had a significant impact on our household income. I have had to reduce my monthly pension contributions and we have both changed our working hours to reduce our childcare costs. Such was the pressure on lenders that the deal took months to go through, which in itself was agonisingly stressful. We waited and watched on as mortgage deals were pulled left, right and centre, aware that if our deal had fallen through then we would have had to reapply at higher and higher rates. I note that if we were to switch at today’s rates, our payments would be at least £3500 with further increases likely through to 2024. It’s an absolute mess.”
The final element I will talk about is the social housing sector—the other tenure we have in the borough. I want to put on the record what so many others have said: we are simply not building enough homes, and the supply of new homes needs to be addressed with urgency. Completions of new homes have dropped again this month, and we desperately need more supply so that we have somewhere to house the future generation. Constituents are writing to me saying that they have several children in a one-bedroom flat, and nowhere for their children to study. The impact on the education and mental health of my constituents is extreme.
Buildings new homes would provide opportunities. As a local authority leader in a previous life, we found that by building new homes we were able to have an excellent apprenticeship scheme. This seems to me a great opportunity for green jobs, for more training and skills development for engineers, for the construction industry to introduce insulation, and to introduce new homes that are more effective in terms of the environment. I hope that the Government will listen and get on with building those new homes, not just to alleviate the terrible overcrowding that we see, but to give people hope, a future and a sense of security.
G20 Summit
Catherine West Excerpts(7 months, 2 weeks ago)
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The Prime Minister
The policy did change and we stopped providing traditional development aid to India in 2015. Most UK funding is now in the form of business investments which not only help India reduce carbon emissions and address climate change, but deliver jobs and opportunity for British companies here at home.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
With so much at stake—the war in Ukraine, increasingly high numbers of people suffering from famine and drought, and human rights issues in places such as Iran or the Xinjiang part of China—is now really the time for the Prime Minister to empty chair the United Nations General Assembly?
The Prime Minister
I have just been over how our leadership on these matters is unquestioned. We are an active and engaged member at the G20. In just a couple of weeks, I will be at the European Political Community summit as well. Let me gently point out something to the hon. Lady about the UN General Assembly: as far as I can tell from looking back at the records, on the vast majority of occasions under the Labour Government it was not the Labour Prime Minister who attended either.
Infected Blood Inquiry
Catherine West Excerpts(10 months, 1 week ago)
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Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Infected Blood Inquiry.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate, ensuring that this important issue is considered on the Floor of the House. Over the years, it has been incredibly generous in allocating time to Back Benchers in our attempt to hold Ministers and the Government to account on the infected blood scandal. I also thank the Father of the House, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), for working with me to secure the debate and with whom I am proud to co-chair the all-party parliamentary group on haemophilia and contaminated blood. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who are here today and who have fought so hard for their constituents who have been infected and affected. I know of many other MPs who are not able to attend the debate today but support our work.
In opening, I want to say a few words about three individuals among the thousands who have been affected by this scandal, to remind the House of the people at the heart of this debate. First of all is my constituent, Glen Wilkinson. In 2010, he came to see me at my last surgery before the general election. He told me how he had been infected by dirty blood given to him by the NHS. Along with thousands of others, he wanted to know how that was allowed to happen and he wanted a public inquiry. I promised to try to help him if I was still an MP after that general election. It was a very close run thing and I ended up with a majority of just 641, so I was fortunate to be returned. I joined the all-party group and have been very proud since then, with Glen, to fight for truth and justice, not just for him but for all those who have been infected and affected. Of course, we did secure the public inquiry in 2017. Glen is still campaigning for justice despite his health problems, but I know that, as the years have dragged on, the need to keep fighting has exerted enormous pressure on him, his wife Alison and his wonderful family. At this point, it is worth remembering all those family members and pay tribute to those who have been caught up in this scandal.
A few nights ago I could not sleep—it is very hot—and I ended up going online. I read the witness statement to the public inquiry by Nick Sainsbury, whom I had met through Glen and who lived in East Yorkshire. Nick attended the Lord Mayor Treloar College as a child and was one of dozens of children at the school infected with HIV and hepatitis through infected blood products. We know that 72 of those pupils later died. After school, Nick worked as a civil servant and then at the Land Registry, which he said was his dream job, until his mid-30s when he became ill from multiple viral infections. He had to give up his job. He said:
“It was just too much. I was going to work bent double on crutches.”
I want to quote what he said about being HIV-positive in his statement to the inquiry:
“The knowledge that I was infected with arguably the most feared infectious disease since the bubonic plague of the middles ages was hard enough to deal with. The constant reminders on TV and in the newspapers made it very grim.”
Nick campaigned for years for justice. He travelled to many meetings here in Parliament, and attended and contributed to the public inquiry. But just two months ago, Nick sadly died, never having seen justice.
I also want to mention Michele, who currently is not represented in Parliament by a Member of Parliament, but wanted me to raise her case. Michele Claire was given a contaminated blood transfusion following childbirth and consequently developed hepatitis C. She now has stage 6 liver disease. After people in her village found out about Michele’s infection, she received letters through her door saying things like, “We don’t want your type round here”. On compensation, Michele told me:
“Money can cure nothing. It will, however, bring about some dignity and ensure peace of mind going forward.”
My message to the Minister is this: it is time. Action to fully compensate those infected and affected by the contaminated blood scandal must start now. The Government have accepted that compensation should be paid and that there is a moral case to do so.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
I am sure the whole House will agree with me that my right hon. Friend has done a sterling job in campaigning on this issue for a number of years. Will she join me in paying tribute to Della Ryness and her husband Dan, who sadly passed away last month, who fought the good fight on behalf of their son, who died from this very awful thing, and in thinking about the beautiful granddaughter who he left behind?
Dame Diana Johnson
I am very grateful. This is about people. It is about mums and dads, sons and daughters, and aunts and uncles. We have to remember that. It is about those individuals and their families.
Oral Answers to Questions
Catherine West Excerpts(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
As I am sure my hon. Friend knows, levelling-up partnerships are committed to work hand in hand with 20 places across England in most need of that levelling up. They are backed by £400 million of investment, and I know that he will make the case most robustly for funding for his constituency.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
For the NHS as a whole, the Government have provided record additional funding. Indeed, since we came to power in 2010, funding is up £70 billion. In addition, in respect of social care, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has provided a further £2.3 billion of support to that vital sector.
Infected Blood Inquiry Update
Catherine West Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Jeremy Quin
The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that that is exactly the process we are going through. We are working through Sir Brian’s report and his specific recommendations, including about the eligibility of estates—he recommends that the estates of those infected should be included in any scheme. The hon. Gentleman is not wrong to say that these are all complicated risks which are becoming more complicated. We want to make certain that we make progress and come to a resolution in our consideration of the report.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
When I entered this House, my young constituent was in the nursery and we all hoped the scandal would be resolved quickly. She then graduated to primary school, and now she is about to go into secondary school. The loss of her father to this terrible infected blood scandal was absolutely devastating. I have two questions. First, will she receive compensation? There seems to be a question about whether children will get compensation. Secondly, the psychological research looking at support needs is being done only now. After all these years, how can it be that the research about commissioning a bespoke service is beginning only now? Will he apologise for that delay?
Jeremy Quin
I cannot confirm the details of what will be in the compensation scheme when it comes forward, simply because that is the work we are undertaking now. I recognise the urgency represented by the hon. Lady.
In terms of the psychological needs, different progress has been made around the United Kingdom. There are schemes established in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and there is £900 available every year in England. Work is being undertaken now to ensure that there will be an appropriate tailored scheme. That work is ongoing and we expect to hear over the next few months what the answer will be on the psychological support scheme. That work is being conducted by ministerial colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care.
Oral Answers to Questions
Catherine West Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Mims Davies
I thank the hon. Lady for her interest. The British Sign Language advisory board is being established to advise the Government on that implementation. Among the people giving advice will be BSL signers, and the majority of the members will be deaf BSL users who have lived experience and want Government communications to be accessible. I am proud that the Department for Work and Pensions has accessible jobcentres, and the same is needed for major Government announcements.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)
The Government are committed to a sustainable long-term approach to tackling poverty and supporting families on lower incomes. To help people progress, the Department for Work and Pensions provides a range of support for anyone at any age, career stage or background to move forward and be better off. As well as one-to-one support with their work coach, jobseekers can access sector-based work academies, the restart programme and the Work and Health programme.
Catherine West
The Jesuits said, “Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.” That means that the impact of what we do in helping children under the age of seven will create a more just future. What urgent action will the Government take to address deep poverty affecting 46% of black, Asian and minority ethnic families? Is there extra funding that can be given to schools and put into our teaching to support children under the age of seven in black, Asian and minority ethnic communities?
Mims Davies
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. As an MP who has won an award for focusing on disadvantaged groups, there is no doubt that she has interest in this area. At 70%, the ethnic minority employment rate is at a record high. We know that work is the best route out of poverty, and that mentoring, support and being able to see role models are absolutely key. I commit to continuing to work across Government with those disadvantaged groups to make sure that that focus is rightly on them.
Oral Answers to Questions
Catherine West Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
We support the right of parents to home-educate their children and we know that many do well. However, that is not the case for all, which is why local authorities must seek to identify those children missing education. We have published guidance on the arrangements that they should be following and, indeed, ensured that they have oversight of elective home education.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
Again, I have nothing but gratitude and appreciation for the hard work of our postal workers, but it is not the right approach to go on strike, and especially to demand pay, as we have heard, that is simply unaffordable for hard-working British taxpayers. The hon. Lady would do well to see that. In the context that we are in, it is simply not possible to give people the type of pay demands that they are making.
Oral Answers to Questions
Catherine West Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is a fantastic champion for Torbay. The Chancellor will make a statement tomorrow and I cannot speculate on the spending decisions, but my hon. Friend will have noticed already the tourism recovery plan, which will help recovery from the pandemic and is also part of the wider levelling-up agenda.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
As a former Housing Minister, I know how important these issues are. I can tell the hon. Lady that the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is looking very carefully at the situation of renters and landlords, and legislation is to be brought forward shortly.