Post Office Court of Appeal Judgment

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

Winslow, Princes Risborough and Buckingham are just like many villages and towns across the country, where banks are starting to reduce their branch numbers. I have talked about social value; it is important that the Post Office fills that gap, and provides access to cash and services for the most vulnerable. That is why we need to get the answers to ensure that sub-postmasters coming forward have the confidence and really want to come and work for a forward-looking organisation, not one that has had such an egregious recent past.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my constituent, Mr John Bowman, who lost his home as well as his business, like the constituents of so many other Members across the House. One of the things that hurt him most, which he has talked about to me extensively, is the way in which the Post Office behaved; it simply looked to the criminal proceedings of those sub-postmasters, who, in the end, we now know had done nothing wrong. Will the Minister confirm that the current inquiry is expressly forbidden from looking at the Post Office’s prosecutorial function? Given this, will the Minister reconsider setting up a fully judicial inquiry into the scandal so that postmasters such as Mr Bowman get the justice they actually deserve?

[Paul Scully]

What I can confirm is that the inquiry will look into the Post Office’s approach and the “who did what” in its approach to the sub-postmasters, because clearly that heavy-handed approach early doors did lead to prosecutions. As I have said, there are wider considerations for the legal process, including private prosecutions, and we will need to learn from this.

Levelling Up

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Eddie Hughes]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. County councils with transport powers are eligible to submit one transport bid, but—this is perhaps more pertinent to her question—local authorities may wish to consider pooling funding from their bids to improve the chances of taking forward a larger transport scheme.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab) [V]]

I welcome the Minister to his new position; we were sparring partners in the Whips Offices. I wonder whether he can clarify something. The levelling-up fund means £50 million per year for Wales over the four years for which the fund has been set out, yet according to all the statistics, Wales should have been receiving £375 million in structural funding each year. The Prime Minister has promised very many times that Wales will not receive a penny less, so can the Minister tell us when he will allocate the shortfall of £325 million for Wales—or is that just another broken promise from the Prime Minister and the Conservatives, who continually let the people of Wales down?

[Eddie Hughes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words, although perhaps they evaporated when we got to the question. Clearly, as I set out in my statement, it is the ambition of this Government to level up across all four nations of the United Kingdom. I fully appreciate that he might have some reservations with regard to the allocation of funding from the levelling-up fund, but there are a number of other funds, which I mentioned in my statement, and, taken together, I imagine that will represent significant investment for Wales.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 7th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

As we said in the last debate in this place, this is complementary to existing spending powers in Wales and Scotland. We will always look to work for the good of the people there, which will reflect—undoubtedly, I am sure, on so many occasions, if not all occasions—the mood and direction from their elected politicians in the Senedd.

We need to make sure that we can deliver the UK-wide replacements for EU funds, including meeting our manifesto commitment to replace EU structural funds and deliver the UK shared prosperity fund, which will allow the UK Government to invest directly to support communities and businesses across all four parts of the UK. Previously in many of these areas, the EU mandated how our money had to be spent, with little say from elected representatives in the United Kingdom. The UK Government intend to take a much more collaborative approach in delivering any funding that replaces EU programmes.

The UK Government remain committed to working collaboratively with key partners, including devolved Administrations, in the provision of financial assistance under this power. Let me be clear that this power is in addition to the devolved Administrations’ existing powers. It will allow the United Kingdom Government to complement and strengthen the support given to citizens, businesses and communities in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. It does not take away responsibilities from the devolved Administrations.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

The frustration at this utter confusion is that this actually circumvents the devolution settlement. Devolution has been in place for some 20 years, and it is Ministers in Wales who have been working with the European Union on how European funding is allocated within projects in Wales. This new system removes the decision making from Welsh Ministers and circumvents the devolution that has existed for more than 20 years. Can the Minister not understand the frustration on the Opposition Benches and the bewilderment of Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland Ministers about why they are just not being consulted on priority projects in Wales and any of the other nations of the UK?

[Paul Scully]

I can understand the frustration if that is the wilful misinterpretation of what is actually happening. The EU mandates so much of this spending before it gets to the Welsh Senedd, the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly and, indeed, here in England, from where we are speaking, but we will work collaboratively to ensure that so many of those concerns are met.

We are disappointed as a Government that the other place has decided to take out the power and hamper the Government’s ability to level up the country and drive investments into all parts of the UK. These Lords amendments also alter the financial arrangements made in this House, and I therefore call on this House to disagree with them.

Turning to Lords amendment 51, I emphasise the importance of the UK continuing to take a clear and consistent approach to subsidy control as we move away from EU state aid rules. The Government have always been clear in our view that the regulation of state aid and the EU’s approach to subsidy control is a reserved matter. This reservation does not change the devolved Administrations’ position in practice. The devolved Administrations have never previously been able to set their own subsidy control rules, as this was covered by the EU state aid framework, but they will continue to make their own spending decisions on subsidies, as they do currently. The effect of the amendment would be to create unacceptable uncertainty regarding the extent to which subsidy control is a reserved or devolved competence. This would potentially give rise to inconsistency if there were different regimes to regulate subsidies across the UK. Ultimately, that could undermine fair and open competition across our internal market, inevitably discouraging investment in the UK, bringing additional costs to supply chains and consumers.

This reservation will enable the UK to design a bespoke subsidy control regime that meets the needs of the UK economy. The Government have been clear that any future domestic regime will operate in a way that works best for all UK businesses, workers and consumers. In the coming months, we intend to publish a consultation on whether we should go further than our World Trade Organisation and international commitments, including whether further legislation is necessary. The House should therefore disagree with this amendment.

Arcadia and Debenhams: Business Support and Job Retention

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

In terms of employees, as well as universal credit and access to other support through Jobcentre Plus, we will connect people to jobs in the labour market, help with their employment skills, such as CV writing, interview skills and so on, and identify transferable skills. It is, though, so important that we do more than that for our high streets to create the opportunities for those people to take up, through the future high streets fund and the work that we are doing with the Retail Sector Council and others at every level of government.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

The Minister will be aware that a third of all retail jobs are held by people under the age of 25, and that a huge number of retail workers are women, because it allows flexible working and part-time hours. He will also be aware that many jobs in retail are highly skilled. It is a complete misconception that working in retail is not skilled and that, in years gone by, it was not a job or a profession for life. What specific support will the Minister put in place to offer to young people and to women, who will be more disproportionately affected by this and who have also been more disproportionately affected by the covid pandemic, to ensure that we do not have a lost generation of young people when it comes to finding their first job?

[Paul Scully]

Essentially, it is about creating those jobs and opportunities on the high street to ensure that we can keep retail and expand the offering on our high streets. Clearly, though, we need to ensure that we have that skills transfer work at jobcentre level and elsewhere to encourage our young people to take up those opportunities.

Definition of Islamophobia

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I raised this with Facebook very recently during a visit to its headquarters in Silicon Valley with the all-party parliamentary group on the fourth industrial revolution. It must be taken seriously.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work on this issue and indeed to the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who has championed it over a number of years. The Government are consulting on their online harms White Paper. In my opinion, it is not anywhere near robust enough on online hate or on the various levels of impact that social media has across society. He made a point about how we change hearts and minds. Does he agree that social media companies can play a part in that? Rather than allowing the jokes, the hatred and the assumptions about people’s race and religion to be posted, they could be far more robust not just in dealing with complaints but in their facility to take these images down. They often do not do that for days, as in the case of the Christchurch mosque killings; it took over a day to remove those images from YouTube because it was reviewing the content.

[Wes Streeting]

I strongly agree. I hope that that point will be taken up by Ministers as they think about this issue carefully in the course of their consultation.

Shared Prosperity Fund

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) on securing this timely debate. Interestingly, we have had two debates on this matter in the last two weeks, and I feel that more will come.

My constituency of Ogmore relies enormously on regional development funding from the European Union, whether it goes towards supporting businesses, opening the new train station in Llanharan, or the future redevelopment of the much-loved Maesteg town hall. Those projects really matter to my constituents, so it is important that the Minister understands that all hon. Members across the House need decisions to be made. We need to know when the consultation will start and—as soon as possible—how much assurance we can give to our communities that those funds will continue and will not be means-tested or business-led, but distributed on the basis of need.

Some of the poorest communities, including my own, need the funding to continue beyond 2020. The Government’s austerity drive over the last nine years has meant that the Welsh Government have lost almost £1 billion in investment. That is £4 billion in real terms. The £680 million that is delivered to Wales through membership of the European Union is hugely important to communities up and down Wales.

Much of the work done with the European funding that is given to communities across Wales is done with the support of the Welsh Labour Government. Over the last 18 months to two years, we have been told many times that consultations will start, but they do not. We ask questions of Ministers, but they do not have the answers. I have asked Ministers in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Treasury and the Wales Office, and no one seems to have any answers about when the funding will start, how it will be allocated and, importantly, how it will be managed.

Every hon. Member here has made it clear that it is extremely important that decisions are made locally by devolved institutions, mayoralties, councils or whatever it may be. A key point is that the Tory Government must not use this matter to rewrite the devolution settlement of the United Kingdom. It is absolutely pivotal to any forward planning for a shared prosperity fund that future decisions are made by the Welsh Labour Government, so that they can provide certainty to business, local authorities and further and higher education institutions.

At the moment, nothing from the UK Government suggests that those decisions will be made locally. In fact, Conservative Back Benchers frequently say that perhaps the Welsh Government can be bypassed and the money delivered directly to Welsh local authorities. That simply cannot be allowed to happen. We have a devolution settlement for Wales that must be respected. It is extremely important that those decisions are made locally, and that the funds target the most deprived communities across Wales and the United Kingdom.

Tower Blocks: Dangerous Cladding

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I am, of course, concerned to hear that, and the hon. Lady will know that we introduced a complete ban on combustible materials on buildings over 18 metres just before Christmas. That ban is not retrospective. However, all building owners have a duty to ensure that their buildings are safe, and if they believe, after assessing their buildings, that they are not safe, they also have a duty to remediate. It is almost impossible for us, I guess, to tour the country and review every single circumstance, which is why we are stressing that the primary responsibility for this lies with the building owner. If she knows of buildings that she believes are not safe, and the building owner is not taking the action that is required, she should, in the first instance, speak to her local authority colleagues who have the power to intervene. If that fails then, by all means, write to me.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

As has been mentioned, I represent Rockwool, which has its base in my constituency—the only base in the UK. The Minister says in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) that it is not Government’s job to legislate on the use of whichever materials a house builder may need and that is down to the house builder. I am sorry, but I do not agree with him. Ministers legislate all the time on health and safety matters. The reality is that we should not have combustible insulation inside tower blocks, hospitals or schools. The Government could legislate on that today for public safety.

[Kit Malthouse]

Perhaps I was not as clear as I should have been. The hon. Gentleman is quite right. We have banned combustible cladding, which includes insulation, from all high-rise buildings. Anything that forms the skin of the wall and is combustible is now banned for new buildings. The point that I was making to the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) is that it is not for us to legislate that a particular company’s product should be used. What we are in the process of doing is a review of approved document B. I urge both him and his constituents to contribute to the consultation on approved document B to make sure that we are getting the standards to which products must adhere right so that people within the industry can make a selection among products that they know have been tested correctly and are at the right standard to show that they are not combustible and can be used safely on high-rise buildings. That is exactly what we are trying to establish at the moment through the review and I urge him and all colleagues who have questioned me today to participate in that consultation.

Draft Dorset (Structural Changes) (Modification Of The Local Government And Public Involvement In Health Act 2007) Regulations 2018 Draft Bournemouth, Dorset And Poole (Structural Changes) Order 2018

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 General Committees

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole, in some uncharacteristically cheap sedentary chunter, says, “Shut up and sit down!” I note the ironic “Hear, hears!” from members of the Committee. I view that as an invitation to move on to volume 3, but I shall not. Let me draw my remarks to a close—

[Chris Elmore]

Shame!

[Simon Hoare]

Tantalising though the hon. Gentleman’s invitation is, I hope he will not hold it against me if I do not avail myself of his invitation at the current time, but I reserve the right to return to it at a later stage.

Let me close as I opened. I want—and I hope that all of us, as practitioners of party politics, will want—all our constituents, whether they voted for us or not, whether they think we are the best thing since sliced bread or the worst thing since the bubonic plague, to have confidence in this one unassailable truth: that we have locked horns and engaged in strong, heartfelt, passionate debate. That debate is now drawing to a close. Something tells me that there is very little this afternoon that will reconcile the viewpoint of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West and myself on this issue.

The one thing that will ally us all is a strong affection and admiration for our former Prime Minister, Baroness Thatcher. We all remember that scene—often now parodied as a pastiche, but heartfelt at the time—when the new Prime Minister on the steps of Downing Street prayed in aid the words of St Francis of Assisi. It was a very heartfelt, moving, spiritual prayer. Let me close with the words of St Paul: we have fought the fight to the finish; we have the run the race to the end. We have now got to the end. Let us now roll up our sleeves and make this damn thing work.

Windrush

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am sure that that will entice the Home Secretary.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

It appears from the outside that the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) left her post in part because of incorrect briefings and because papers were not sent to her, or were sent to her but not seen. May I ask the new Home Secretary, in all sincerity, whether he plans a root-and-branch review of the Home Office to decide whether it is fit for purpose in the long term?

[Sajid Javid]

From what I have seen already of the Home Office, I can say that I am lucky to have such a strong and professional team, but of course improvements can always be made in any Department, and I will be looking carefully to see how I can do that.

Anti-Semitism

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Smeeth]

I thank the hon. Gentleman.

Over the past two years, however, I have experienced something genuinely painful: attacks on my identity from within my own Labour family. I have been the target of a campaign of abuse, attempted bullying and intimidation from people who would dare to tell me that people like me have no place in the party of which I have been a member for over 20 years, and which I am proud to represent on these Benches. My mum was a senior trade union official; my grandad was a blacklisted steelworker who became a miner. I was born into our movement as surely as I was born into my faith. It is a movement that I have worked for, campaigned for and fought for during my entire adult life, so it was truly heart-breaking to find myself in Parliament Square just over three weeks ago, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish community against the poison of anti-Semitism that is engulfing parts of my own party and wider political discourse.

If the House will indulge me, I would like to read out a small sample of what I have received on social media, but before doing so, I have to thank the dedicated team at the CST who have protected me, shielded me from as much of this abuse as possible, and worked with the police on the occasions when abuse became threats. As others have said, they should not be necessary, but personally I would be lost without them. They have also worked their way through the thousands of pieces of anti-Semitic abuse I have received to provide the following greatest hits, although I must warn the House that my fan-base has shown scant regard for appropriate parliamentary language, so I apologise in advance:

“Hang yourself you vile treacherous Zionist Tory filth. You are a cancer of humanity.”

“Ruth Smeeth is a Zionist—she has no shame—and trades on the murder of Jews by Hitler—whom the Zionists betrayed.”

“Ruth Smeeth must surely be travelling 1st class to Tel Aviv with all that slush. After all, she’s complicit in trying to bring Corbyn down.”

“First job for Jeremy Corbyn tomorrow—expel the Zionist BICOM smear hag bitch Ruth Smeeth from the Party.”

“This Ruth Smeeth bitch is Britainophobic, we need to cleanse our nation of these types.”

“#JC4PM Deselect Ruth Smeeth ASAP. Poke the pig—get all Zionist child killer scum out of Labour.”

“You are a spy! You are evil, satanic! Leave! #Labour #Corbyn.”

“Ruth you are a Zionist plant, I’m ashamed you are in Labour. Better suited to the murderous Knesset! #I Support Ken.”

“Your fellow traitor Tony Blair abolished hanging for treason. Your kind need to leave before we bring it back #Smeeth Is Filth.”

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

On behalf of all Members of the House, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend—we are enormously proud of her and everything she does for her constituents—and my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman).

[Ruth Smeeth]

I thank my hon. Friend.

To move on to my final piece of abuse:

“The gallows would be a fine and fitting place for this dyke piece of Yid shit to swing from.”

This is merely a snapshot, and the comments are those that I would feel comfortable—if that is the right word—to say in this place. It is a glimpse into the abuse that now seems par for the course for any Jew who has the audacity to participate in this political world.

But this is not the worst of it. There have always been racists and anti-Semites in our country, lurking on the fringes of our society—both left and right—and I dare say there always will be. What is so heartbreaking is the concerted effort in some quarters to downplay the problem. For every comment like those we have just heard, we can find 10 people ready to dismiss it—to cry “Smear”; to say that we are “weaponising” anti-Semitism.

Weaponising anti-Semitism! My family came to this country fleeing the pogroms in the 19th century. Of our relatives who stayed in Europe, none survived. We know what anti-Semitism is; we know where it leads. How dare these people suggest that we would trifle with something so dangerous, so toxic and so formative to our lives and those of our families. How dare they seek to dismiss something so heinous and reduce it to the realm of political point scoring. How dare they, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I am speaking not just for me, but for the young Jewish people I meet across the country who are beginning to fear they do not have a place. These are young people who are braver, tougher and better than I could ever be—the kind of young people who make us feel that our future is in safe hands, but right now they do not feel safe.